The vote rescinded $1.1 billion that Congress had allocated to CPB to fund public broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. In a press release, CPB explained that the cuts "excluded funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades." CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said the corporation had no choice but to prepare to shut down.
"Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations," Harrison said.
Jerome Powell said the Fed will hold interest rates steady in July.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady, aligning with market expectations.
Strong job growth and rising inflation likely influenced the Fed's decision to maintain rates.
Two Fed governors dissented from the decision, preferring lower rates.
America's central bank is once again holding interest rates steady, although two Fed governors disagreed with the move in a rare departure from the committee's typical unanimity.
The Federal Open Market Committee announced Wednesday that it will not cut its benchmark rate, holding for the fifth time this year. It's a decision in line with forecasts: CME FedWatch, which anticipates interest-rate changes based on market moves, had projected a 96.9% chance of a hold in July.The Fed said in its July 30 statement that strong jobs numbers and a recent uptick in inflation contributed to the call.
Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle W. Bowman dissented from the hold decision, saying they preferred a rate cut.
"What you want from everybody, and also from a dissenter, is a clear explanation of what you're thinking and what your argument is, and we had that today," Chair Jerome Powell said at the press conference. "It was a good meeting, and people really thought about this."
Powell added that "the majority of the committee" believes that current inflation and employment markers call for "moderately restrictive policy for now."
The chair said that the US is in a "solid position" economically, and the labor market is in balance. There's a slowing supply of jobs and demand for workers, contributing to a historically-low unemployment rate, he said. And, while Powell said the full impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs "remain to be seen," he said the price of many consumer goods are rising, which is a contrast from easing inflation on service prices.
"If we cut rates too soon, maybe we didn't finish the job with inflation. History is dotted with examples of that," Powell said. "And if we cut too late, maybe we're doing unnecessary damage to the labor market. We're trying to get that timing right."
Fed policy has gotten pushback from the Trump administration
While there's still time for the Fed's two penciled-in cuts in 2025, some economists and Trump administration leaders hoped for a change sooner rather than later. They've put the central bank — and Powell — in the hot seat.
President Donald Trump has consistently pushed for Powell to cut rates, writing in a July 8 Truth Social post that "'Too Late' Jerome Powell," "has been whining like a baby about non-existent Inflation for months, and refusing to do the right thing. CUT INTEREST RATES JEROME — NOW IS THE TIME!" Trump has also suggested removing and replacing Powell before the end of his tenure next year, though Wall Street leaders and top CEOs have warned that changing the Fed's leadership could have significant market consequences.
Trump's cabinet members have echoed his criticisms. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview last week that the Fed is "fear-mongering over tariffs," and "I think that what we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added that Powell is "doing the worst job" and "I don't know why he's torturing America this way. Our rates should be lower."
Waller, the dissenting Fed governor, also pushed for a rate cut ahead of Wednesday's meeting: "With inflation near target and the upside risks to inflation limited, we should not wait until the labor market deteriorates before we cut the policy rate."
The Fed's play to keep rates steady is a response to key indicators of economic health. The US labor market exceeded expectations by adding 147,000 jobs in June — due mostly to growth in the healthcare and hospitality sectors — and unemployment cooled to 4.1%. Consumer sentiment and retail spending are making a small recovery from early summer dips, and GDP rose more than expected this month. Inflation climbed to 2.7% in June from 2.4% in May, moving further from the Fed's 2% goal. Keeping rates unchanged is a strategy to curb further inflation while the Fed still sees positive momentum in the job market, Powell said.
Powell has also said that he's watching Trump's tariff agenda closely. The White House's next planned tariff deadline is August 1, which could place new levies on top trade partners. The president struck a deal with the European Union earlier this week, which sets a 15% tariff on most imported European goods, a reduction from Trump's planned 30% tariff.
The Fed chair emphasized at Wednesday's press conference that his top priorities are to promote maximum US employment and stable prices, regardless of politics and policy.
