AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

States settle lawsuit over Paramount-Warner merger, clearing key hurdle for $81 billion deal

CHICAGO (AP) — Twelve states and Hollywood writers challenging Paramount’s buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery agreed to settle their lawsuits on Monday, effectively paving the way for the $81 billion mega merger to cross the finish line, with some new commitments from the company.

The blockbuster deal will still vastly reshape Hollywood — bringing together two of the “big five” remaining studios, key TV networks like CBS and CNN and streaming platforms HBO Max and Paramount+, as well as decades-old libraries with titles ranging from “Harry Potter” to “Top Gun.”

But among terms of Monday’s agreement announced by California Attorney General Rob Bonta — who led the states’ case — Skydance-owned Paramount pledged to increase film production in the U.S., commit millions of dollars to a fund to support workers displaced by the merger and create new monitoring of the editorial independence of the company’s news operations.

The settlement still needs a final sign-off by a judge.

Paramount CEO David Ellison welcomed the terms reached with both the states and the Writers Guild of America on Monday, which he said marks “complete clearance” for his company’s merger with Warner — reiterating that such a combo will “build a stronger Hollywood.”

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What to know about Paramount’s settlement and its impact on movies

NEW YORK (AP) — Movie studio Paramount on Monday agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 states, the last big obstacle blocking the company’s $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that would transform the movie industry landscape.

In the settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, Paramount agreed to terms including a five-year movie production plan and to invest $1.5 billion in domestic movies.

State attorneys general say the settlement guarantees investment in domestic movie production and provides worker protection. But analysts say the deal is still likely to lead to less competition in the industry — and higher prices for consumers.

“Where I’m looking at this is through the consumer’s point of view and resoundingly consumers are concerned about price hikes and they are preparing for price hikes,” said Forrester research director Mike Proulx. “They care less about the theatrical releases and some of the other industry terms. What they care about is how this is going to hit their wallets.”

Here’s a closer look at the biggest terms Paramount agreed to in the settlement:

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News outlets sue Trump over lost White House access, citing ‘blatant violation’ of First Amendment

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump’s administration days after they were barred from White House grounds, calling the selective ban — based on the content of their coverage — a “blatant violation” of the First Amendment. Trump said on social media that he ”cherished” a free press but not “FAKE NEWS.”

“White House access is a privilege — not a right,” the administration posted on X.

The extraordinary ban of the three news outlets’ reporters, which began over the weekend, represented a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable. They were also the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States, where the government is constitutionally forbidden from restricting the press.

The Constitution, the banned news outlets said in their lawsuit, “does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”

The three outlets filed the joint lawsuit two days after their reporters were blocked from the White House and prevented from doing their jobs. The reporters’ entry badges were disabled Saturday, a day after Trump had suddenly announced he was barring the outlets because of reporting he considered “fake news.”

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Man shot by ICE, detained in Texas with a bullet in his back is back in the hospital, attorney says

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and taken to a detention center in Texas with a bullet still lodged in his back was back in the hospital by Monday night, the man’s attorney said.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin on Sunday when his car was “sideswiped” twice by ICE officers in an unmarked truck, immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told reporters earlier Monday. He was shot and taken to a hospital, she said, but was released later Sunday into ICE custody with the bullet still inside him.

Speaking by phone during a news conference, Perez had said doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it’s near his spine. He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from the hospital so it could move him to a detention center. He said he had received no pain medication or treatment there, and had slept on the floor, before eventually being given a “pill” by a nurse on Monday.

By Monday night, Lincoln-Goldfinch said he had been taken to the hospital.

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, described this as a positive first step.

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Jury convicts Vermont man of attempted murder in shooting of 3 Palestinian students

Burlington, Vt. (AP) — A jury on Monday convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Jason Eaton faces up to life in prison in the November 2023 attack in Burlington, which paralyzed Hisham Awartani from the waist down and wounded his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid.

The men, all 20 at the time, had been visiting Awartani’s grandmother for Thanksgiving. They were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic as they walked near the University of Vermont campus after dusk. Two of them were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs.

The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a weeklong trial that saw testimony from the three men, who recounted how their stroll ended in bloodshed, and defense and prosecution psychiatric experts who offered differing views of Eaton’s mental health and criminal culpability.

Eaton, 51, stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read, standing alongside his lawyers — public defenders whom he tried to fire last week over his concerns that his defense hadn’t been “adequately presented.” Judge John Pacht, who blocked Eaton’s midtrial bid to act as his own lawyer, ordered him jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

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Flights disrupted across the US Northeast due to technical problems at a key air traffic center

Damaged communications lines at a key air traffic control facility in Philadelphia had been repaired, allowing airports across the U.S. Northeast to resume operations after hours of disruptions, the nation’s transportation secretary said Monday evening.

