Business
How Nexstar’s Proposed TV Merger Is Tied to Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension
ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show on Wednesday after conservatives expressed outrage over a monologue the host had given two days earlier.
Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Kimmel’s monologue:
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.
The suspension was the latest demonstration of how members of the Trump administration have been able to influence the operations of media companies without imposing new policies. In this case, a broadcaster that is pursuing a $6 billion merger, which must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, put pressure on ABC before the network’s parent company, Disney, announced its decision to suspend Mr. Kimmel’s show.
1:00 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday, Aug. 5
Podcast video circulates of the F.C.C. chairman threatening ABC and calling on local affiliates to pull Mr. Kimmel’s program.
Hours before ABC made the announcement, the F.C.C. chairman, Brendan Carr, said on a right-wing podcast that local ABC stations should “push back” and “pre-empt” coverage that does not serve “their local communities.” (Pre-empting, in broadcast terms, refers to replacing programming with another show in advance of its airing.)
Mr. Carr also told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson, that the F.C.C. might take action against ABC.
“When you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action frankly on Kimmel or you know there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead. …”
“I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to pre-empt.’”
6:11 p.m.
Nexstar, which owns ABC affiliate stations, announces it will not air Mr. Kimmel’s program.
After the podcast interview, Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliate stations, announced that it would “pre-empt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ for the foreseeable future,” and added: “Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk.”
Nexstar has good reason to try to appease the F.C.C. at the moment: In August, the company announced that it intended to buy one of its competitors, Tegna, which owns 13 ABC affiliate stations. But in order for the deal to go through, Mr. Carr and the F.C.C. would have to not only approve it, but also potentially raise the nationwide cap on the percentage of households a single entity’s television stations are allowed to reach.
Broadcasters have pushed the government for decades to raise or repeal the cap, which is currently set at 39 percent. If the Nexstar-Tegna deal goes through, Nexstar’s reach is likely to exceed the limit.
Shortly after Nexstar’s announcement, Sinclair, a company that owns 31 ABC affiliate stations, said it would also suspend Mr. Kimmel’s program.
Of ABC’s 205 affiliate stations, 63 are owned by Nexstar and Sinclair, and another 13 are owned by Tegna.
Together, they make up about 37 percent of all of ABC’s local affiliates.
Approximately 6:30 p.m.
ABC says it will suspend Mr. Kimmel’s program “indefinitely.”
Minutes after Nexstar’s announcement, and just hours after Mr. Carr’s podcast appearance, ABC announced that it was suspending Mr. Kimmel’s program “indefinitely.”
It was unclear how big a role, if any, the plans for pre-empting by Nexstar played in Disney’s decision. (Sinclair did not publicly announce that it would also pre-empt the program until after Disney’s decision was made public.)
7:00 p.m.
F.C.C. chairman thanks Nexstar on social media, shortly after the company announced it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel.
“I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing.”
As the outrage over Mr. Kimmel’s comments grew, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, along with a close lieutenant, had been hearing from worried advertisers, people familiar with the decision told The New York Times this week.
Last year, Mr. Trump sued ABC’s news division for defamation. ABC settled with the president in December, a rare and significant concession by a major news organization as the president grew increasingly antagonistic to media companies he viewed as critical of him and his allies.
Before Mr. Kimmel’s show was set to begin taping Wednesday, the people familiar with Disney’s decision said, executives had grown concerned that another opening monologue could further inflame the situation. So they made the call for the show to go dark — at least temporarily.
Business
U.S. Gas Prices Climb Further as Effects of Iran War Reverberate
Oil prices continued to climb on Wednesday as the disruption to Persian Gulf energy supplies persisted. The effects are being felt far beyond the region, with the average price of U.S. gasoline setting a record high since the start of the war in Iran.
The rise in energy costs is a concern for investors, but stock markets have been buoyed by solid corporate earnings, keeping indexes elevated. Traders are also looking to officials at the Federal Reserve, who announce their latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday, for guidance on the outlook for inflation, economic growth and interest rates.
Business
Rivian to place more than 100 new EV chargers around Caruso properties
Real estate developer Caruso is partnering with the electric vehicle company Rivian to add more than 150 public EV chargers to Caruso’s properties, including malls and apartment buildings.
Caruso owns several iconic Southern California destinations, such as the Grove and Palisades Village, which is scheduled to reopen this summer after last year’s wildfires. Rivian is an Irvine-based luxury EV brand that has risen in popularity in the Golden State as Tesla has lost some traction.
The multi-year partnership will add two new Rivian showrooms to the Commons at Calabasas and the Americana at Brand in Glendale. Each space will be designed like a gallery and offer private experiences, the companies said.
The DC fast chargers will be available to all EV drivers and powered entirely by renewable energy. Caruso did not specify where the new chargers would be installed. It owns residential buildings in Glendale and near Beverly Hills, as well as the Miramar Resort in Montecito.
“We are thrilled to deepen our relationship with Caruso, a partner with a shared belief in creating meaningful experiences for its community,” Marc Navarro, senior manager of real estate at Rivian, said in a statement.
