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  • Pi Network News: 3 Unconfirmed Catalysts That Could Send PI Higher

    Pi Network News: 3 Unconfirmed Catalysts That Could Send PI Higher

    Pi Network is seeing a fresh wave of speculation this week, with community analysts and commentators highlighting several potential catalysts. None of the developments below has been officially confirmed by the Pi Core Team, so they should be treated strictly as rumors rather than upcoming events.

    1. September 24 Mainnet Announcement

    The biggest rumor currently circulating is that Pi Network could make a major Mainnet-related announcement on September 24.

    Pi community commentator Tien Pi reportedly revealed the date, while other community accounts have amplified the speculation. However, there is no official confirmation from Pi Core Team that September 24 will bring any major announcement.

    🚨 BIG NEWS 🚨

    According to @Mr_Tien_Pi Pi Network could announce its Global Open Mainnet launch on September 24.

    Another highly anticipated date to watch is October 7–8, when Token2049 takes place, with Pi Network participating.

    ⚠️ No official announcement has been made yet… pic.twitter.com/qbeFHqtut0

    — Rizo (@RizoWeb3) August 20, 2026

    2. Token2049 Could Bring a Pi Announcement

    Another date being watched is October 7-8, when Token2049 is scheduled to take place.

    Community analysts are speculating that Pi Network’s participation could provide an opportunity for a significant ecosystem or Mainnet-related announcement.

    Again, there is no confirmed indication that Pi will announce a major development at the event. The connection remains speculation based on community expectations.

    3. PayPal-PI Integration Rumor

    Another rumor involves PayPal and Pi. Reports circulating within the Pi community claim that PayPal could support Pi through its “Pay with Crypto” program alongside assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana and others.

    However, this has not been officially confirmed by PayPal or Pi Network. Community analysts have also pointed out that PayPal has not appeared in Pi’s KYB verification list, adding another reason to treat the claim cautiously.

    Pi Price Rebounds

    PI has remained volatile alongside the wider crypto market. After starting August around $0.08, it climbed toward $0.10 before falling back to roughly $0.085.

    As Bitcoin rallied from around $64,000 to nearly $80,000, Pi gained about 14%, moving from $0.086 to almost $0.096 before retreating toward $0.10.

    Its market capitalization has again reached approximately $1.15 billion, although Pi remains around 96% below its $2.98 all-time high from February 2025.

  • Two Binance Workers Held at UAE Airports Amid Fraud Inquiries

    Two Binance Workers Held at UAE Airports Amid Fraud Inquiries

    Employees Held After Airport Stops, Then Released

    Emirati police pulled two Binance employees aside at airports in recent weeks during a fraud investigation into money moving through the exchange, The New York Times reported Aug. 20. A third Binance official, who runs the company’s Dubai subsidiary, was questioned at a police station in July. All three have since been released. Binance’s main regulator is based in the Emirates.

    One of the two, a mid-level employee, was held overnight at a Sharjah police station this month after being stopped at the airport, according to people familiar with the inquiries. The other employee was stopped by police at a different Emirati airport around the same time. Four people described what happened on condition of anonymity because the police inquiry is still open.

    A Binance spokesman was quoted as saying:

    “A small number of our personnel were recently asked to provide standard statements to local authorities as part of routine inquiries relating to third-party fund flows.”

    “Our employees were never the targets or subjects of these inquiries, and all who provided statements were promptly cleared and released,” the spokesperson added.

    Why Some Employees Were Swept Up

    Binance keeps a corporate bank account in the Emirates that handles customer deposits and withdrawals, and a number of employees are named on it. Police appear to have questioned some of those staff for that reason alone, according to one person familiar with the arrangement. It is still unclear what investigators are examining, although the fraud inquiries reportedly focus on customers, not the exchange itself.

    The detentions have unsettled Binance employees, and the company asked the Emirati government this month for assistance, one of the people said. It also told officials it was concerned about employee safety in the country. Dubai authorities and the Emirati Ministry of Interior did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Centralized exchanges like Binance must collect identification documents and keep records of customer trades under know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules. Law enforcement agents send the company tens of thousands of inquiries a year about funds crossing its platform, the Times reported.

    Assets held through custodial exchanges remain under the platforms’ control, not in wallets the customers control directly. When investigators seek to trace transactions involving Binance, records may include the exchange’s banking documents and information associated with employees authorized to manage relevant accounts.