Hundreds of flights were canceled, including more than 600 into and out of Newark Liberty International Airport, as the outage hit every major airport in the New York City area. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said in an online post that “it will take some time to clear all existing delays” despite the repairs.

The primary communications line at the Federal Aviation Administration facility in Philadelphia had failed earlier Monday, while the backup fiber optic line was inadvertently severed by railroad construction workers. The failures left controllers without radar or communications for hours.

The outage brought commercial air traffic to a near-standstill at Newark for much of the day, with no commercial flights landing at the airport from about 9:40 a.m. to just after 5:20 p.m. local time, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

More than 200 flights into and out of Philadelphia International Airport were also canceled, while disruptions hit LaGuardia and Kennedy airports in New York. By Monday evening, flights were resuming at those airports.

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AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding thousands of detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them, according to current and former officials familiar with the practice.

ICE removed those detainees from its online detainee locator system on Sept. 15, according to three current and former ICE officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the change. Several lawyers contacted by The Associated Press confirmed their clients vanished from the system this week, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association warned its members about the situation Friday.

The move represents a stark departure from previous practice and highlights the hardline nature of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, leaving thousands of detainees exceedingly hard to trace and potentially unable to exercise all of their legal options.

The practice, which applies to detainees who have received final orders of removal from an immigration court, could speed deportations by making last-minute legal challenges harder to pursue, immigration lawyers said. Nearly 16,000 people who were arrested and booked into ICE detention in July were subject to final removal orders, more than a third of the overall bookings, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project based at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA.

The practice does not apply to detainees held at a detention facility in Adelanto, California or at temporary holding facilities in Minneapolis, New York City or suburban Chicago, the sources said. Judges have ordered ICE to list detainees in those facilities in the online locator promptly upon their arrival, as part of litigation over their detention practices.

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UK to offer Saudi Arabia aerial refueling to counter Houthi attacks

ABOARD THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER’S PLANE (AP) — Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that Britain has agreed to provide limited military support to Saudi Arabia to repeal attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Burnham told reporters as he flew to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he had agreed the Royal Air Force will provide air-to-air refueling of Saudi planes. The agreement is for a matter of weeks, but Burnham said it will be kept under review.

The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has reignited, with Houthis aiming missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted. The Houthis also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, attacking Saudi-linked vessels and oil facilities inside the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter.

The Houthis advanced inside Yemen earlier this month, seizing the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands allowing them to better monitor shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb, through which some 12% of world trade normally passes.

Burnham said he was “acting to secure the interests of Britain and the wider region, because of course Saudi Arabia has been experiencing attack, is looking at potential further disruption, and we need to keep those pathways (for oil) open.”

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Wall Street rallies within 0.4% of its record after oil prices and bond yields ease

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street climbed to the edge of its all-time high on Monday, and stocks rallied worldwide after oil prices and yields in the bond market surrendered their market-rattling gains from last week.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and pulled within 0.4% of its record set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 366 points, or 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.3% to its own all-time high as chip stocks and other companies in the artificial-intelligence industry led the way.

Stocks got help from the price for a barrel of Brent oil falling 3.4% to $100.34. While that’s still much higher than its roughly $72 price from earlier this summer, it’s down from the nearly $110 it touched last week.

Oil prices have been swinging up and down as some crude from the Middle East is able to sail through the Strait of Hormuz to get to customers, though nowhere near as much as the industry would like because of the war with Iran.

With big U.S. companies continuing to deliver strong growth in profits that support their stock prices, Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson says another leg higher in prices for oil, gasoline and other refined products is the main near-term risk he sees that could keep the U.S. stock market from rising to his forecasted target for the year’s end.

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War, runaway AI and climate shocks to take center stage as world leaders meet at UN

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Under a global cloud of wars and bitter divisions, world leaders meet at the United Nations this week facing new fears that runaway artificial intelligence could threaten humanity even as climate shocks and escalating prices are already making life much tougher for hundreds of millions of people.

The annual high-level gathering at the U.N. General Assembly will also be consumed with major wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine,Sudan, Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end them?

And what can they do about the relentless rise of global warming threatening the future of the planet, the growing inequalities within and among nations, and shocks to the global economy as blocked shipping routes and supply chains increase the cost of living and slow growth?

The future of the United Nations will also definitely be on the agenda. At 81, its powers are still the victorious nations from World War II, not the 21st century’s major global players. The U.N.’s 193 member nations have agreed to a wide-ranging reform package that includes updating key institutions such as the powerful U.N. Security Council, where the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France hold inordinate sway because of their veto power. Reform, however, is easier said than implemented.

Behind the scenes, there will be speculation about who will lead the United Nations next. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ second five-year term ends Dec. 31 and no clear successor has emerged.