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Paramount has reached a settlement with California and other states that clears the way for its $81bn merger with Warner Bros. Discovery after chief executive David Ellison offered to invest at least an additional $1.5bn in U.S. production over five years. The agreement follows months of negotiations and an antitrust lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, with Paramount also facing potential payments of $650m per quarter to Warner shareholders beginning October 1st if the transaction remained unfinished. The settlement includes commitments related to domestic production, entertainment worker benefits, editorial independence, and film releases, as well as potential asset divestitures if Paramount fails to meet certain promises. Paramount had also considered relocating from California, while Gov. Gavin Newsom raised concerns about the economic consequences of losing the company and acted at times as an unofficial mediator. Paramount expects to close the merger in about two weeks, with the combined company remaining headquartered in Los Angeles.

 

Los Angeles Times

New York Times

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

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Hiscox USA has appointed Paul Sanghera as chief financial officer as the specialty insurer continues expanding its U.S. business. Sanghera will join the U.S. leadership team, lead the company’s U.S. finance organization, and report jointly to Hiscox Group finance chief Paul Cooper and Hiscox USA chief executive Mary Boyd. He brings more than 25 years of specialty and commercial insurance experience from Liberty Mutual, where his roles included executive vice president and comptroller, as well as CFO of Liberty Mutual Surety.

 

Insurance Business

The Los Angeles Clippers have appointed attorney John S. Gibson as interim chief executive and governor, assuming the roles previously held by owner Steve Ballmer while he serves a one-year NBA suspension. Gibson will immediately oversee the team’s basketball and business operations and represent the Clippers in league voting matters. His appointment follows NBA sanctions over salary-cap circumvention, which included Mr. Ballmer’s suspension, a $30m fine for the team, and the forfeiture of five first-round draft picks. Mr. Gibson, a longtime Clippers season ticket holder, spent the past six years as a trial lawyer and litigation partner at DLA Piper in Los Angeles, where he co-chaired its U.S. Business & Commercial Litigation practice.

 

Los Angeles Times

KPMG has combined its artificial intelligence (AI), innovation, and technology partnership functions into a new Client Technology & Innovation (CT&I) group designed to develop AI-native businesses and new client offerings. Effective September 22nd, the unit is led by 15-year KPMG veteran Todd Lohr, who has been appointed vice chair and reports directly to chief executive Tim Walsh. CT&I brings together product and platform strategy, commercial infrastructure, firmwide AI and data strategy, and an internal venture studio intended to create businesses that could eventually be integrated into KPMG, spun out with external investment, or operated as joint ventures with technology partners. Existing relationships with Anthropic, Google Cloud, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Databricks will also sit within the group. The reorganization coincides with the September 30th retirement of Steve Chase, vice chair and global head of AI & Digital Innovation. Lohr said the new structure is intended to help KPMG commercialize internal ideas more quickly and potentially create billion-dollar businesses.

 

Fortune

Andreessen Horowitz is investing $35m in the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, an unaccredited, San Francisco-based alternative to traditional college for students ages 16 to 22. Led independently by Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani, the academy will emphasize artificial intelligence (AI)-native, project-based education, with students spending up to 80% of their time building products, developing AI models, and working with industry experts. Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, and other technology companies will serve as founding partners, providing software, computing resources, workplace access, and potential internships. A tuition-free, one-year program will begin in fall 2027, followed, pending regulatory approval, by a two-year program in 2028 with tuition comparable to elite private universities. The academy aims to prepare students for leading technology jobs or entrepreneurship, although some education experts caution that traditional colleges offer established teaching expertise, proven outcomes, and exposure to students pursuing a broader range of careers.

 

Wall Street Journal

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed seven bills imposing new oversight on the state’s rapidly expanding data center industry, with measures focused on electricity costs, water consumption, and infrastructure requirements. The laws require greater disclosure of water and electricity use, establish special electricity requirements and rate structures, and aim to prevent data center-related grid costs from being shifted to other ratepayers. Data center developers will also have to provide information on water supply, efficiency, and drought planning, and cover necessary water system upgrades. The legislation comes as AI drives increased demand for data centers, while California communities have raised concerns about their environmental and economic effects. Newsom contrasted the state’s approach with the Trump administration’s push for deregulation, arguing that California’s rules will give communities greater oversight of new projects. 