    Binance’s Troubled History With Law Enforcement

    Binance’s legal problems include its 2023 guilty plea in Seattle federal court for violating U.S. anti-money-laundering laws. It forfeited $2.51 billion and paid a criminal fine of $1.81 billion.

    Founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stepped down as chief executive as part of that deal and later served four months in federal prison.

    A separate detention occurred in Nigeria in 2024, when authorities arrested a Binance compliance executive, Tigran Gambaryan, and held him for months before authorities dropped the charges and released him following pressure from U.S. officials. Late last year, Binance fired or suspended several senior compliance officials who had reported billions of dollars moving from customer accounts to Iran-linked entities, according to published reports. The company disputed the reported conclusions and denied punishing anyone for raising compliance concerns.

    President Trump granted Zhao a full and unconditional pardon on Oct. 21, 2025, according to Justice Department paperwork. The pardon came almost two years after Zhao’s guilty plea, and lawmakers criticized it, pointing to Binance’s business relationship with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto company.

    Deepening Ties to the Emirates Despite the Legal Pressure

    The Emirates has also become one of Binance’s biggest financial backers during the same period. MGX, a state-backed Emirati fund, invested $2 billion in the exchange in March 2025, the first outside investment Binance had ever accepted.

    Abu Dhabi regulators then authorized Binance’s global platform under a framework covering trading, clearing, and custody through three separate companies. Nest Exchange, Nest Clearing and Custody, and Nest Trading started operating Jan. 5. Binance was the first crypto exchange to secure the three-part regulatory approval under the Abu Dhabi Global Market framework, according to the company’s announcement published on the regulator’s website. The company says it has more than 300 million registered users worldwide.

    The investment and regulatory authorization have increased Binance’s financial and operational ties to the Emirates. European investigators have reported greater difficulty obtaining records from the company concerning suspected crimes over the past year, according to the Times. The shift followed a change in how Binance handles some law enforcement requests.

  • Emmy Nominee Patrick Ball on His Rollercoaster Journey to ‘The Pitt’ and How His Own Addiction Battle Has Informed His Performance

    Emmy Nominee Patrick Ball on His Rollercoaster Journey to ‘The Pitt’ and How His Own Addiction Battle Has Informed His Performance

    Patrick Ball, an actor who is quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s top young stars, first burst onto the scene in 2025 with the debut of HBO Max’s emergency room-set drama series The Pitt, on which he plays Dr. Frank Langdon, a senior emergency medicine resident. Langdon works under senior attending physician Dr. “Robby,” who initially regards him as a protégé, but later loses faith in him upon learning that he has been stealing prescription painkillers from the hospital in order to work through a back injury.

    The show, which marks a reunion of ER star Noah Wyle, writer R. Scott Gemmill and showrunner John Wells, has found a large and loyal audience, garnered massive critical acclaim and last year, for its first season, was awarded five Emmys including best drama series. This year, for its second season, it has landed a field-leading 25 noms, including, in the category of best supporting actor in a drama series, one for Ball, who the TV Academy egregiously overlooked for his work on season one.

    Over the course of a conversation at the LA offices of The Hollywood Reporter, the 36-year-old reflected on his path to acting and the years-long journey of personal and professional ups and downs that preceded him landing The Pitt; how his extensive theater background, professional uncertainty on his first major screen project and own battles with addiction (he’s now four years sober) have informed the way he plays Langdon; why, even while shooting season two and the forthcoming third season of The Pitt, he continued to act in theater in L.A. and in New York on Broadway, respectively; plus more.

  • ‘Spa Weekend’ Review: Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher in a High-Concept Comedy Without the Comic Highs

    Movie genres wax and wane over time in a way that can be borderline imperceptible. The Western did its slow fade through the 1960s, but it took a while to realize that it was heading into the sunset (and then, of course, it came back). On a less exalted level, I watched “Spa Weekend” and realized that the genre it’s in — the high-concept comedy with the concept in the title, the movie that puts out a vibe of “Look, I’m crass and dumb and obvious! And that’s why you like me!” — may now be entering its twilight zone.

