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Netflix faced fierce criticism on Friday over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros., the storied Hollywood studio.The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices.As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros. — the studio behind “Casablanca,” the “Harry Potter” movies and “Friends” — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. “Titanic” director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying Congress to oppose the deal, according to trade magazine Variety.In a letter to lawmakers, the anonymous filmmakers warned that Netflix would “effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace,” further damaging a Hollywood ecosystem already strained by audiences’ shift from theaters and TV to streaming.”I could not think of a more effective way to reduce competition in Hollywood than selling WBD to Netflix,” Warner’s former CEO Jason Kilar wrote on X.At the center of Hollywood’s ire is Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who has declared that the era of moviegoers flocking to theaters is over. During an analyst call Friday, Sarandos acknowledged surprise over the acquisition but pledged to maintain Warner Bros.’ theatrical releases and preserve the HBO Max brand.Many industry veterans consider theatrical releases essential to cinema’s appeal and prestige — a stark contrast to streaming content consumed on home sofas or on mobile devices.Variety captured the industry’s alarm with a front-page headline asking: “Is Netflix Trying to Buy Warner Bros. or Kill It?”Michael O’Leary, CEO of Cinema United, the world’s largest exhibition trade association, warned: “Netflix’s success is television, not movies on the big screen. Theaters will close, communities will suffer, jobs will be lost.”- ‘Blunder’ -The backlash extended beyond Hollywood. Netflix shares plunged more than three percent following the announcement, while The Information, influential among tech industry readers, branded the deal an “$82.7 Billion Blunder” by a management team that “has rarely put a foot wrong.”Antitrust concerns loom large, with Netflix poised to control an even greater share of an entertainment industry it already dominates.Bipartisan opposition has emerged in Washington. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, warned the deal “could force you into higher prices, fewer choices over what and how you watch, and may put American workers at risk.” Before the deal was announced, Republican Senator Mike Lee said Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming assets “should send alarms to antitrust enforcers around the world.”The deal’s biggest loser may be Warner Bros. competitor Paramount Skydance, the Hollywood studio owned by Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people and a close ally of US President Donald Trump. Ellison’s son David runs Paramount and may lobby the White House directly to block the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger.Unlike Netflix’s targeted acquisition, Paramount had sought to buy Warner Bros. in its entirety, including cable networks CNN, TNT, and TBS, which are being spun off separately.In a letter to Warner’s board on Thursday, presumably after it surmised the game was lost, Paramount accused Warner Bros. Discovery of running an unfair process that favored Netflix.

Canada-born US architect Frank Gehry, whose daring and whimsical designs from the Guggenheim Bilbao to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles captivated fans and critics, died on Friday. He was 96.Gehry was perhaps the biggest of the so-called “starchitects” — an elite group that includes Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and others — and enjoyed his fame, but absolutely hated the label.”There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do,” he told The Independent in 2009. “Two categories, simple.”His artistic genius and boldness shone through in his complex designs — such as the glass “sails” of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.He popularized contemporary architecture, and became such a sensation that he was featured on “The Simpsons” — all while insisting he was a simple maker of buildings. “I work with clients who respect the art of architecture,” he said in 2014, according to his biographer Paul Goldberger.Gehry’s representative Meaghan Lloyd told AFP that he died early Friday at his home in Santa Monica following a brief respiratory illness.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed Gehry’s “unmistakable vision.”- From Canada to Los Angeles -Born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto on February 28, 1929, to a Jewish family that would move to the United States in the late 1940s, he later changed his name to Gehry to avoid becoming the target of antisemitism.He studied architecture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, graduating in 1954 before enlisting in the US Army and later continuing his studies in city planning at Harvard University, though he did not finish the program.Gehry eventually returned to Los Angeles to start his career working for Victor Gruen, a pioneer in the design of shopping malls. He went on to work in Paris with Andrew Remondet in 1961 before returning to Los Angeles, establishing his own architectural practice the following year.The ’70s and ’80s would mark the rollout of a long series of his most audacious and innovative architectural achievements, many of them in southern California. Close to the avant-garde “funk” art scene in California, Gehry’s deconstructionist and experimental style — sometimes derided as crude — is hard to categorize. Many of his buildings — irregularly-shaped metal facades that can look like crumpled paper — could only be realized with the help of computer design tools, which he fully embraced.This is maybe best reflected in his seminal reworking in 1978 of his own home in Santa Monica, where he long resided — it features corrugated metal wrapped around the original 1920s building.Gehry received the highest architectural honor, the Pritzker Prize, in 1989.