 

Los Angeles Times

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari has warned that U.S. inflation remains too high across the economy, with price pressures extending well beyond the recent rise in oil prices and into areas such as services. Kashkari said the Fed cannot directly address energy supply disruptions, but monetary policy can tackle broader, underlying inflation. He supported the Fed’s latest 25-basis-point rate increase, which lifted the federal funds target range to 3.75%–4.00%, the first increase since July 2023. The Fed has also raised its inflation forecasts, projecting headline PCE inflation of 3.7% and core PCE inflation of 3.4% for the year, while pushing its expected return to the 2% target to 2029. Sixteen of 18 FOMC participants projected at least one additional rate increase, and 17 viewed inflation risks as tilted to the upside.

 

Quartz

A federal judge in Rhode Island has ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully terminated a $7bn grant program for solar energy.  The Solar for All program was intended to make solar power accessible to more than 900,000 lower-income Americans. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rescinded the grant program's funds in August 2025 after President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law passed in Congress a month earlier. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the Biden-era initiative a “boondoggle.” The lawsuit filed in Rhode Island by the Rhode Island AFL-CIO labor organization and others highlighted the program's importance for local workforces and lower-income communities seeking access to clean-energy project funding. Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said: “If and when the program does get up and running, there will be thousands and thousands of union jobs created across the United States . . . We were proud to be the lead plaintiff.”

 

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Reuters

The California Civil Rights Department's lawsuit against Tesla, which accuses the company of allowing widespread race discrimination at its Fremont assembly plant, was set to go to trial on Monday. The lawsuit, filed in 2022, alleges that Black workers faced harassment, including racial slurs and graffiti, and were paid less than their peers while being denied promotion opportunities. Kevin Kish, director of the California Civil Rights Department, said the agency looks forward to holding Tesla accountable. The trial, to be overseen by Judge Peter Borkon, is expected to last until October 30. Unlike federal law, California law does not cap damages, meaning Tesla could face significant financial repercussions if found liable. Reuters says Tesla's high profile and the thousands of ​workers involved in the case make it among the most significant involving employment discrimination claims against a major US ​company to go to trial in recent years.

 

Reuters

Nike-owned Converse has apologized and removed a social media advertisement after critics said its imagery evoked the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. The Instagram ad featured K-pop singer Karina holding a pair of Chuck 70 X trainers: critics argued that lighting on her skirt resembled a KKK hood and the positioning of the shoes recalled the imagery of a lynching victim. Converse acknowledged that the image was “deeply upsetting”, and said it had removed the advertisement from its channels and was working to remove it elsewhere. The company declined to provide further details about its advertising review and approval processes, while the controversy prompted calls for a boycott and criticism over how the campaign had passed internal checks.

 

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Los Angeles Times

The Oregonian

Reuters

Starbucks has signed an agreement to ​establish a global capability center (GCC) in the ‌southern Indian city of Chennai and hire around 800 technology professionals. The coffee chain's technology chief Anand Varadarajan said the availability of a skilled workforce, lower attrition and good infrastructure would be a boon to the business. Reuters notes that Starbucks' pact with the Tamil Nadu government came only days after U.S. ​pharmacy chain Walgreens signed a deal with the southern Indian state to set up a GCC in Chennai, the state capital that is already home to tech centers of ​global business groups including Citi, Barclays and American Express.

 

Reuters

Brazilian police have conducted a search-and-seizure operation against a former iFood employee suspected of downloading confidential information before joining food delivery rival 99Food. The investigation, led by police inspector Angelo Lages, aims to uncover the extent of corporate espionage in Brazil's competitive food delivery market, which is valued at approximately $20bn. "The purpose of the search was to collect electronic devices so we can conduct forensic analysis and determine what happened to the data," Lages said. iFood holds about 80% of the local food delivery market.

 

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