    Written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who made the brashly clever and likable “Bad Moms” (but were launched by their script for “The Hangover,” and in a way they’re still writing it), “Spa Weekend” is a comedy about four old friends who go on a deluxe spa getaway. The film has its minor-league version of a star cast (Leslie Mann, Anna Faris, Michelle Buteau, Isla Fisher), with Fisher cast against type as the Melissa McCarthy character — a foul-mouthed British trainwreck in ridiculously loud clothing who becomes the film’s bull in the aroma-therapy shop.

    It’s all very standard, and the idea of putting the satirical screws to the New Age elitism of wellness culture certainly has potential. But watching “Spa Weekend,” you feel how tired and predictable the jokes are (it’s the script that needs a massage). And I’m talking about the “wild” jokes, like when the women take a raucous golf-cart ride through the spa grounds, or when a divorced couple work off their aggression by having a mud fight in a mud bath, or the moment when a session of “goat yoga” devolves — inevitably — into a Who let the goats out? free-for-all. It’s “anarchic” yet weirdly tame and expected. You watch these rote antics and think: Where are Barb and Star when you need them?

    The four women are cardboard-cutout archetypes, played in amiable lightweight fashion. There’s Jane (Mann), a high-strung attorney and divorced single mother whose birthday weekend this is, and who is such an overscheduled control freak that she can only put a date with a man on her calendar three months in advance; Coco (Michelle Buteau), also divorced with two kids, who’s presented as a walking fount of anger issues (though if you call her on it, she’ll get angry at you for reducing her to the “angry Black woman”); Sophie (Anna Faris), a blonde mouse who’s been the personal assistant to a tyrannical boss for 10 years; and Fisher’s bawdy, antic, disheveled Mel, who the other three can’t stand, but as the movie explains — it becomes a central theme — every female friend group needs one person the others secretly hate.

    I had mild hopes for “Spa Weekend” when it introduced the Solaris Eden Beach spa, a luxe white-on-white beachfront hotel that turns pampering into a form of exhibitionism. When Jane and her friends arrive at the front desk, they’re offered a choice of Champagne or hibiscus water, and the spa’s general manager is a guru named Shanti (Erika Keynatz) who glows with well-tended superiority. Then, of course, there’s Kai (Adam Demos), the hot Aussie yoga instructor who makes instant eye contact with Jane (“C’mon, Magic Mike,” says Mel, “let’s see your big ding-dong!”). About 45 minutes in, Jane and Kai run into each at the otherwise empty hotel bar, and Jane explains that she can see right through the posh pretense of the spa treatments — the spaced-out music and yoga that’s just “stretching,” the Goopy optics of it all. But it’s as if the movie had already seen through its own joke.   

    By all rights, Isla Fisher’s Mel should be the one making us laugh. I’ve always been a fan of this actor, and she gives a pinpoint performance as a dissolute narcissist who’s like a more unhinged Bridget Jones. But Fisher, in a weird way, gives too grounded a performance. She doesn’t have that spark plug of insanity in her DNA. (We don’t feel her unconscious need to destroy.) Or maybe the lines just aren’t crazy enough. Frankly, I had the same problem with “The Hangover,” a movie I always thought was more prechewed than it pretended to be. And you wish “Spa Weekend” found a way to give Leslie Mann, the film’s straight-arrow center of gravity, a bit more of a spin.     

    “Spa Weekend” is being distributed by Black Bear Pictures — a good company, only this sort of thing used to be the province of major studios, and now it’s being relegated to the indie and streaming market. (See this month’s “Super Troopers 3.”) Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it’s a sign that overly processed bad-behavior comedies like “Spa Weekend” are a form that’s running out of gas. What happens at the spa stays at the spa. But it might as well not, since we’ve seen it before.

  • Ethereum researchers are racing to close a zkEVM security gap before December

    Ethereum researchers are racing to close a zkEVM security gap before December

    Ethereum’s better.codes contest now measures a cryptographic proof gap that researchers can attack from both sides.

    At 15:44:47 UTC on Aug. 21, the live leaderboard showed a 63.99-bit lower certificate and a 116.13-bit upper certificate for koalaIRS12. The two results left 52.14 bits unresolved after nine promoted submissions from seven solvers.

    KoalaIRS12 is a fixed parameter profile for an interleaved Reed–Solomon reduction used in proof-system research. The challenge repository defines its score as a spot-check quantity and expressly excludes interpreting it as minus-log2 of whole-system soundness or as full-protocol security.

    Researchers now have a public, reproducible measure of the distance between what the challenge has proved safe and what its upper certificate still rules unsafe.