- ‘Bilbao effect’ -Almost a decade later, he would unveil arguably his most iconic design: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which earned him international acclaim and notice.The limestone and glass building with curvy walls clad in titanium scales is instantly recognizable as a Gehry design, and was once described by his American colleague Philip Johnson as “the greatest building of our time.” The building helped revitalize the ancient industrial heart of the Spanish city, attracting visitors from around the world and leading to the coining of the term “Bilbao effect” to explain how beautiful architecture can transform an area.”We will be forever grateful, and his spirit and legacy will always remain connected to Bilbao,” the museum said on social media.Emboldened, Gehry would take even greater risks in his next projects, which included the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003), the Beekman Tower in New York (2011), and the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2014).LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault said he was “profoundly saddened” by Gehry’s death, calling him a “genius of lightness, transparency and grace.”Facebook tapped Gehry for a major expansion of its Menlo Park campus in California, which opened in 2018.- ‘I love working’ -Many of Gehry’s designs require complex computations — which he pushed to the limits.For a period, architects avoided the use of rounded or curved shapes as they caused headaches for engineers and led to spiralling construction costs.Gehry pushed back, using 3D modelling software similar to that used by aerospace firms to create unique building shapes while keeping costs in line with what developers would pay for a more conventional building of similar dimensions.The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas — its walls and windows appearing to have melted under the hot desert sun — is a classic example of Gehry’s groundbreaking vision.”I love working. I love working things out,” he told The Guardian in 2019. 

He got a gold medal. He made a game show-style appearance with foreign leaders. And he danced to YMCA. The FIFA 2026 World Cup draw was officially about football, but really it was all about Donald Trump.The US president and former reality TV star stole the show Friday from the moment he strolled down the red carpet of the Kennedy Center in Washington.Sticking to his side like glue was the global soccer body’s boss Gianni Infantino, who has fostered close ties with Trump during both his terms in office, and ensured that the spotlight was on the US president from start to finish.Trump is hardly a stranger to bombast, but even he looked a little lost for words at one point as, after a slick video pronounced him the inaugural winner of FIFA’s new Peace Prize, Infantino waxed lyrical about his achievements.”Mr President, this is your prize. This is your peace prize,” he said, before adding with a chuckle: “There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.”Trump proceeded to put the gong around his neck. “I’m going to wear it right now,” he said.- Three amigos -It was an act of consummate flattery by Infantino — who has faced criticism for his close ties to a number of authoritarian leaders — playing on Trump’s chagrin for not winning the Nobel Peace Prize nearly two months earlier.The award comes despite criticism from rights groups that it overlooks Trump’s hardline migration policy, his sending of troops into several US cities, and his military build-up near Venezuela.Trump faced mockery over the award from the office of Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California and likely 2028 presidential candidate, which posted a picture of a child’s medal with a smiling star saying: “If you had fun, you won! PARTICIPATION.”But Trump was unfazed. He even mused about renaming American football to avoid confusion with the sport in question Friday — known as soccer in the United States but football in most of the rest of the world.Even more surreal moments were yet to come.Infantino summoned Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on stage together as leaders of the three North American neighbors co-hosting the tournament.Their appearance had been billed as a moment of sporting diplomacy amid tensions over Trump’s tariffs, his proposal to annex Canada, and his suggestions that US forces could launch missile strikes on alleged drug traffickers in Mexico.- ‘This is shocking’ -Instead it ended up looking like a TV game show. The leaders stood in front of colored desks and opened up balls with the first names of the teams in the draw.The Canadian premier drew Canada. Mexico’s president drew Mexico.But there was only one center of attention. “I think I know what this is going to be now,” Trump said to laughter in the hall. “This is shocking,” he said as he held up a strip of paper saying USA.Then they posed for a selfie with Infantino, who posted it on Instagram with the caption: “Football unites the world.”Trump had been due to leave the ceremony after an hour yet appeared to be enjoying himself so much that he stayed in the auditorium for an hour more while the draw finished, sitting and chatting with Carney and Sheinbaum.Then he stayed on a bit more. The Village People were on stage playing his signature tune, “Y.M.C.A.” As he did during many campaign rallies in 2024, Trump rose to his feet and danced his signature dance. Sheinbaum and Carney remained seated.The three leaders however met behind the scenes afterwards for talks aimed at smoothing out their differences.Trump finished off his visit with a tour of the Kennedy Center, where he installed himself this year as chairman in what he called a war on “woke” culture.On Thursday, Trump had referred to it as the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” before adding: “Whoops, excuse me.”