The collaboration will include ride-and-drive experiences across the Caruso portfolio in Los Angeles, Marina del Rey, Thousand Oaks and other locations.
Rivian was also named a presenting partner for the 25th Annual Christmas at the Grove event. Rivian owners enrolled in Caruso’s membership program will receive free parking at all Caruso properties.
“This partnership enhances the first-class retail experience while adding meaningful convenience for our guests,” said Caruso’s chief financial and revenue officer, Jackie Levy, in a statement. “We’re creating destinations that reflect how today’s consumers live, shop and move.”
California has more than 90,000 public EV charging ports and more than 125,000 shared private ports, according to the California Energy Commission. Combined, that’s 68% more EV chargers than gasoline nozzles in the state.
Los Angeles County has nearly 4,000 public DC fast chargers, the most in the state, followed by San Diego and San Bernardino counties. As of the end of last year, 2.2 million zero-emission vehicles were registered in California, including EVs and plug-in hybrids.
There are still shortages of EV chargers in some California counties, including Modoc and Siskiyou counties in the northern-most part of the state and in Inyo County northeast of Los Angeles.
After several rounds of layoffs in 2025, Rivian signaled a comeback earlier this year with strong earnings, reporting gross profits for 2025 of $144 million compared to a net loss in 2024 of $1.2 billion.
Business
Prime Minister Mark Carney Says Canada’s Economy Is Expected to Grow and Deficit to Fall
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada presented a budget update on Tuesday showing that his government’s deficit would be less than projected last fall and that the country’s economy would most likely grow over the coming year despite several key industries being buffeted by President Trump’s tariffs.
The spring economic update, a mini budget of sorts, came exactly one year after Mr. Carney returned the Liberal Party to power in his first political campaign and a few weeks after special elections and defections to the Liberals by members of other parties gave him a majority and the voting control of Parliament he had been denied in that election.
But if Mr. Carney intends to use his newfound political control to change direction, there was no indication. Instead, the update underscored his broad push to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the United States by expanding trade with other countries and cutting government spending in some areas to expand military spending and large infrastructure projects like pipelines and nuclear power reactors.
“The world has been more uncertain than ever, but despite that, the Canadian economy has been resilient,” François-Philippe Champagne, the finance minister, told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re definitely entering a new world order.”
Mr. Carney, the former central banker of Canada and England, was an investment executive until he moved into politics last year. At that time, the Conservatives seemed certain to win the election to come. Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader at the time, had become unpopular after more than nine years in office, and his government was seen as profligate by many voters.
But Mr. Carney’s background in finance reversed the party’s fortunes when voters appeared to be searching for stability in the midst of Mr. Trump’s trade war on Canada and his calls to turn the country into the 51st U.S. state.
Since then, Mr. Carney has, publicly at least, appeared to largely operate as his own finance minister. He again upstaged Mr. Champagne this week by announcing the only major change to be found in the update. On Monday, Mr. Carney said that Canada would set up a sovereign wealth fund like those found in Norway and several oil-rich nations in the Middle East. While the fund of 26 billion Canadian dollars, about $19 billion, is considerably smaller than those other countries’ pools of money, Canadians will be able to invest their own money in Canada’s new projects.
The update clarified that the 26 billion Canadian dollars will be pulled out of the government’s general revenues over the next three years.
The only other significant measure outlined in the update was a plan to spend 2 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.5 billion, to train 80,000 to 100,000 people in skilled construction jobs, and an additional 3.4 billion Canadian dollars, or about $2.5 billion, to fund apprenticeships.
That program follows similar efforts by the federal government and provinces going back several years to deal with Canada’s chronic shortage of construction workers.
Mr. Champagne said that previous efforts had been fragmented but that the new program would be more comprehensive.
“How many people know all these programs and all these agencies?” he said.
The document also forecast that, despite declines in the jobs-heavy automotive, steel, aluminum and forestry industries brought on by American tariffs, the economy would grow by 2 percent this year. Last year, it reached 1.7 percent after falling by 0.6 percent in the final three months.
The government said that it now expected the deficit for the current fiscal year, which began this month, to be 67 billion Canadian dollars, 11 billion dollars less than it had anticipated in the November budget.
While the recent spike in oil prices is being felt by Canadian motorists, air travelers and many industries, it is benefiting Canada’s oil industry and increasing tax revenues as well as employment in that sector. Overall, the government now expects its revenues to be 9 billion Canadian dollars higher than forecast in part because fewer people are likely to lose their jobs.
In the months since November’s budget, it remains unclear exactly what jobs and programs will be lost to budget cuts. And the government has introduced a variety of new spending measures like the investment fund and a temporary removal of a federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel to partly offset the recent price hikes.
Mr. Champagne repeatedly said that the deficit remained low relative to other industrialized nations and that the government was “fiscally prudent” and careful where it cut.
“By spending less, we can invest more in the things that really matter to Canadians,” he said.
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