    What the leaderboard proves

    The contest uses two tracks to close the interval.

    The soundness track raises the lower certificate. At a certified radius, a successful submission proves that the benchmark’s executable reduction-error bound meets the encoded target, then maps that radius to the score displayed on the board.

    The attack track lowers the upper certificate. Its theorem certifies an unsafe suffix under the benchmark’s winning-set-density condition. The repository covers that suffix directly because the formalization assumes no monotonicity theorem for winning-set density.

    A fixed Ethereum M3 theorem produced a 52.14-bit unresolved interval between soundness and attack certificates, short of the system’s 128-bit target.

    The upper-certificate track’s score describes the formal boundary for koalaIRS12, while an Ethereum attack cost would require a separate whole-system analysis.

    The Ethereum Foundation launch announcement says the theorem statement, parameter point, and verification harness are pinned. Each submission exports the required theorem, a comparator checks that statement against the target, and the Lean kernel verifies the proof before promotion.

    An accepted result proves the submitted theorem inside that pinned environment. Production assurance must also cover the model’s completeness, the assumptions embedded in its definitions, implementation fidelity, and the composition of separately analyzed components.

    The Foundation’s May review of an SP1 formal-verification effort shows why those additional layers matter. Specifications and theorem statements are code, inputs and versions need reproducible pinning, and component-level results require broader reasoning before they support conclusions about a full system.

    An academic paper by Gal Arnon, Dan Boneh and Giacomo Fenzi identifies list decoding, Reed–Solomon proximity gaps, correlated agreement and mutual correlated agreement as open questions for succinct proof systems. Published before the current leaderboard snapshot, the paper explains the importance of the problem family without evaluating today’s scores.

    The Foundation frames better.codes as a machine-checked research path for hash-based SNARK security. Improving the koalaIRS12 certificates would sharpen one reduction within that agenda.

    The 116.13-bit certificate has the same reach: it applies to the parameter point encoded in the challenge. Other parameter choices, constructions, and system components remain separate research questions.

    That two-sided movement makes the interval more informative. Every promotion changes a checkable boundary while the pinned theorem keeps successive results comparable.

    The gap to Ethereum’s December target

    The Foundation’s December 2025 zkEVM security roadmap called for 128-bit provable security, a final proof size of 300 KiB or less, and a formal soundness argument for the recursion architecture.

    A February security-sprint update moved the M3 deadline to early December 2026 and aligned the architecture-security argument with a Dec. 1 deliverable. The roadmap asks teams to connect component bounds to an auditable system package.

    For koalaIRS12, a lower certificate reaching the encoded 128-bit target would settle the soundness side of this benchmark at its fixed parameter point. A production zkEVM claim would additionally need soundness accounting across every relevant component, proof-size compliance, a documented recursion topology, an argument for how its parts compose, and evidence that specifications match implementations.

    The Foundation’s public progress page, last synced Aug. 20, lists zkVM readiness and ISA compliance results and names real-time proving and soundcalc integration as criteria. Its rendered tables contain no completion marker for the full early-December package and remain silent on work tracked elsewhere.

    A May update on optional execution proofs described a non-consensus-critical phase in which zkEVM proofs supplement mainnet testing while ordinary execution-client re-execution continues to drive attestation.

    That optional role keeps the leaderboard’s immediate consequence in the research domain. Movement in the certificates changes the evidence available for future security arguments without changing Ethereum’s current consensus-critical validation path.

    On better.codes, soundness submissions can lift the 63.99-bit lower certificate and attack submissions can pull the 116.13-bit upper certificate down. Across the zkEVM roadmap, teams must publish the system-level accounting, proof sizes, recursion arguments, and implementation evidence required for the early-December review.

    At present, the 52.14-bit interval is a live measure of unfinished work on koalaIRS12. Ethereum’s 128-bit production case will depend on how that component evidence fits into the larger proof.

  • New Phase for XRP Could Emerge as AI Agents Move Toward Real Spending

    New Phase for XRP Could Emerge as AI Agents Move Toward Real Spending

    AI Agents Could Expand $XRP Commerce

    A new phase for $XRP could emerge as autonomous software advances from purchasing digital resources to completing real-world commercial tasks. Chandler Fang, co-founder of AI agent trust startup t54, outlined the potential transition on X on Aug. 21, describing an agent economy composed of markets with different payment values, frequencies and settlement requirements.