"The credibility of the Fed on price stability is very, very important. People believe that we will bring inflation down," he told Congress last month, adding, "That credibility once lost is very expensive to regain."
"The government data really is the gold standard in data," he said. "We need it to be good and to be able to rely on it. We're not going to able to substitute that. We'll have to make due what what we have, but I really hope we have what we need."
The efforts will focus on two areas: creating a framework for patients and providers to easily share information, and creating more personal tools so patients can access resources needed to stay informed about their health.
The White House said yesterday that the European Union agreed to scrap a controversial proposal to make online platforms pay for telecom companies' broadband network upgrades and expansions. But European officials have not confirmed the White House claim, and a European Commission spokesperson said the issue must go through the legislative process.
A White House fact sheet on President Trump's trade deal with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen contains a brief reference to Europe agreeing not to impose network usage fees.
"The United States and the European Union intend to address unjustified digital trade barriers," the White House said. "In that respect, the European Union confirms that it will not adopt or maintain network usage fees. Furthermore, the United States and the European Union will maintain zero customs duties on electronic transmissions."
UFC fighters Robert Whittaker and Reinier de Ridder square off at an event Abu Dhabi. Analyst Rich Greenfield predicts David Ellison, who is about to buy Paramount, will bid for UFC rights.
FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
The TV business has been contracting for years, which is why media companies are trying to sell off their cable networks.
But David and Larry Ellison think there's long-term value in Paramount and its TV business, says analyst Rich Greenfield.
Greenfield also weighs in on new streaming launches from ESPN and Fox.
The TV business is not slowing down this summer: Any day now, David and Larry Ellison will finally buy Paramount, with its collection of once-storied TV networks like CBS and MTV. A few weeks later, ESPN and Fox — the last two big TV players that haven't launched their own streamers — will launch their own streamers.
But on the other hand, the TV business has been slowing down for a decade: Every quarter, more cable TV subscribers cut the cord, or never sign up for a cord in the first place. The people who own cable TV networks don't seem to have any plan to deal with the issue, other than trying to sell their cable TV networks.
Lightshed analyst Rich Greenfield has been chronicling the industry's massive, internet-driven change for years. I caught up with him on my Channels podcast to talk through the particular challenges — and perhaps some opportunities — facing TV right now. Here's an edited excerpt of our chat.
Peter Kafka: When the music business collapsed back in the Napster era, it happened basically overnight. But TV has hung on for much longer, even though consumer behavior changed pretty significantly over the last decade.
Is there something specific about the TV industry that's allowed these guys to move in slow motion?
Rich Greenfield: There's very few businesses where you can raise the price on a product that consumers are using less and less every day.
The brilliance of the cable TV business model was the big fat bundle. It's a pretty incredible business to put all of these channels together, even if people don't want most of them.
It had everything you wanted and no alternatives, which is very different than where we are today.
One of my soapboxes is when I hear people saying they wish we could go back to the cable days. And I keep saying, that was terrible. You guys forget. Everyone hated that.
I think consumers are pretty adept at managing their services, and I don't hear a lot of complaints. Sometimes it's like, "Where is this game?" Or "How do I find this thing?" It can be a little confusing.
But think about your cellphone. You've had one for quite a while now. Managing the apps and deleting something if you're not using it and adding something —these are all pretty easy functions.
We don't give consumers enough credit. They're pretty adept at figuring out cheaper solutions and ways to manage.
I want to ask you about a few specific companies. The Paramount deal is finally going to close. What do you think the new owners — David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison — will do once they have control? Will it change overnight, or is this a slow-rolling thing?
It will certainly change.
The juxtaposition is sort of amazing. [Paramount, under current owner Shari Redstone, is a] financially strapped company, with challenged financial ownership.
And you're moving to an ownership team that is one of the wealthiest families on planet Earth.
David Ellison is probably going to be running this company for 30, 40 years. He obviously has a passion for entertainment. He's moving to a much bigger stage.
But this is still a financially struggling company. He can't fix the trends of what consumer behavior is changing. What he can do is invest and really build.