NBA legend Michael Jordan appeared in a North Carolina court room on Friday, testifying that he wanted to “push NASCAR to be better” through his anti-trust lawsuit against the popular US auto racing series.Jordan, who is a co-owner of the 23XI Racing team in NASCAR’s elite Cup Series, lodged the suit with Front Row Motorsports last year after refusing to sign new NASCAR charters.On Friday he told a federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, that he’d been a fan of NASCAR since he was a child, but felt he had no choice but to sue in a bid to change a business model that treats teams and drivers unfairly.”They don’t have partnerships, they have contractors,” Jordan testified of NASCAR’s relationship with its Cup teams.”I want to push NASCAR to be better. When you talk about charters, when you talk about partnership, that’s ideal.”The lawsuit accuses NASCAR and the racing circuit’s chief executive Jim France of operating without transparency, stifling competition, and controlling the sport in ways that unfairly benefit them at the expense of team owners, drivers, sponsors, partners and fans.The teams accuse NASCAR of anti-competitive practices including buying most of the top racetracks exclusive to NASCAR races and imposing exclusivity deals on NASCAR-sanctioned tracks.It additionally lists practices such as acquiring stock car competitor Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), preventing teams from participating in other stock car races and forcing teams to buy their parts from single-source suppliers chosen by NASCAR.Analysts say the lawsuit could have far-reaching implications for NASCAR, but the tone in the court room on Friday was cordial, and even lighthearted at times.One attorney representing NASCAR thanked Jordan, a six-time NBA champion, for making his 9-year-old son think his father was “pretty cool today.”Jordan responded with a smile, and suggested that effect could be enhanced by a pair of signature sneakers.”I see you’re not wearing your Jordans today,” he said.

