E.W. Scripps on Tuesday said its board of directors has unanimously rejected a $538 million unsolicited takeover bid from larger peer Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Why it matters: Kim Williams, Scripps' board chair, said Sinclair's offer to buy out the remainder of Scripps' shares that it doesn't own for $7 apiece is "not in the best interests of Scripps and its shareholders."
Affinity Partners, the fund tied to President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, has backed out of Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, Axios has confirmed.
Why it matters: The news comes ahead of an expected announcement from the Warner Bros. board that it plans to reject Paramount's latest $30-a-share all-cash offer for the company.
The ascendance of self-driving semi-trucks sets up a collision between autonomous vehicle advocates and union leaders who are signaling resistance to driverless vehicles.
Why it matters: There are some 3.6 million professional U.S. truck drivers, but the industry has struggled with retention amid the worst freight recession in recent memory.
Why it matters: The three-year deal ends months of speculation about whether Stern would continue his run at SiriusXM, where he has been the marquee star since 2006, or retire.
Susie Wiles, President Trump's chief of staff, chronicled the chaotic inner workings of the White House in a series of shockingly candid, unfiltered interviews with Vanity Fair throughout the year, publishedTuesday.
Why it matters: Wiles discussedTrump's "alcoholic's personality," Elon Musk's drug use and USAID chaos, Vance's "sort of political" conversion, the Epstein files debacle, boat strikes targeting Maduro, and whether Trump will defy the 22nd Amendment.
Her interviews offer the most unvarnished look yet at power and peril in Trump's second term.
ChatGPT's image update — available starting today — shows another front has opened up in OpenAI and Google's battle to dominate AI.
Why it matters: Users have been marveling at the image advances in Google's Nano Banana, putting the pressure on OpenAI to show real progress to keep up.
The White House rushed to defend chief of staff Susie Wiles on Tuesday after her blunt private views on President Trump's first year were revealed in a series of stunning on-the-record interviews.
Why it matters: Wiles is the most powerful aide in the White House — credited with running a more disciplined, loyal and effective operation than Trump's first term, which was routinely undercut by leaks and internal feuds.
Humanoid robot maker 1X on Monday announced a deal whereby it will make up to 10,000 of its machine men available to portfolio companies of EQT, the alternative investments giant whose venture capital arm is a 1X investor.
Why it matters: This is nightmare fuel for private equity critics.
Energy-focused private equity firm Kimmeridge has offered to buy Ascent Resources, an Oklahoma City-based natural gas company, for $6 billion in cash from Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) and First Reserve.
Why it matters: Ascent is at the center of a thorny legal battle between Abu Dhabi Investment Council and EMG, which wants to put Ascent into a continuation vehicle.
GPT-5 has for the first time demonstrated it can do the kind of lab work that opens up a pathway for AI to take a bigger role in scientific experiments, OpenAI shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: The work shows how GPT-5 — and other AI models with similar capabilities — can speed up research, reduce costs and help human scientists make real-world discoveries.
A slew of publishers and brands are facing backlash over AI experiments, amid errors and overall concerns with quality control.
Why it matters: While most content companies understand they need to adopt AI to stay competitive, the risk from sloppy integrations has proven problematic.
The U.S. economy added 64,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the Labor Department said on Tuesday in a report delayed by the government shutdown.
Why it matters: Hiring slowed last month alongside a jump in the jobless rate, a sign of persistent weakness in the U.S. job market.
Concert travel spiked this year and so did interest in the country's indie venues, according to new data shared exclusively with Axios.
Why it matters: Fans aren't just showing up for superstar tours. The appetite for live music is spilling over into independent venues and classic rock.
The big picture: The Reiners' death triggered mourning across Hollywood and far beyond. But President Trump used their deaths to mock Reiner, a progressive activist, for his political stances — sparking bipartisan condemnation.
Investors expect returns from record artificial intelligence investments to come faster than executives do, according to a new Teneo survey of more than 350 global public company CEOs and 400 institutional investors.
Why it matters: Wall Street is tired of waiting for returns on all this AI investment. Based on these survey results, that impatience could leave investors disappointed in 2026.
A new kind of AI-supercharged food recycler will turn fruit and vegetable scraps at Whole Foods into chicken feed — which will then help produce the grocer's own eggs.
Why it matters: The technology can shrink waste volumes by up to 80%, according to its maker, startup Mill, cutting greenhouse gas emissions from food waste and saving Whole Foods money.
Elon Musk has begun funding the GOP's House and Senate campaigns for the 2026 midterms — an indication his relationship with President Trump has thawed since their messy breakup earlier this year.
Why it matters: Musk — who threatened to launch a third party and support challengers to Republican incumbents during his dispute with Trump — is now firmly back in the GOP's camp.
People in the year 2100 will be younger in Africa, and dramatically older in East Asia and Europe, as power tilts sharply toward the global South, per the U.S. Census Bureau's latest global population projections.
Why it matters: This radical reshaping, with mega-nations rising in Africa while China risks the steepest population decline in recorded history, will upend today's geopolitical order.
President Trump sued the BBC on Monday, seeking $10 billion in damages and alleging that a documentary, which aired shortly before the 2024 election, defamed him by editing his speech from Jan. 6, 2021, in a misleading way.
Why it matters: It marks the third lawsuit the president has waged against a media company while in office.
America's information ecosystem is badly broken, deeply polluted and increasingly dangerous.
Too many people are lost. They don't know what or whom to trust, what actually matters — or what's even real. Confusion, anxiety and mistrust are soaring. AI will make this worse before it gets better.
This is bad for everyone, bad for America.
Why it matters: Axios is hellbent on being part of the solution. We've succeeded, in our first decade, in making vital topics easier to consume and understand for smart professionals. But all of us, Axios included, need to help clean up how realities are formed — and informed.
Why it matters: Cruz is putting Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on notice — both for the NDAA, but also for a government funding bill that Congress must pass next.
