Warner Bros Discovery is considering reopening sale talks with rival Hollywood studio Paramount Skydance after receiving its hostile suitor’s most recent amended offer, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Members of Warner Bros’ board are discussing whether Paramount could offer the path to a superior deal, the Bloomberg report said, adding that the board has not decided how to respond and may stick to the current deal with Netflix. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Paramount, Warner Bros and Netflix did not respond to requests for comment. Paramount had enhanced its Warner Bros bid last week by offering shareholders extra cash for each quarter the deal fails to close after this year. It also agreed to cover the breakup fee the HBO parent would owe Netflix if it walked away, even though the CBS owner did not raise its per-share offer. Paramount said it has offered shareholders a 25-cent-per-share quarterly “ticking fee” (about $650 million) in cash starting in 2027 until closing and agreed to cover Warner Bros’ $2.8 billion breakup fee to Netflix. However, it did not raise its $30-per-share offer, valuing the deal at $108.4 billion including debt. Both Netflix and Paramount covet Warner Bros for its leading film and television studios, extensive content library and major franchises such as “Game of Thrones,” “Harry Potter” and DC Comics superheroes Batman and Superman. Activist investor Ancora Holdings, which has built a nearly $200 million stake, last week said it plans to oppose the Netflix deal, arguing the board did not sufficiently engage with Paramount over its rival bid, which includes cable assets like CNN and TNT. (Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that member states of his newly-formed Board of Peace have pledged more than $5 billion toward humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Gaza. Trump said the commitment will be formally unveiled on Thursday, February 19, at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. In addition to financial pledges, Trump said participating nations have committed thousands of personnel to both an International Stabilization Force and to local police units to maintain security and peace for Gazans. “On February 19th, 2026, I will again be joined by Board of Peace Members at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., where we will announce that Member States have pledged more than $5 billion toward the Gaza Humanitarian and Reconstruction efforts,” said President Trump. Trump also outlined what he described as the board’s early achievements. “The Board of Peace has unlimited potential. Last October, I released a Plan for the permanent end to the Conflict in Gaza, and our Vision was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council. Shortly thereafter, we facilitated Humanitarian Aid at record speed, and secured the release of every living and deceased Hostage. Just last month, two dozen distinguished Founding Members joined me in Davos, Switzerland, to celebrate its official formation, and present a bold Vision for the Civilians in Gaza, and then, ultimately, far beyond Gaza—world peace.” Trump ratified the board’s charter during a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos; the organization, he says, is designed to bring long-term peace and economic prosperity to Gaza, which has had an economy largely supported by aid. “85% of the GDP of Gaza has been aid for a long time,” said Senior Board Official and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. “That’s not sustainable. It doesn’t give these people dignity; it doesn’t give them hope.” According to the board’s leadership structure, there are seven executive members tasked with overseeing different areas of Gaza’s transition, including reconstruction, funding, and capital mobilization. Those members include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga, and Robert Gabriel. Member states listed as participating were Morocco, Argentina, Bahrain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. Many European countries are not on the list, and some have even rejected invitations to participate. The BBC reports countries cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation as a reason for hesitating to join the board. France claimed the decision was that the board would undermine the United Nations framework. Shortly after, Trump made a comment that he would put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and then French President Emmanuel Macron would join. “We have taken note of Mr. Trump’s statements on wines and champagnes,” responded a French official. “As we have always emphasized, tariff threats to influence our foreign policy are unacceptable and ineffective.” Critics call the board “a vanity project” that will not actually bring peace to Gaza.

