Reuters World News - Paramount deal, Germany elections, AI at the UN (Updated)

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Paramount reaches a deal with California and 11 other states suing it, setting up what would be one of the largest media mergers in history. AI is on the agenda at this year's UN General Assembly. And Germany's far-right AfD tops a second election in a month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. And I'm Jonah Green in New York. It's Monday, September 21st. Today. Major networks suspend pool coverage of the White House after Trump's media ban. Open AI's Sam Altman prepares to address the UN with AI fears front and center at the gathering of world leaders. And another win for the far right in Germany puts Chancellor Mertz in a tight spot. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week.

Major television networks have suspended White House pool coverage after President Donald Trump banned CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from White House grounds. The move effectively eliminates the most important video source for presidential events. CNN was supposed to cover Trump's trip to New York. today, but couldn't provide the feed. The three outlets are now suing Trump and his administration, arguing the ban violates their First Amendment rights. The president defended the ban on Monday, claiming without evidence that the news media posed a national security threat. Paramount has settled with California and 11 other states that sued to block its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery.

The move clears one of the last major hurdles to a deal that would reshape Hollywood. The settlement requires independent editorial boards for CNN and CBS, and imposes a $30 million penalty for each film short of the 30 movies Paramount Pledge to release annually. But one challenge remains. The Writers Guild is still suing to stop the merger, arguing it would suppress wages and reduce output from riders. In Yemen, Iran-aligned Houthi fighters are pushing to seize strategic mountain positions after a rapid advance along the country's Red Sea coast. The developments follow a

report that President Donald Trump called off planned U.S. air strikes against the Houthis at the last minute, despite fresh Saudi appeals for military support. The conflict has already rattled the region after reported Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh. Our chief correspondent for Saudi Arabia, Timor Azari, explains why the fighting in Yemen now matters far beyond the battlefield. It's been many years since Riyadh was targeted on this scale. So it's definitely an escalation, and it's just another sign of what a difficult spot the kingdom here is in as it tries to sort of decide.

what to do in Yemen. It's been 11 years and a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and Yemen is still, you know, is still in conflict and the Houthis are still able to take territory and to threaten Saudi Arabia. Timor says the Houthi attacks have shaken the kingdom. Since 2022, Saudi Arabia has been in talks with the Houthis. They reached a ceasefire with the group. So Saudi Arabia seemed pretty secure in the belief that the Houthis would stick to that path, despite the escalation in the region. And we've really seen that turn on its head in the last few months. And now the conversation is basically about, you know, can we ever engage the Houthis in a political process again? And if we can't, then, you know, probably there's only a military solution.

If you look at Saudi's strategy over the past sort of decade, it's been predicated on this national transformation strategy where you have huge infrastructure projects and you're really trying to turn this kingdom from a place that exported oil to a place that brings people in and that people visit for tourism. And that depends on having a region that's relatively stable. And clearly, we're not heading in that direction. The widening conflict in the Middle East is just one of the topics on the agenda as world leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly. They're also going to tackle the risks of artificial intelligence, with Reuters learning that OpenA.

CEO Sam Altman will also be there to brief leaders. Our UN correspondent at Naislakovsky at the UN headquarters has more. One of the really interesting subjects is artificial intelligence. Leaders from leading AI labs have warned about the sort of breakneck speed of AI development. And Antonio Gutierrez actually has called for coordinated efforts to rein in the speed. of AI development for a long time. One important elephant, not in the room, but missing from the room or missing from the conversation,

perhaps, is President Xi Jinping of China. He's skipping the General Assembly of the United Nations and is opting for one-on-one direct conversation with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. This is inevitably going to create a split-screen moment and is going to highlight concerns about where the locus of political power is, whether it is where the two most powerful nations in the world meet in D.C. or whether it is here in the building behind me.

The far-right alternative for Germany, or AFD, celebrating another state election win, this time in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The result adds to the party's growing momentum nationwide. And with the far-left linker topping the poll in Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Mertz's conservatives are being squeezed, and he himself is fighting for political survival, calling the AFD win a disaster. Is this a disaster?

Here's Reuters correspondent James McKenzie in Berlin. Vote has tended to have moved away from the main. The mainstream parties, the Eastern Democrats and the social democrats, the social democrats, the two parties that have basically provided up the Chancellor's office between them throughout the history of the Federal Republic since the war. They're moving more and more away from the parties towards the AFT, and also towards the left parties we saw here in Berlin. And that is a sign for Nats himself, for German mainstream parties, but also for parties in

where there are also elections here. Russia's ruling United Russia Party is on course for a decisive win in parliamentary elections there, which the Kremlin has framed as a test of support for the war in Ukraine. Early results show the party winning nearly 58% of the vote, with other parties expected to take seats in Parliament,

but who broadly back the government on major issues. Critics say Russia's political system leaves little room for genuine opposition, with most anti-war candidates excluded from the ballot. Anthropic is taking its AI push beyond the digital realm into drug research. The company is quietly building a wet biology lab in the San Francisco Bay area,

and it says its clodd models could help researchers tackle rare diseases. But as tech reporter Jeffrey Daston explains, the new initiative is, a big step and a delicate moment. Anthropics AI advances at the same time as the company and others in industry are calling for a slowdown because of the danger can be a bit head spinning. And the way that Anthropic makes sense of this, the way it talks about this in at least

one key way, is that it believes it has to race to the top, it has to be the number one AI provider for the world to take seriously all of its safety concerns. So precisely because it's at the frontier, it is able to have everyone else pay attention when it says, I think there should be some policy about how fast we scale up AI, or I think we should do this kind of safety research. And so that is partly why Anthropic is still racing forward. It wants that seat at the table to guide the conversation. Jeffrey says Anthropic is already partnering with some drug makers to provide AI

to automate lab and other equipment. Pharmaceutical companies are liking that. Actually, the CEO Novartis has joined Anthropics board. At the same time, Anthropic is navigating what some sources called a trust problem. There is this concern that as those drug companies use Claude for their own, drug programs as they put their own proprietary data into Claude and talk to Anthropic about

what they're doing, that Anthropic will learn from that and then match, maybe out-compete those companies in the drug industry. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player, and 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 headline show.