President Donald Trump has had Europe in his crosshairs since beginning a second White House term earlier this year.But in his new National Security Strategy — published in the dead of night early Friday — the US president launched an all-out attack, lambasting Europe as an over-regulated, censorious continent lacking in “self-confidence” and facing “civilizational erasure” due to immigration.The highly anticipated document codifies in writing the offensive launched by Washington months ago against Europe, which it accuses of taking advantage of American generosity and of failing to take responsibility for its own destiny.The new strategy, which marks a radical departure from previous US policy, targets, among other things, European institutions that “undermine political liberty and sovereignty,” immigration policies, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition,” the collapse of birth rates, and the loss of national identities.”Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the document says.Additionally, “a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes,” it says.The reaction in Europe was swift, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul saying the country does not need “outside advice.”The document is “unacceptable and dangerous,” France’s Valerie Hayer, the head of the Renew Europe centrist grouping in the European Parliament, said on X.For Evan Feigenbaum, a former advisor to two US secretaries of state and an expert on Asia, “the Europe section is by far the most striking – and far more so than the China/Asia sections.”It “feels inherently more confrontational and pits the U.S. as decisively opposed to the whole European project with this line: ‘cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,'” he said in a post on X.- Political attacks -Just weeks after taking office, US Vice President JD Vance dismayed Germans in particular and Europeans more generally with a speech in Munich claiming freedom of expression was receding on the continent, aligning himself with far-right parties such as Germany’s AfD.The new US National Security Strategy, which refers to the restoration of the primacy of nation-states, fits into this approach.”What the Trump administration is telegraphing through this national security strategy is that it wants to see an entirely different Europe,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund think-tank.She said the questioning of European governments’ legitimacy amounts to “significant political attacks” against Washington’s allies, even as the Trump administration says it wants to strengthen European security amid the war in Ukraine.The section of the strategy on freedom of expression in Europe is emblematic, with the Trump administration denouncing “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” on the continent, alluding to efforts in some countries to contain the rise of the far right.For months, US officials have been highlighting the alleged deterioration of human rights in Europe, including in Germany, the UK and France.The new National Security Strategy does not name specific movements or political parties, but clearly demonstrates the Trump administration’s desire to see its policies implemented in Europe, especially when it comes to immigration.In this regard, Trump has made no secret of his affinity for his “friend,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is hostile to immigration and LGBTQ rights.

A Virginia man accused of planting pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters on the eve of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot made his first court appearance on Friday.Brian Cole Jr of Woodbridge, Virginia, did not enter a plea at the hearing in district court in Washington.Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya ordered Cole, who was arrested at his home on Thursday, to remain in custody until a detention hearing on December 12.Cole, 30, has been charged with interstate transportation of an explosive device and attempted destruction using explosive materials.His arrest was the first breakthrough in a nearly five-year-old case that spawned numerous conspiracy theories among the far right.US Attorney General Pam Bondi, at a Thursday press conference, declined to speculate on whether the pipe-bombing was politically motivated, saying the investigation was ongoing.CNN and NBC News reported on Friday that Cole had told the FBI in interviews since his arrest that he believed the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump.Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 vote but Trump continues to falsely claim that he was the rightful winner.The pipe bombs — placed outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee offices in Washington on the evening of January 5 — failed to detonate.The devices were discovered by authorities the next day as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent congressional certification of Biden’s election victory.The FBI released numerous photos and video clips of a masked and hooded suspect over the years and eventually increased the reward for information leading to an arrest to half a million dollars.The failure of law enforcement to swiftly solve the case birthed a number of conspiracy theories among the far right, including baseless accusations that the bomber may have been a US Capitol Police officer.After taking office for a second time in January, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged or convicted of taking part in the assault on the Capitol.

A flagship study that declared the weedkiller Roundup posed no serious health risks has been retracted with little fanfare, ending a 25-year saga that exposed how corporate interests can distort scientific research and influence government decision-making.Published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in 2000, the paper ranks in the top 0.1 percent of citations among studies on glyphosate — the key ingredient in Roundup, owned by agri-giant Monsanto and at the center of cancer lawsuits worth billions of dollars.In his retraction note last week, the journal’s editor-in-chief, Martin van den Berg, cited a litany of serious flaws from failing to include carcinogenicity studies available at the time to undisclosed contributions by Monsanto employees and even questions around financial compensation.Elsevier, the journal’s Dutch publisher, told AFP in a statement that it upholds the “highest standards of rigor and ethics” and that “as soon as the current editor became aware of concerns regarding this paper a matter of months ago, due process began.”But it did not address the fact that concerns date back to 2002, when critics wrote to Elsevier about “conflicts of interest, lack of transparency, and the absence of editorial independence” at the journal, including specific worries about Monsanto.The matter exploded into public view in 2017, when internal corporate documents released during litigation showed one of Monsanto’s own scientists admitting to “ghostwriting.”Harvard University science historian Naomi Oreskes, who co-authored a paper this September detailing the extent of the “fraud” in the 2000 study, told AFP that while she was “very gratified” at the “long overdue” action, but warned that “the scientific community needs better mechanisms to identify and retract fraudulent papers.””This is completely in alignment with what we were calling them out for at the time,” Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and epidemiologist at GWU who co-signed the 2002 letter, added to AFP.