NPR host and veteran podcaster David Greene has sued tech giant Google after he thought an AI voice in one of the company’s tools mimicked him nearly perfectly. Greene’s lawsuit is one of the first in what is expected to quickly become a quagmire of legal actions and court rulings over the use of artificial intelligence and the extent of protections around copyright and ownership. The host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” said he came across the AI tool, which involves two AI voices of a man and woman talking with each other, after a former coworker sent it to him. The coworker had wanted to know if Greene had given Google authorization to use his likeness because of the similarity. After the coworker’s note, Greene was bombarded with similar messages from friends and family asking him if he lent his likeness to Google for use in its AI tool. “I was, like, completely freaked out,” Greene told The Washington Post, which first reported on the lawsuit. “It’s this eerie moment where you feel like you’re listening to yourself.” Google told the Post that Greene’s likeness was not used for the tool, called NotebookLM. “These allegations are baseless,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said. “The sound of the male voice in NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews is based on a paid professional actor Google hired.” Guessing whom the NotebookLM voices most resemble has become somewhat of a niche parlor game online, with some people claiming that it most sounds like Greene. Others have suggested other names, such as former tech podcaster Leo Laporte. Others have suggested that the AI model most closely resembles the “Armchair Expert” podcast co-hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. Some AI court cases have the potential for massive payouts. One of the most significant cases in law around AI was settled last year in Bartz v. Anthropic. Anthropic, an AI company, trained its model on thousands of illegally downloaded books pirated online. The company faced a class-action lawsuit from the creators of those works and, in August, agreed to pay out the largest copyright settlement ever: $1.5 billion. After the Anthropic settlement, other court cases followed suit. Some resulted in partnerships such as in the case of Universal Music Group (UMG) and the AI music platform Udio. In a settlement that ended a series of copyright disputes, UMG and Udio announced an agreement to collaborate “on an innovative, new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience.”

Former President Barack Obama said over the weekend that aliens are “real,” though he admitted he “hasn’t seen them.” Obama confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life during an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aired on Saturday. At the beginning of a “lightning round” of questions, Cohen asked the president directly about the existence of aliens. “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in” Area 51, the former president said. “There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the President of the United States.” Obama also jokingly said that the question on extraterrestrial life was the first question he wanted answered when he became president. Saturday’s interview is not the first time Obama has spoken about issues related to extraterrestrials. In 2021, the former president confirmed the existence of UFOs, or unidentified flying objects. UFOs are commonly associated with aliens, though they could have more earthly explanations as well. “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” he said during an appearance on CBS’ “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” “We can’t explain how they move, their trajectory,” he said. “They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so, I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.” Obama also addressed the issue of aliens in 2021, though at the time he declined to say whether or not they exist. “When it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air,” Obama said at the time. “Look, the truth is that when I came into office, I asked,” he continued. “I was like, ‘All right, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceships?’” “They did a little bit of research … and the answer was, ‘no,’” he said.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty suggested on Sunday that Democrats’ fight against federal voter ID law is related to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the country under former President Joe Biden. Hagerty appeared on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo to talk about Republicans’ efforts to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to enshrine voter ID into federal law. “The American public are broadly in support of showing voter ID. It’s a north of 80% issue for the American public. You’ve got to ask yourself, who are the Democrats in the Senate representing? Over 70% of Democrats want this, yet we won’t have a single Democrat that will support it. Why is that?” said Hagerty. The Tennessee Republican pointed to the Democratic push to pass HR-1, a federal overhaul of election law, in the first half of the Biden presidency. Under HR-1, the law would have created a workaround for people to avoid voter ID requirements in the dozens of states that have such laws. Democrats “tried to come in and change to do away with voter ID across the nation, to enlist 16-year-olds to vote, felons to vote, using taxpayer dollars to support campaigns and, frankly, to pay their own candidates,” said Hagerty. Voter ID requirements are an easy step to take to secure elections that do not unduly burden voters, and a federal law does not affect states’ constitutional duties to set the time, manner, and place of elections, Hagerty said. The Tennessee Republican then suggested that Democratic resistance to a national voter ID requirement is part of a strategy to bolster Democrats’ chances of winning elections through illegal voting. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but the reason that it’s not is because the Democrats under the Biden administration flooded this country with tens of millions of illegal aliens,” said Hagerty. “They want chaos in the elections. They want no voter ID. And so you’ve got to really ask yourselves, who do they represent and why are they trying to do this?” Today, exclusively on @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty @BillHagertyTN spoke about Democrats vowing to filibuster the GOP-Backed Voter ID Bill. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/2yy6vpvQb2 — SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 15, 2026 The push to pass the SAVE Act received a key promise of support recently from Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, giving the SAVE Act majority support in the Senate. Republicans are still far short of the 60-vote threshold to override a filibuster. Collins gave her support for the GOP election reform measure on the condition that Republicans do not strike down the filibuster to pass it. “I support the version of the SAVE America Act that recently passed the House,” Collins said in a statement to Maine Wire. “The law is clear that in this country only American citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. In addition, having people provide an ID at the polls, just as they have to do before boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, or buying an alcoholic beverage, is a simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections and will help give people more confidence in the results.”