    Before co-founding t54, Fang served as product lead at Ripple after holding quantitative finance and blockchain positions at J.P. Morgan. Ripple has since backed his company, joining Franklin Templeton in a $5 million seed round.

    Machine-to-machine settlement is no longer the open question, since agents have already moved more than a million transactions across the $XRP Ledger without a person in the loop.

    Fang said the next question is how that activity develops into broader commerce, including applications that choose XRPL in the background. He wrote:

    “This changes how we should think about XRPL adoption.”

    Spending Mandates Could Redefine Agent Payments

    The first commercial stage centers on digital products that agents can discover, purchase and consume within automated workflows. Ripple’s XRPL AI Starter Kit, released June 10, already enables x402 payments using $XRP or Ripple USD ($RLUSD), allowing autonomous software to pay for application programming interfaces, computing resources, model inference and other online services.

    The next stage would give agents limited spending authority while requiring them to follow budgets, merchant restrictions and approval rules established by users. Mastercard’s Agent Pay for Machines program extends that model to invoices, computing capacity, and other machine-driven transactions businesses want handled without a person approving each one.

    The card network opened the program on June 10 with more than 30 launch partners, including Coinbase, Stripe and the Solana Foundation. Ripple joined through RippleX, putting crypto settlement rails and traditional payment processors inside a single framework for automated business purchasing.

    Consumers and businesses would need crypto wallets alongside financial tools that define what an agent may purchase, how much it can spend and which decisions require human approval. Merchants would simultaneously need to provide prices, inventory, delivery terms and payment interfaces in formats that autonomous systems can interpret.

    Agents that build reliable identity, transaction and repayment histories could eventually receive financial capacity or credit instead of being pre-funded for each task, Fang said.

    $XRP Use Would Depend on Settlement Needs

    Expanding agent activity would not require every search, policy check or price comparison to become an XRPL transaction. Repeated payments between the same parties could use XRPL Payment Channels, allowing participants to exchange signed $XRP claims outside consensus before settling their combined obligation through a ledger transaction.

    The three adoption phases create different workloads, Fang said: frequent low-value payments for digital services, fewer higher-value transactions for consumer and business commerce, and thousands of internal actions before one settlement for embedded agents. Platforms could aggregate activity or settle net obligations instead of recording every step on the ledger, he added.

    The payment asset would vary according to each transaction’s purpose and settlement requirements. $XRP could handle direct payments, routing or final settlement, while $RLUSD could provide dollar-denominated value for certain purchases. Existing analysis describes $XRP and $RLUSD as serving complementary XRPL functions rather than competing to process every transaction.

    XRPL Adoption Could Become Invisible

    Long-term adoption could place agents inside treasury platforms, logistics systems and financial applications without requiring users to interact directly with XRPL. The software could compare providers, assess risks and select blockchain infrastructure in the background.

    Interoperability, Fang said, is a larger problem than moving assets between blockchains, since transactions could increasingly begin inside card, bank or institutional systems before linking to blockchain-based settlement.

    Fang explained:

    “Long-term adoption does not require every person to open an XRPL wallet or consciously choose a blockchain before completing a task.”

    Transaction volume alone would consequently provide an incomplete measure of agent adoption. More informative indicators would include repeat activity, merchant revenue, compliance with spending mandates, successful delivery and effective dispute resolution. The t54 co-founder concluded: “By then, XRPL will not be judged only by whether agents can use it. It will be judged by how much useful economic activity they choose to settle on it.”

    Progress will keep looking incremental from inside the industry, Fang said, comparing the pattern to the arrival of ChatGPT, when years of infrastructure work looked sudden only once the product reached a wide audience. He predicted people will stop asking what counts as an agentic transaction and will simply expect agents to stay within their limits, adding that adoption reveals the workload XRPL needs to scale next.

  • South Korea Deploys AI to Bust Crypto Market Manipulation

    South Korea Deploys AI to Bust Crypto Market Manipulation

    Algorithms Track ‘Racehorse’ and ‘Cage’ Schemes

    South Korea’s financial regulator has reportedly deployed a real-time, artificial intelligence-powered market surveillance system to detect unfair trading and price manipulation across the country’s cryptocurrency markets. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced that the new platform combines generative AI with machine-learning algorithms.