And you saw the "South Park" deal they just cut, where they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to move the show [exclusively] to Paramount+. I think it's a small sign of the post-merger strategy, which is that David Ellison is not just doing this to cut costs and squeeze more juice out of this existing company. His goal is to build something significant with a very long-term perspective, which is going to require a lot of investment.
What does that look like? Is the new Paramount just a film studio and a streaming service and CBS — and Ellison sells off everything that's not those things?
I think initially they'll say they need the cash flow from cable and will use that cash flow to reinvest.
I would be shocked if you didn't see more sports on CBS. I think they will be a contender for UFC rights. You've seen David Ellison multiple times in the past year sitting in the front row, cage side with Ari Emanuel [CEO of TKO Group, which owns UFC], and with [UFC CEO] Dana White.
I don't disagree there on politics. But I also think he likes the content. I think he's going to spend a lot of money.
He understands the tech North Star — whether we're talking about TikTok, Meta, Netflix, or Spotify — it's all about time spent. I think David gets that Paramount+ needs a heck of a lot more time spent. The only way you're gonna get there is a better product and more content.
At $30 a month, I don't think this is a huge deal. My guess is it gives them flexibility to start packaging this with other services. They can probably get some subscribers. Not a lot. It's probably low to mid-single-digit millions. Not millions and millions.
Remember, they're giving the new service to everybody who already subscribed to [pay TV]. So 65 million-plus ESPN subscribers are going to get this new ESPN app at no additional cost.
So who is the audience for this? You're not subscribing to the big bundle. You're a pretty passionate sports fan. You're willing to spend $30 a month for sports. My guess is it's just a small number.
It actually makes sense to do it. But I don't think, at the end of the day, it is a huge needle-mover. What's going to matter to Disney stock is their theme park business and their cruise ship business. Those being better than expected — because of the state of the economy and what's happened with tariffs not being as problematic as feared a few months ago — is far more important to Disney than what happens with the ESPN streaming rollout.
We're also close to the launch of Fox's own streamer, Fox One. The main assets there are Fox Sports — which is really the NFL — and Fox News. Do you think Fox thinks this is primarily a product for people who want to watch football, or do you think it's primarily for Fox News fans?
I think this is a pretty limited offering for a sports fan.
So does that lead you to believe that Fox thinks this is really a Fox News product?
I think you'll see more uptake from Fox News viewers.
In the old days, you would have said that Fox News has a very old audience. And the idea that its audience is going to stream it doesn't make sense. But maybe that's not true in 2025?
Streaming's become pretty normalized. When you look at how many subscribers Netflix now has, I don't think streaming is some elitist thing. I think it's pretty normalized.
I think the part you may be missing is that the Fox News audience is also widening out.
And as you make it available to people on streaming, you may pick up some younger people. Maybe it's more interesting during election years. It creates flexibility. And I don't think there's a whole lot of downside.
I don't think there are enough people talking about this topic. So many of the investors I deal with, or even industry executives I talk to, think you're going to see Paramount do a deal with Warner Bros. Or maybe you'll see Versant merge with some of the Paramount cable networks.
But let's just step back. I think David Ellison and Larry Ellison have a much bigger plan than aggregating more linear cable networks. I would be surprised if that was the strategy. I think there's a much bigger plan that the Ellison family is probably thinking about that goes well beyond just aggregating more legacy media assets.
WarnerMedia merged with Discovery, which hasn't created value. CBS and Viacom became Paramount, and that hasn't created value. Disney bought most of Fox's cable networks, and that hasn't created value. Putting legacy assets together that are in secular decline doesn't work. Maybe it might've been worse [without those deals].
But that's not compelling for a buyer.
It's a reason to be a seller. As a buyer, there's lots of things you could buy and lots of places you could go. The idea that buying more of these assets so that you have more costs to cut doesn't seem really compelling.
Another reason you are skeptical about big media consolidation is politics. You think that either antitrust politics, or Donald Trump's personal politics, make that unlikely. The only media mogul he wasn't complaining about was Rupert Murdoch, and now he's suing Murdoch.
