Reuters World News - Netflix buys Warner Bros, Epstein records and World Cup groups

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

Netflix buys Warner Brothers Discovery studios for $72 billion. A Florida judge clears the way to unseal Jeffrey Epsteingrand jury transcripts. The 2026 World Cup draw is announced as FIFA awards President Donald Trump its inaugural peace prize. Plus, Ukraine's looming population crisis. Recommended Read: A bridge too far? Sicily project tests limits of Italy's ambitions Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. It's Saturday, December 6th, today. Netflix reaches a $72 billion deal with Warner Brothers. A Florida judge clears the way to unseal Epstein grand jury records. The World Cup groups are announced as FIFA gives Trump its inaugural peace prize. And we look at Ukraine's looming population crisis. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Netflix is signing one of the biggest deals in media history.

The streaming giant is buying Warner Brothers Discovery's TV, film studio, and streaming division for $72 billion. Netflix beat out Paramount and Comcast after weeks of tense talks, even putting up a nearly $6 billion, breakup fee to show confidence federal regulators will approve the deal. A federal judge in Florida is giving the green light to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein. These documents could shed further light on Epstein's relationships with prominent political and business leaders, including President Donald Trump. Files related to Epstein have become sought after by both Trump's political

opponents and members of his own base who are asking for greater transparency. The teams have been selected for the opening matches of the 2026 World Cup. The announcement Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C., was full of pomp and circumstance, but the main event was the draw itself, which our global sports editor, Ocean Shine, notes, delivered some notable first-round groupings for next summer's Cup. You've got some really fascinating matchups. tiny Curacao qualified for their first World Cup first up against four times champion Germany

it's an incredible match for them the entire population of Curacao would fit inside the stadium that's going to be used for the World Cup final the US of course were drawn with Paraguay with Australia which will be an interesting one Jordan at the World Cup for the first time drawn in a group with the champions Argentina that was a group of age Argentina Algeria Austria

and then finally Jordan snuck on there Brazil had a very familiar feel to it. It was almost exactly the same as 1998. They got Morocco, Haiti, and Scotland. While football was the focus, President Trump took the stage before the matchups were announced to receive FIFA's inaugural Peace Prize. FIFA President Gianni Infantino

says Trump won the award for efforts to promote dialogue and peace around the world. Canada's Prime Minister, Mark Carney, and Mexico's President Claudia Shain. also joined Trump on stage for the Dross election as co-hosts of next summer's World Cup. Our White House reporter, Jeff Mason, was at the Kennedy Center and notes the games come at a notable moment for the U.S. Well, it's going to be an interesting year for sure, 2026. The president's very proud of the fact that the World Cup is here during this term. That will be against a backdrop of a very important political year for him with the midterms coming up in November.

An exclusive Reuters investigation reveals the contractor blamed for Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades had more than a dozen penalties in the years before it was hired. Residents had raised alarms about flammable materials and smoking on site. But documents show residents were told the firm had never been prosecuted. Seven people are under arrest so far. The Supreme Court says it'll weigh in on whether President Trump can legally restrict birthright citizenship in the United States. If allowed, Trump's interpretation could change the understanding of a 19th century constitutional provision that grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil.

A vaccine advisory committee has scrapped a decades-old recommendation that all U.S. newborns receive the hepatitis B shot at U. birth. It's a major win for the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that public health experts say reverses years of progress. The committee made up of RFK appointees, after he fired the previous panel of independent experts, voted Friday to keep the shot only for newborns whose mothers tested positive for the virus. For all others, the parents will now decide when or if their child gets the vaccine. Global Health editor, Michelle Gershberg, explains.

What we are hearing from the people who have the expertise in infectious disease and medicine and epidemiology are that when you make a recommendation to roll back vaccine guidance that has been shown to help prevent more Americans from developing an illness, when you decide to roll that back and you do that without presenting evidence of the real dangers underlying your decision to do so, you create a new model for policymaking. This group of vaccine advisors intend to look at the entire U.S. childhood immunization schedule. And so the question that is top of mind is, will they use the same template, if you will, to make changes to other vaccines? After more than three years of war, Ukraine's birth rates have plummeted to historic lows.

They're now the lowest in the world. The consequences could shape the country for decades to come. In a nearly empty maternity ward in the western town of Hošcha, deputy head of the town council, Anastasia Tabakova, says women who do decide to have children face overwhelming, stress. Our correspondent, Max Hunter, visited the maternity ward. We came on one day. There was no one in there apart from the staff. On the second day, we came in. Two women were coming in for sort of early stage checkups. There were no births on both days. This was the sort of place that would

be averaging well over one birth a day 10, 15 years ago. Now, that figure's fallen so much that the government has basically decided to stop funding these lives. little maternity wards. In addition to the world's lowest birth rate, data from the CIA World Factbook shows Ukraine has the highest death rate as well. But Max says Ukraine's pattern of a rapidly shrinking population dates back long before this conflict. The 90s hit the country like a train because of massive economic problems after the fall of

communism. Ukraine's economy was really integrating with the USSR. are millions of people left to go and work in other much richer countries. Then 2014 happens. Russia takes Crimea, so you lose millions of people who are no longer under Ukrainian control. And since then, every year, there's a solid drop in terms of births. After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, young people have fled the country in droves, adding yet another layer to the problem.

The UN predicts that by the year 2100, Ukraine's population could be as low as 9 million people, down from nearly 40 million today. Researchers in Israel are hoping to make new discoveries about Jewish history, using AI to translate the largest collection of medieval Jewish documents in the world. The collection, called the Cairo-Ganesa,

is written in four languages. Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Yiddish, and contains more than 400,000 fragile records. The records were discovered in the Benezra Synagogue in Cairo, where the great philosopher Maimonides worshipped. The city was the center of global trade, learning, and science, and home to a thriving Jewish community, later expanded by refugees fleeing newly Christian Spain. Lead researcher Daniel Stokel-Benzra says the team believes AI will be able to quickly cross-reference names or words

and assemble fragments into a more complete document. They're damaged. You can see all the holes inside here. Until now, something like 15% have been transcribed manually during 100 years, 120 years of manual hard labor of very knowledgeable people. We will be able to tell whether this manuscript was written by the same person, maybe traveled from maybe Spain to Cairo, or Fustad at that period. So the possibility to reconstruct to make a kind of Facebook of

Middle Ages is just before our eyes now. And for today's recommended read, Italy's plans for the world's longest suspension bridge hits a major roadblock as auditor reject the project's plans. The dispute could delay construction for years and deepen political tensions. We'll drop a link to that in the show notes. For more on any of the stories from today, check out reuters.com or the Reuters app.

Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headlines show.