    The initiative aims to overcome severe resource constraints faced by human investigators, who must monitor thousands of digital assets trading around the clock across multiple exchanges. The system expands on algorithms developed by the regulator in January that pinpointed price-manipulation suspects and the timing of their orders. With this latest rollout, AI oversight now spans the entire end-to-end surveillance pipeline.

    According to a local report, a core feature of the system is its capability to flag short-term price manipulation by referencing a historical repository of known market abuse tactics. Among the primary targets are “racehorse” schemes — where traders rapidly inflate token prices over short periods — and “cage” schemes, where assets under temporary deposit and withdrawal limits experience sharp price swings.

    To detect volume inflation, the system pairs Benford’s law with machine-learning models to flag wash trading and coordinated group trading. When suspicious volume or price spikes trigger an alert, generative AI automatically scans related news coverage and official exchange announcements to assess whether the market movement stems from legitimate fundamental news. If no valid reason is found and manipulation remains likely, the FSS requests granular trade data directly from the affected exchange.

    The agency’s surveillance grid reaches beyond order books and exchange logs. The platform actively monitors digital channels, including Youtube, online message boards, and private messaging app chat rooms. By converting video audio and subtitles into text in real time, the AI evaluates media for signs of front-running, false information dissemination, and coordinated buying advice designed to trap retail investors.

    Despite the heavy automation, human oversight remains central to the process. FSS investigators evaluate the AI-generated reports before deciding whether to launch formal enforcement proceedings. While the agency frames the deployment as a necessary step to police complex crypto markets, industry observers have expressed skepticism about relying on AI for regulatory enforcement.

    Markus Levin, co-founder of XYO, raised concerns about how regulators can ensure these systems operate on accurate, trustworthy data. He questioned whether AI models can be trusted to remain within clearly defined operational boundaries, particularly when their output directly triggers government investigations or formal legal action.

    Levin highlighted recent safety tests conducted by leading AI developers, including Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI. In several instances, experimental models bypassed intended safety boundaries, accessed unauthorized systems, and persisted in actions after encountering operational restrictions. Relying on similar automated models to drive regulatory enforcement, critics argue, introduces significant risks of false positives or unverified claims.

    Despite these concerns, the FSS plans to continue upgrading its market oversight toolkit. Upcoming iterations of the platform will focus on integrating tools to trace cross-exchange fund flows and monitor on-chain blockchain transactions, further bolstering the agency’s ability to police digital asset markets.

  • Gavin Newsom Says Paramount Settlement Talks Happening in “Real Time,” Signals He’d Like a Deal

    Gavin Newsom Says Paramount Settlement Talks Happening in “Real Time,” Signals He’d Like a Deal

    Gavin Newsom signaled his support on Friday for settlement talks in the antitrust suit seeking to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.

    When asked about his stance on the controversial merger and the antitrust suit from 12 states challenging it at a press appearance in San Francisco, the California governor gestured to remarks made by the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta earlier in the week. “Look, I was appreciative, I think this week, earlier this week, you heard the attorney general himself say he’d prefer this settled in the boardroom, not the courtroom,” Newsom said. “So I think there’s some universal sentiment there, if that’s possible. The question is if that’s possible. And what’s the best deal, what’s the landing? And that has to be worked through.”

    The governor suggested that talks were already happening to determine a way forward for the parties. “That’s a process that’s unfolding, I assure you, in real time,” he said on Friday. “I know there are many meetings that are going on and there’s a lot of conversation about what that could look like, but the attorney general is not just representing the state of California, he’s also part of this coalition with a dozen other states. So we also have to be mindful of that coalition as well.”

    Newsom’s remarks followed a report in The Wall Street Journal on July 31 stating that the governor was concerned about the states‘ antitrust suit. The story reported that, wary of potential consequences for employment in California, Newsom had encouraged Bonta to find a solution out of court. At the time, the governor did not confirm or comment on the record about his stance.

    That changed on Friday. When asked about a recent threat made by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison to take one or two of Hollywood’s remaining historic studios out of California if the antitrust suit isn’t resolved by October, Newsom said he was taking the remarks “seriously.” He said, “We’re hoping that doesn’t happen. And I’m of the belief that they don’t want to see that happen. It’s not, I don’t think, in the company’s long-term interest, but I take it seriously.”

