Big Media Deal:  Netflix to Buy Warner Bros. in $72 Billion Cash, Stock Deal (Bloomberg)

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Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in a historic combination, joining the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s oldest and most revered studios.

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Under the deal announced today, Warner Bros. shareholders will receive $27.75 a share in cash and stock in Netflix. The total equity value of the deal is $72 billion, while the enterprise value of the deal is about $82.7 billion.

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Prior to the closing of the sale, Warner Bros. will complete the planned spinoff of cable channels including CNN, TBS and TNT.

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The acquisition marks a dramatic strategic shift for Netflix, which has never made a deal of this scope. The streaming pioneer grew to become Hollywood’s most valuable company, without the benefit of a library or studio, by licensing programs from others and then expanding into original content.

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With the purchase, Netflix becomes owner of the HBO network, along with its library of hit shows like The Sopranos and The White Lotus. Warner Bros. assets also include its sprawling studios in Burbank, California, along with a vast film and TV archive that includes Harry Potter and Friends.

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The traditional TV business is in the midst of a major contraction as viewers shift to streaming, the world that Netflix dominates. In the most recent quarter, Warner Bros. cable TV networks division reported a 23% decline in revenue, as customers canceled their subscriptions and advertisers moved elsewhere.

Founded almost three decades ago as a DVD rental company sending discs to customers by mail, Netflix finished 2024 with $39 billion in revenue. Warner Bros., founded in the 1920s, had more than $39 billion in sales.  Read more here.

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US Public Health Alarm

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Former FDA Commissioners Warn:  New US Vaccine Proposals Put Americans at Risk (Associated Press)

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A dozen former leaders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike — issued a scathing denunciation of new FDA assertions casting doubt on vaccine safety.

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The agency’s plans to revise how life-saving vaccines for flu, COVID and other respiratory diseases are handled — outlined in an internal FDA memo last week — would “disadvantage the people the FDA exists to protect, including millions of Americans at high risk from serious infections,” according to the former health officials.

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“The proposed new directives are not small adjustments or coherent policy updates. They represent a major shift in the FDA’s understanding of its job,” the officials, former FDA commissioners and acting commissioners, wrote Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The FDA's new proposals would reject long-standing science about how to evaluate vaccines being updated to better match virus strains, slow innovation to replace older vaccines with newer, potentially better ones, and make the process less transparent to the public, according to the Associated Press.  

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The authors include former Senate-confirmed and acting commissioners dating back to the 1990s, including Robert Califf, Brett Giroir, Scott Gottlieb, Margaret Hamburg, David Kessler, Stephen Ostroff and Mark McClellan.   

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the US Department of Health and Human Services and includes the FDA, has repeatedly criticized the Covid shots as deadly despite the scientific consensus that they are safe. 

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Alarming 25-Year Projections:  How Measles, Polio and More Could Make Dramatic Comeback With Lower Vaccination Rates (Scientific American)

Measles, rubella, polio and diphtheria -- once ubiquitous, devastating and deeply feared -- have been virtually eliminated from the U.S. for decades. Entire generations have barely encountered these diseases as high vaccination rates and intensive surveillance efforts have largely shielded the country from major outbreaks.

Even a slight dip in current U.S. childhood vaccination rates could reverse such historic gains, which could cause some of these maladies to come roaring back within 25 years—while just a slight increase in rates could effectively squelch all four. 

Don't miss the terrifying charts in this report, including the following chart projecting 851,327 new measles infections in the US over the next 25 years at current vaccination rates.   The number of infections balloons if vaccination rates drop 5% lower, and infections fall dramatically if the rates are just 5% higher.  

Good News in Education

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Hope for Students:  Mike Bloomberg Is Creating a Charter School-To-HBCU Pipeline For Black Students (Forbes)
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Mike Bloomberg, who donated $600 million in 2024 to support medical schools at four historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), has a new plan to back education: Funding K-12 charter schools on HBCU campuses.

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On Thursday, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the education nonprofit City Fund announced a $20 million initiative to fund two public schools in Alabama, one at Stillman College and one at Tuskegee University, that will create direct pipelines into HBCUs and promote career success.

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“This is a continuation of the work that Mike Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies has been doing for over a decade—supporting high-quality public charter schools and supporting the work that historically Black colleges and universities have been doing for decades,” said Jasmine Jenkins, senior program officer for education and advocacy at Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

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The hope is to expand from the two schools to the rest of Alabama, the South and, eventually, nationwide.

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Bloomberg has been a major HBCU supporter for years. He made a $100 million commitment to reduce medical school debt at four HBCUs before making the $600 million commitment to Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine in 2024.

What I'm Reading

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US Jobs Vanish: Layoff Announcements Approach 1.2 Million This Year - The Highest Level Since Pandemic (NBC News)

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Layoff announcements this year in the U.S. have hit their highest level since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.
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It’s only the sixth time since 1993 that announced job cuts through the month of November have surpassed 1.1 million. The last time was in 2020, when planned cuts totaled 2.3 million by this point in the year.

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Meanwhile, Up North: Canada’s Unemployment Rate Plunges With Third Month of Big Job Gains (Bloomberg)

In a boost for Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Canadian economy added 53,600 jobs in November, making it the third consecutive month of surprisingly strong job gains as US tariffs otherwise slow down activity.