Is there a world where anyone sells or buys a meaningful media asset while Donald Trump is president?
The Federal Communications Commission has approved Skydance's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount, which owns CBS.
But the agency's approval drew fiery dissent from the only Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, after requiring written commitments from Skydance that allow the government to influence editorial decisions at CBS. Gomez accused the FCC of "imposing never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law."
Under the agreement, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr explained that Skydance has given assurances that all of the new company’s programming will embody "a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum." Carr claimed that the requirements were necessary to restore Americans' trust in mainstream media, backing conservatives' claims that media is biased against Trump and appointing an ombudsman for two years to ensure that CBS's reporting "will be fair, unbiased, and fact-based." Any complaints of bias that the ombudsman receives will be reviewed by the president of New Paramount, the FCC confirmed.
Donald Trump got what he wanted — a $16 million settlement from Paramount — and then Paramount got to do the deal its owner wanted.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
On Tuesday, Paramount settled a lawsuit Donald Trump filed as a private citizen with a $16 million payout.
On Thursday, Trump's administration approved Paramount's sale to Skydance.
You don't have to fill in the blanks on this one. And we're very likely to see transactions like this in the future.
Want to do business in the United States?
Pay up. More specifically: Pay Donald Trump.
That's a reasonable lesson to draw from the Paramount-Skydance deal, which received formal government approval Thursday and should finally close in the coming weeks — about 1.5 years after it first kicked off.
We don't know how Skydance's David Ellison, who is buying Paramount with the backing of his father, Larry Ellison, will run the company. Maybe he'll be able to turn the company around, and years from now we'll note how he made a savvy purchase of a distressed asset at a fire-sale price. Maybe it continues to decline. Maybe he ends up flipping it to someone bigger in short order.
In theory, the Trump lawsuit and Carr's approval were separate events. In reality, it would be very hard to find anyone who believes that. (I've asked Carr for comment.)
This is a story that has kicked up a lot of attention in the home stretch. Some of the angles are most definitely real, and concerning. Like the fact that Carr's blessing comes with pledges from Ellison to do things like "root out bias" in CBS's news coverage, which sounds very much like a company promising to cover news in a way that pleases Carr and his boss.
We also don't know whether the Ellisons have also agreed to give Trump $16 million or $20 million in other goodies as part of the deal, as Trump has claimed at various times. (Paramount has said it has no knowledge of extra payments; team Ellison hasn't commented.)
But the main point is the main point, which we've known for many months: Last fall, Trump filed a suit against Paramount over the editing of a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris. In any other world, that suit would go nowhere. But then Trump was elected, and started getting Very Big Companies like Disney and Meta to pay him to settle other suits he would normally have little chance of winning. (Like Paramount, those settlements were made directly to him, via his future library — as opposed to other settlements he is extracting from institutions like colleges and law firms, which are paying the federal government.)
Again: In theory, the "60 Minutes" suit had nothing to do with Trump's role as president of the United States — he filed it as a private citizen, prior to his inauguration.
In reality, the only reason Paramount settled it was because he's president of the United States — and one that's willing to use that power to insert himself into day-to-day business deals.
Hard to believe this will be the last one where that happens.
President Donald Trump unveiled an AI Action Plan and an executive order on "woke AI."
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Hill & Valley Forum
Donald Trump issued an executive order mandating that AI used by the government be ideologically neutral.
BI's reporting shows training AI for neutrality often relies on subjective human judgment.
Executives at AI training firms say achieving true neutrality is a big challenge.
President Donald Trump's war on woke has entered the AI chat.
The White House on Wednesday issued an executive order requiring any AI model used by the federal government to be ideologically neutral, nonpartisan, and "truth-seeking."
The order, part of the White House's new AI Action Plan, said AI should not be "woke" or "manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas" like diversity, equity, and inclusion. The White House said it would issue guidance within 120 days that will outline exactly how AI makers can show they are unbiased.
Removing bias from AI models is not a simple technical adjustment — or an exact science.