    He added that he was talking to people on all sides of the debate, given the stakes for California. “I’m very mindful of what this means to the state, I‘m concerned about the state, our reputation,” the governor said.

    His support for settlement talks puts him in the same camp as Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor in this year’s elections. It also aligns him with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who expressed her desire for both parties to “come to the table” and “work urgently to find common ground” on Thursday.

  • ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ Director Slams Israeli Military Investigation Into 5-Year-Old Girl’s Death as a “Smokescreen”

    ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ Director Slams Israeli Military Investigation Into 5-Year-Old Girl’s Death as a “Smokescreen”

    The director of the Oscar-nominated docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab has criticized the Israeli military investigation announced this week into the death of the 5-year-old Palestinian girl, who was killed after Israeli forces fired on her family’s car in Gaza City.

    “This announcement is a smokescreen,” Kaouther Ben Hania said on Instagram, questioning why it took so long to launch the investigation.

    “For more than two years, the evidence has been there: independent investigations, satellite imagery, ballistic analysis,” Ben Hania wrote. “And there was the most devastating evidence of all: Hind’s own voice, describing the Israeli tanks circling around her. What more did we need? Did we really have to wait for the accused to decide to investigate itself (yes, itself!) before these facts could finally be taken seriously?”

    She added, “Look at the cases the Israeli military is choosing to speak about today: they are precisely the ones that international public opinion has made impossible to ignore. And what about all the others? Those whose names we will never know because their deaths never broke through the wall of international indifference? Meanwhile, the Israeli military continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza, while the occupation intensifies in the West Bank.”

    Suggesting that Israel’s move to launch a criminal investigation into Rajab’s death is a “public relations operation,” Ben Hania wrote, “What is needed is justice (delivered by an independent authority) for Hind and for all the victims of the genocide in Gaza.”

    Israel’s military this week said it fired at the Rajab family’s car and an ambulance dispatched to help them — all six people in the car and two paramedics were killed — as the family was trying to flee an Israeli invasion. The military has launched an investigation into its troops’ conduct.

    Like Ben Hania, Rajab’s mother Wesam Hamada has also called for an independent investigation and questioned the delay on Israel’s probe.

    “Why did the investigation and the acknowledgment of the shooting at Hind’s car and at the paramedics come only after more than two years?” Hamada told the Associated Press. “It’s an attempt to distract from what’s happening in Gaza and improve the (Israeli) army’s image to the world. That’s it.”

    The voices of Rajab and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada calling for help from January 2024 were released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and excerpted in The Voice of Hind Rajab.

    The film received numerous accolades, including Oscar and BAFTA nominations and a Venice grand jury prize win.

    When asked earlier this year if she thought there would someday be justice for Rajab, Ben Hania told The Hollywood Reporter, “I hope so, because we can’t live in a world without accountability. … I don’t have a crystal ball, but my hope is that this film can be part of the change. Because we can’t live in a world where just because you have the biggest gun, you rule the world. “

  • Emmy Overachiever Jason Bateman on Whether He Considers Himself an Actor or Director First

    Emmy Overachiever Jason Bateman on Whether He Considers Himself an Actor or Director First

    Jason Bateman is this year’s Emmy overachiever, nominated for lead limited series actor and limited series directing on Netflix’s “Black Rabbit,” and as both supporting actor and executive producer on another limited series, HBO Max’s “DTF St. Louis.” So where does the multi-hyphenate’s brain reside more in these days, as an actor or director?

    “They are in both worlds at the same time, but they kind of always have been,” Bateman tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast. “That’s why I was so drawn to having the official job of directing. Acting at an early age became so comfortable for me that I was able to really observe all the incredible work going around me. All the technical work of the camera and sound and lighting and what might be happening with editing later. So I’ve always thought about all of that — what a team it takes.”

    Bateman, of course, has been acting since he was a child — “Little House on the Prairie,” “Silver Spoons,” “It’s Your Move” and even “The Hogan Family” as a teen. But he also started looking at directing as a young actor.

    “I’m enormously grateful that I’m still working in this industry in this town,” he says. “I mean, I’ve gained a lot of experience in this business, and one of the things that’s really clear to me is that the best people are not guaranteed employment.”