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Siding with Trump: Supreme Court Lets Texas Use GOP-Drawn Voting Map for 2026, 5 More Seats for Republicans (Bloomberg)

Not Siding with Trump: Grand Jury Declines Again to Indict NY’s Letisha James in Fraud Case (Bloomberg)
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Don't Expect a Pardon:  Pipe-Bomb Suspect Charged Over Devices Found Before Jan. 6 Riot (Bloomberg)

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NATO's Blind Spot: Electromagnetic Warfare Could Decide the Next Conflict (Rand.org)

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The war in Ukraine has exposed a critical front long neglected by Western militaries: electromagnetic warfare (EW). Control over this invisible battle-space, where communications are jammed, drones blinded, and precision weapons thrown off course, can decide the outcome of a conflict.

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After decades focused on counterinsurgency, the NATO now risks confronting its most capable adversary without master of a defining domain of modern warfare.  (Hat tip: John Ellis's News Items newsletter)

UK Politics:  Reform Eclipses Labour, Tories With Crypto Backer’s Record Gift (Bloomberg)

Venezuela Latest: Brazil Billionaire Flew to Venezuela to Urge Maduro to Step Down (Bloomberg)

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India Today: Modi Rolls Out Red Carpet for Putin, Defying US Pressure (Bloomberg)

Fintech News: BlackRock Partners with Amazon Web Services to Deliver Aladdin on Secure Scalable Cloud Infrastructure

(BlackRock Announcement)

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Amazon Treasury will be among the first adopters, leveraging Aladdin on AWS to manage Amazon’s global investment portfolio. General availability for Aladdin Enterprise clients hosted in the United States is expected in the second half of 2026.

Today at the Kennedy Center:   FIFA World Cup Draw to Determine Groups in 2026 Tournament (Politico Playbook) 

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The eyes of the world will be watching the Kennedy Center stage at noon today for the 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament draw, an event crackling with geopolitical tension. On any number of fronts, this quadrennial gathering will be unlike any other. This year has been programmed for one fan above all: President Donald Trump, according to Politico Playbook.

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Though he may have fallen short this year on his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, about halfway through today’s two-hour ceremony, Trump will come to the stage to accept the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize — an award dreamed up with him in mind by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Politico reports.

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Also at the Kennedy Center today: Canadian PM Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, representing the two other host countries for next year’s tournament, will be at the Kennedy Center too, meaning the draw is bringing together a trio of leaders who have at times butted heads over trade.

In fact, it will be the first time Trump and Carney have seen each other since Trump blew up over Ontario’s trade policy ad. CBS News reported that Trump intends to talk trade with both nations’ leaders in D.C. today, according to Playbook.

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FIFA's Trump Management: The World Cup Is Coming to America—and It Has a Plan to Keep Trump Onside (Wall Street Journal)

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The tournament is expected to draw over 1.2 million international fans and Trump’s influence on the 2026 World Cup is significant, with FIFA President Gianni Infantino cultivating a close relationship.  An executive order by Trump restricting entry from 12 countries, including World Cup qualifiers Haiti and Iran, creates uncertainty for the tournament.

🎙️ Podcast Alert! Don't miss out: The latest Daily Read Podcast is up now, including additional context that goes beyond the newsletter.  It's your AI-powered briefing on today’s top stories.

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Listen on Spotify and  Apple Podcasts. And be sure you check out the special AI 'Thank You' message for listeners on Spotify.

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Must-See Theatre in NYC:  'A Christmas Carol' at PAC NYC is a 'Festive Feast for the Soul' (New York Theatre Guide)

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There’s a reason we keep telling the story of A Christmas Carol nearly 200 years after it was first published. This production, with its perfect balance of spooky and saccharine, sums it up. It reminds us of the eternal message of cherishing people over money, not just at Christmas, but in life.

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Of the many traditional carols performed in this production, those performed with a full bell choir stunned my audience into awed silence. And shock and awe are just the beginning of the emotions this evocative production hopes to stir up. 

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It runs through Jan. 4, so get your tickets here (and also join PAC NYC as a member for more benefits).  

Weekend Streaming Guide

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All Her Fault (Peacock)
Every parent's worst nightmare begins to unfold as new questions lead to deep secrets, revealing cracks in a family's seemingly perfect world until everything is left shattered.  Starring Sarah Snook, Jake Lacy and Dakota Fanning. 

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Supreme Advocacy (Bloomberg Law via YouTube)

From Emmy Award–winning producers Josh Block and Andrew Satter, 'Supreme Advocacy: What It Takes to Argue at the Supreme Court' is a Bloomberg Law documentary that takes viewers inside the rarefied world of the Supreme Court—offering an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to argue before the nation’s highest court. 

A Man on the Inside (Netflix)
A retired professor (Ted Danson) with a knack for snooping gets a new lease on life when a private investigator recruits him to go undercover and crack a case.

Best of Late Night

On President Trump's social media rampage, where he made 160 posts (and reposts) on his Truth Social platform overnight:

"The posts themselves were all over the place. Obama, Biden, sedition, Christmas, and you can tell he was watching Fox News, because at one point he inquired about getting a reverse mortgage on the White House.”
-- Jimmy Kimmel

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“Well, I think we know where Venezuela’s cocaine has been going.” 
-- Jimmy Fallon

“It’s like someone said to Trump, ‘Tell us the results of your M.R.I., without telling us the results of your M.R.I.’” 
-- Jimmy Fallon

And from the Daily Show: Keep the sanctity of the holiday season alive with the brand-new Trump Tinsel, made from recycled shreddings of the Epstein files. The president promised he was going to release them, but he never said how!  Click below to watch.
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