- Polo shirts – Two of the paper’s three original authors have since died, while first author Gary Williams, a professor at New York Medical College, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.Monsanto maintains it acted appropriately, and that its product is safe. “Monsanto’s involvement with the Williams et al paper did not rise to the level of authorship and was appropriately disclosed in the acknowledgments.”The company declined to comment on internal emails that suggested otherwise, including one in which a Monsanto scientist asked a colleague whether “the team of people” who worked on the Williams paper and another study “could receive Roundup polo shorts as a token of appreciation for a job well done.”Glyphosate was brought to market as a herbicide in the 1970s and initially welcomed as less toxic than DDT.But its soaring use — especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-tolerant seeds that allowed it to be sprayed widely over crops — drew increasing scrutiny in the 1990s, making the 2000 paper hugely influential. According to Oreskes’s research, it was cited as supporting evidence for glyphosate’s safety by groups ranging from the Canadian Forest Service to the International Court of Justice, the US Congress and the European Parliamentary Research Service.- Legal interest – In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”Several countries have since moved to restrict or ban its use, including France, which has prohibited household applications. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto, said it would phase out Roundup for US residential use in 2023 in response to growing lawsuits.Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, told AFP he does not expect the retraction to sway the US Environmental Protection Agency, now under the pro-agricultural-industry Donald Trump administration, which has thrown its weight behind Bayer in an ongoing Supreme Court case.But “it could play a role in litigation that is moving forward in the US against the EPA’s proposed decision to renew glyphosate,” Donley told AFP, adding that European regulators might also take note.For Donley and others, the deeper concern is that the case may be far from unique. “I am sure there (are a) lot (of) such ghost-written and undeclared conflict papers in the literature, but they are very difficult to unearth unless one goes really deep in litigation cases,” John Ioannidis, a Stanford University professor who founded the field of meta-research told AFP.

President Donald Trump laid out a radical realignment of US foreign policy Friday, shifting the superpower’s focus from global to regional, criticizing Europe as facing “civilizational erasure” and putting a priority on eliminating mass migration.The national security strategy, meant to flesh out Trump’s norms-shattering worldview, elevates Latin America to the top of the US agenda in a sharp reorientation from longstanding US calls to focus on Asia to face a rising China.”In everything we do, we are putting America First,” Trump said in a preamble to the long-awaited paper.Breaking with decades of attempts to be the sole superpower, the strategy said that the “United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself.”It said that the United States would also prevent other powers, namely China, from dominating but added: “This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”The strategy called for a “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere,” starting with migration.”The era of mass migration must end,” the strategy paper said.The strategy made clear that the United States under Trump would aggressively pursue similar objectives in Europe, in line with far-right parties’ agendas.In extraordinary language for addressing close allies, the strategy said the administration would be “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”Germany quickly hit back, saying that it does not need “outside advice.”Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks said the document “discards decades of values-based US leadership in favor of a craven, unprincipled worldview.”The strategy pointed to Europe’s slide in share of the global economy — which is the result largely of the rise of China and other emerging powers — and said the “decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.””Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”As Trump seeks an end to the Ukraine war that would likely favor Russia gaining territory, the strategy accused Europeans of weakness and said the United States should focus on “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”- Updated ‘Monroe Doctrine’ -Trump since returning to office in January has ordered sweeping curbs on migration, after a political career built on fanning fears that America’s white majority is losing its status.The strategy speaks in bold terms of pressing US dominance in Latin America, where the Trump administration has been striking alleged drug traffickers at sea, intervening to bring down leftist leaders including in Venezuela, and seeking to take charge of key resources such as the Panama Canal.The strategy cast Trump as modernizing the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine, in which the then young United States declared Latin America off-limits to rival powers.The strategy paid comparatively little attention to the Middle East, which has long consumed Washington.Pointing to US efforts to increase energy supply at home and not in the oil-rich Gulf, the strategy said: “America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”The paper said it was a US priority for Israel to be secure, but stopped short of the fulsome language on Israel used even in the first Trump administration.- China still competitor -On China, the strategy repeated calls for a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region but focused more on the nation as an economic competitor.After speculation on whether Trump would budge on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing, the strategy made clear that the United States supports the decades-old status quo.But it called on allies Japan and South Korea to contribute more to ensure Taiwan’s defense.The strategy puts little focus on Africa, saying the United States should transition away from “liberal ideology” and aid, and instead secure critical minerals.US presidents usually release a National Security Strategy in each White House term. The last, released by Joe Biden in 2022, prioritized winning a competitive edge over China while constraining Russia.

