What happened
Paramount Skydance has finally completed its protracted and controversial $110 billion (£83 billion) takeover of Warner Bros Discovery. The deal brings the two Hollywood studios behind the Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and DC franchises under one roof, alongside major TV, news and streaming services such as CBS, CNN, Paramount+ and HBO Max.

Who said what
The merger creates a “Hollywood heavyweight” – re-branded under the name ‌Skydance – and hands chief executive David Ellison “control of one of the world’s largest entertainment companies”, said Reuters. Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, called it a “historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry”.

But “hundreds of Hollywood insiders said the deal would sharply consolidate corporate power, leading to job losses and further stagnation in Hollywood”, said The New York Times.

What next?
As part of a settlement agreement reached last month with 12 US states that sued to block the merger, Skydance has to release a minimum of 30 films each year and more than 180 television shows, while CBS News and CNN will also be required to maintain independent editorial boards.

What happened
A former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) has been detained on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, according to the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

August Hanning (pictured above in 2008) is accused of sharing classified information on multiple occasions. He allegedly drafted an “analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service”, said prosecutors, although it was unclear if it had reached its intended recipient. Hanning denies the allegations.

Who said what
This is “potentially one of the greatest intelligence breaches in the country’s post-Cold War history”, said Politico. The 80-year-old was head of the BND between 1998 and 2005, and these allegations spell “huge embarrassment for Germany’s scandal-plagued foreign intelligence agency”.

The case was brought after evidence was found during an investigation into the German heiress Christina Block, who is standing trial accused of “tasking a security firm with kidnapping her two children from her ex-husband’s home in Denmark”, said The Times.

What next?
Hanning will appear before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice in the coming days.

The killing of a woman in Okinawa has sparked an outcry across Japan and inflamed long-simmering tensions over the US military’s presence on the island.

US Marine Devin Ballard was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of strangling Anna Yagi, 39, whose body was found at a hotel in Naha, the largest city on Okinawa. The 20-year-old lance corporal has denied the allegations. Ballard, who was arrested in a civilian district while off duty, will remain in the custody of the Japanese authorities. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has urged US authorities to “enforce stricter discipline” of their troops in light of the “brutal and heinous” killing. On Okinawa, the incident has been met with protests and tragically bears a grim familiarity.

Crimes involving US troops stationed on Okinawa have been “a constant source of tension between Tokyo and Washington”, said The Guardian. Most of the 54,000 US troops in Japan – and 70% of their military facilities – are based on the island.

In 1995, when three American servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl, tens of thousands of people protested for months, intensifying the “anti-US sentiment” in Okinawa. And when a teenage girl was raped by a US serviceman in 2024 – one of four sexual crimes linked to US military personnel that year – the “anger erupted again”.

The killing of Yagi is emblematic of a decades-long issue for the people of Okinawa, gender and peace professor Kozue Akibayashi told Al Jazeera. “They have expressed countless times their opposition to, and anger at, the US military presence,” she said. But Tokyo has “chosen the US-Japan alliance over the safety and lives and voices” of its people.