David Hatch

Senior Washington Reporter @TheDealNewsroom Exclusive merger/antitrust/PE intel. Tips: davidmhatch@protonmail(.)com

[Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren]

This is terrible news for every American who doesn't want Trump-aligned billionaires to control what they watch and how much they pay.

The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal has reeked of corruption and influence-peddling.

This fight isn't over. State AGs must block this merger.

[Antitrust Division @JusticeATR]

The Antitrust Division issued the following statement today in connection with the closing of the Division’s investigation of the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros.: https://t.co/hvr6BytmC8

[David Hatch @AntitrustWire]

Nine years after the @JusticeATR under the first Trump administration sought to block AT&T-Time Warner, the second Trump administration cleared Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery without conditions. https://t.co/SBIkUUpTsu

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

This unique cafe in Vietnam lets diners sit amongst pools of koi carp as they eat their meals.

The King Koi Coffee Garden in in Ho Chi Minh has tables and chairs submerged into a lake where 3,000 koi swim in and among customers.

[Private Equity Stakeholder Project @PEstakeholder]

A Michigan ALJ recommended rejecting Consumers Energy’s sale of 13 hydroelectric dams to a private equity-owned buyer, finding claimed customer savings were inconclusive and concluding the deal was inconsistent with the public interest.

https://t.co/lovIZyWpdI

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Welcome to the New York rental market, where the median asking rent hit $3,616 in the first quarter this year. To manage on a starting salary, some young professionals are turning to convents. 🔗 https://t.co/G39492fGJ9

[Private Equity Stakeholder Project @PEstakeholder]

New Mexico hearing examiners found that Blackstone and TXNM violated state law and recommended significant penalties related to Blackstone’s proposed takeover of PNM.

Another warning sign that private equity and public utilities may not mix.

https://t.co/61e6PN12cH

[New Mexico Public Regulation Commission @NMPRC1]

📢ICYMI: Hearing Examiners have recommended reversing a 2025 stock purchase tied to the proposed acquisition of PNM, finding the deal required Commission approval that wasn’t obtained.
Read the full press release below:
https://t.co/lZVrNfH5Lo

[The Associated Press @AP]

Trump says he’s nominating Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, to serve as attorney general. https://t.co/bvXolW2Jnr

[aijamayrock @aijamayrock]

My waiter had dementia and forgot my order.

I visited a cafe in Japan that ONLY hires people with Dementia. It's called the Cafe Of Mistaken Orders.

Sometimes the servers bring you the wrong food, never bring your order, or sit down and join you instead.

But the point of this cafe is to be a place for dementia patients to feel needed and have purpose.

And this cafe is working. Japan has discovered that being socially connected actually slows down the progression of dementia.

So now there are 8,000 dementia cafes all over Japan!

The U.S. should be more like Japan. We should keep elders out of nursing homes, find ways to give them purpose, and part of society until their last days.

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[CityScapes @CityScapesNC]

Royal Palace of Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸

[Fox News @FoxNews]

BREAKING: The White House Correspondents' Association is moving forward with a rescheduled Correspondents' Dinner after this year's event was interrupted by an assassination attempt against President Trump.

WHCA President Weijia Jiang says the July 24 gathering in Washington, D.C. will feature significantly enhanced security and serve as a message that "violence has no place in American life."

"We will not allow an act of violence to have the last word."

[World in Pictures @WorldnPictures]

Rovinj, Croatia 🇭🇷

[All About Elon Musk @BloomSerenity1]

Rovinj, Croatia 🇭🇷

[Evan Tindell @evantindell]

Nippon Paint trying to break up the merger of Akzo and Axalta via an overbid...

Perhaps another sign that Japanese companies are increasingly willing to fully participate in the capitalist game.

[Civixplorer @Civixplorer]

🎥 25 iconic films that were filmed in Manhattan, New York City.

[Kriti Gupta @kriti_kg]

Shein is acquiring Everlane.
Luckin Coffee is acquiring Blue Bottle.
Anta Sports acquired controlling stake in Puma, Arcteryx, Salomon.

Chinese consumer brands have quietly become global.

[The Royal Family @RoyalFamily]

At Golders Green today, The King reaffirmed his support for the Jewish community, following a series of antisemitic attacks.

During his time at the Jewish Care centre in North-West London, The King spoke to victims of the recent knife attack that took place in the area on 29th April 2026.

His Majesty also met community police force, Shomrim, who were involved in responding to the attacks.

[Reuven Goldstein @curatorWH]

Jewish immigrants from Eastern & Southern Europe helped shape America’s cheesecake culture. The iconic New York style cheesecake rich, dense, and now the most popular style, is also known as “Jewish-style.”