The US Supreme Court agreed on Friday to weigh in on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship.The conservative-dominated court did not set a date for oral arguments in the blockbuster case but it is likely to be early next year, with a ruling in June.Several lower courts have blocked as unconstitutional Trump’s attempt to put restrictions on the law that states that anyone born on US soil is automatically an American citizen.Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in January decreeing that children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become US citizens.Lower courts have ruled the order to be a violation of the 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”Trump’s executive order was premised on the idea that anyone in the United States illegally, or on a visa, was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the country, and therefore excluded from this category.The Supreme Court rejected such a narrow definition in a landmark 1898 case.The Trump administration has also argued that the 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War, addresses the rights of former slaves and not the children of undocumented migrants or temporary US visitors.In a brief with the court, Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, argued that “the erroneous extension of birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens has caused substantial harm to the United States.””Most obviously, it has impaired the United States’ territorial integrity by creating a strong incentive for illegal immigration,” Sauer said.- ‘Blatantly unconstitutional’ -Trump’s executive order had been due to come into effect on February 19, but it was halted after federal judges ruled against the administration in multiple lawsuits.District Judge John Coughenour, who heard the case in Washington state, described the president’s executive order as “blatantly unconstitutional.””I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is,” said Coughenour, who was appointed by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan.Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and three of the justices were appointed by Trump.Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has spearheaded the legal challenges to the attempt to end birthright citizenship, said she is hopeful the top court will “strike down this harmful order once and for all.””Federal courts around the country have consistently rejected President Trump’s attempts to strip away this core constitutional protection,” Wang said.”Depriving any US-born child of their citizenship would be devastating and profoundly cruel,” she said. “The president’s action goes against a core American right that has been a part of our Constitution for over 150 years.”

“Sinners” topped the slate of nominees for the Critics Choice Awards in Los Angeles on Friday, as the movie industry’s awards season starts to take shape.The acclaimed period horror drama, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, received a whopping 17 nods, including one for best picture, giving it early momentum as Hollywood gears up for the Oscars in March.Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” also solidified its place as a firm awards favorite with 14 nominations, including five for actors, after well-received performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn.Both top films are from Warner Bros., which streamer Netflix said Friday it would buy for $83 billion in the industry deal of the decade.Coming in a respectable third place in the tallies were “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet,” with 11 nods each.Musical juggernaut “Wicked: For Good” earned seven nominations, including best supporting actress for Ariana Grande, but Cynthia Erivo missed out in the best actress category, where Emma Stone secured a nod for her kidnap victim in Yorgos Lanthimos’s quirky “Bugonia.”Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who said this week that he would return to his home country despite being sentenced to a year in jail, will compete for best foreign language film with his “It Was Just An Accident.” However, the Cannes Palme D’Or winner was left out of the best picture race.Norwegian dramedy “Sentimental Value,” meanwhile, made the best picture list.Last season’s Critics Choice best picture winner “Anora” rode the award to victory at the Oscars, despite snubs at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards.The annual Critics Choice Awards have a relatively small voting body, but offer an insight into how the industry is thinking.Winners will be announced on January 4.