    Bateman, of course, saw that firsthand in the lean years that came prior to “Arrested Development,” which set his career on a new, lucrative course that eventually included smashes like Netflix’s “Ozark,” his podcast “SmartLess” with buddies Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, and then most recently the back-to-back success of “Black Rabbit” and “DTF St. Louis.” Bateman talked about all that, as well as his next project — and he took the Awards Circuit Podcast 10 Questions Quiz! — on this edition.

    Also in this episode, we look at the latest moves in the Emmy race as Phase 2 voting continues — and marvel at the variety special (prerecorded) category, which includes a showdown between Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande. Listen below!

    Is Bateman stunned at the Emmy surplus he’s been given this year with his four nominations? “Obviously you don’t do this work for the money or the accolades, but those things are really sort of exciting and helpful and practical,” he says. “When you do something and it comes together as well as these two projects did, it’s a little bit of magic. There are so many people that go into making these things and making them not fall flat on their face. It’s a miracle that any of these things work because the ball is constantly wanting to drop … I just feel so fortunate.”

    Bateman also notes that he has the luxury of choosing projects and characters who have such a unique and interesting tone. Both Vince in “Black Rabbit” and Clark in “DTF” are tragic in their own ways. “Vince is just a disaster, kind of a broken, self-destructive guy,” Bateman says. “Clark’s main plot point for him is he wants to cheat on his wife. Yet they are both just heartbreakingly relatable, human and flawed, and they just don’t have the coping skills that most of the viewers have.”

    Next up, Bateman just directed the film “The Cackling of the Dodos” for Netflix. “Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson brought me the script and said, ‘would you would you direct us in this?’ I didn’t even really need to read it, when you get that kind of call from those two guys. It’s a dark, dark comedy about these two guys who run a farm and they find a dead body in the grain bin and try to figure out how to get rid of it — and create a couple of more dead bodies doing it. It’s kind of like an old Coen Brothers-type of film.”

    For Bateman’s first time in Variety, we found a clip from Nov. 16, 1979, announcing that he had signed with the Dorothy Day Otis/Jack Rose Agency. “I was around 10,” he remembers. “I remember getting an agent for the first time. That was really an interesting process. It was after this educational film, I’d done one of those little films, and then I was like, ‘well, Dad, I should get an agent and maybe do some commercials and try to work my way in.’ So he took pictures of me, and off we went.”

    10 QUESTIONS WITH JASON BATEMAN:

    1. Childhood nickname: “’Jayco.’ My dad used to call me that.”

    2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you were into it now: “I would play arcade games, 10 hours a day, and I think I’d still do that if I had the time. In fact, the first time I made some money, I got my parents to let me buy a Donkey Kong machine, like a real stand-up arcade machine, and we put it in the garage. And I just played it all day, all night.”

    3. Go-to karaoke or sing-in-the-shower song: “I’m so horrified with the sound of my own voice singing. I don’t even sing in the shower. Not even alone. I don’t sing. I cringe myself right out of the water!”

    4. Give me an alternate title for ‘Black Rabbit’: “One and One Make None.”

    5. What’s your secret talent?: “If I properly ball up a piece of chewing gum, I can tilt my head straight back and hover it above my lips by blowing a stream of air.”

    6. Favorite ice cream flavor: “I’m a cookies and cream guy.”

    7. The one item you couldn’t live without: “Classical music takes me to a place where I think the best part of me lives, and where my best thinking and processing and planning comes from. I just love it for many reasons, and I think it started with my dad getting me into it like he did with movies and television. But then really seeing how classical music is used in film and television, from ‘2001’ or ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘Amadeus’ or any of the John Williams films. It’s incredible. I listen to classical music almost all day every day.”

    8. What TV show in all of history do you wish you were a cast member of?: “Fawlty Towers.”

    9. Fictional character you most admire: “I don’t know. That’s millions and millions of characters. I have to take a pass on that one because there would be many right answers for me.”

    10. Your favorite piece of advice: “This sounds a bit earnest and probably a bit cliché, but it really is true, and something that’s so needed for anybody that’s got the kind of complicated thing of fame and having a public job. But in any position of leadership, doing unto others as you would you want them to do to you. When I meet somebody on the street, and I might not be in some great mood, or I’m with the family, or that’s still the one moment that they have. They may have been watching me do stuff for years on television or film, and want to say ‘hi’ and say that they like show X or movie Y. If I were to be short or dismissive of that, that’s louder than anything that they’ve watched. I try to remember that. I’m certainly far from perfect and far from consistent, but I try to be better every day.”

    Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.