The later stages of AI training rely on the subjective calls of contractors.
This process, known as reinforcement learning from human feedback, is crucial because topics can be ambiguous, disputed, or hard to define cleanly in code.
"We don't define what neutral looks like. That's up to the customer," Rowan Stone, the CEO of data labeling firm Sapien, which works with customers like Amazon and MidJourney, told BI. "Our job is to make sure they know exactly where the data came from and why it looks the way it does."
In some cases, tech companies have recalibrated their chatbots to make their models less woke, more flirty, or more engaging.
They are also already trying to make them more neutral.
BI previously reported that contractors for Meta and Google projects were often told to flag and penalize "preachy" chatbot responses that sounded moralizing or judgmental.
Is 'neutral' the right approach?
Sara Saab, theVP of product at Prolific, an AI and datatraining company, told BI that thinking about AI systems that are perfectly neutral "may be the wrong approach" because "human populations are not perfectly neutral."
Saab added, "We need to start thinking about AI systems as representing us and therefore give them the training and fine-tuning they need to know contextually what the culturally sensitive, appropriate tone and pitch is for any interaction with a human being."
Tech companies must also consider the risk of bias creeping into AI models from the datasets they are trained on.
"Bias will always exist, but the key is whether it's there by accident or by design," said Sapien's Stone. "Most models are trained on data where you don't know who created it or what perspective it came from. That makes it hard to manage, never mind fix."
Big Tech's tinkering with AI models has sometimes led to unpredictable and harmful outcomes
Earlier this month, for example, Elon Musk's xAI rolled back a code update to Grok after the chatbot went on a 16-hour antisemitic rant on the social media platform X.
The bot's new instructions included a directive to "tell it like it is."
Donald Trump vowed to save TikTok before taking office, claiming only he could make a deal to keep the app operational in the US despite national security concerns.
But then, he put Vice President JD Vance in charge of the deal, and after months of negotiations, the US still doesn't seem to have found terms for a sale that the Chinese government is willing to approve. Now, Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has confirmed that if China won't approve the latest version of the deal—which could result in a buggy version of TikTok made just for the US—the administration is willing to shut down TikTok. And soon.
On Thursday, Lutnick told CNBC that TikTok would stop operating in the US if China and TikTok owner ByteDance won't sell the app to buyers that Trump lined up, along with control over TikTok's algorithm.
The CEOs of every major artificial intelligence company received letters Wednesday urging them to fight Donald Trump's anti-woke AI order.
Trump's executive order requires any AI company hoping to contract with the federal government to jump through two hoops to win funding. First, they must prove their AI systems are "truth-seeking"—with outputs based on "historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity" or else acknowledge when facts are uncertain. Second, they must train AI models to be "neutral," which is vaguely defined as not favoring DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), "dogmas," or otherwise being "intentionally encoded" to produce "partisan or ideological judgments" in outputs "unless those judgments are prompted by or otherwise readily accessible to the end user."
Announcing the order in a speech, Trump said that the US winning the AI race depended on removing allegedly liberal biases, proclaiming that "once and for all, we are getting rid of woke."
On Wednesday, the White House released "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan," a 25-page document that outlines the Trump administration's strategy to "maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance" in AI through deregulation, infrastructure investment, and international partnerships. But critics are already taking aim at the plan, saying it's doing Big Tech a big favor.
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Michael Kratsios and Special Advisor for AI and Crypto David Sacks crafted the plan, which frames AI development as a race the US must win against global competitors, particularly China.
The document describes AI as the catalyst for "an industrial revolution, an information revolution, and a renaissance—all at once." It calls for removing regulatory barriers that the administration says hamper private sector innovation. The plan explicitly reverses several Biden-era policies, including Executive Order 14110 on AI model safety measures, which President Trump rescinded on his first day in office during his second term.
The Trump administration published its much-anticipated AI Action Plan Wednesday, signaling a sharp shift away from former President Biden’s cautious approach to addressing the risks of AI, and toward a focus on speed, sovereignty, national security, and competing with China.
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