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Hollywood icon Paramount agrees $28bn merger deal

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One of Hollywood’s oldest companies, Paramount Global, has agreed to merge with independent film studio Skydance Media.

Under the deal, Paramount’s non-executive chair Shari Redstone will sell her family’s controlling stake in the company in a complex transaction that will result in a new firm worth around $28bn (£21.9bn).

It marks the end of an era for the Redstone family, whose late patriarch, Sumner Redstone, transformed a chain of drive-in cinemas into a vast media empire.

As well as Paramount, the group includes the television networks CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and MTV.

“Our hope is that the Skydance transaction will enable Paramount’s continued success in this rapidly changing environment,” Ms Redstone said in a statement.

According to the company its TV channels have a global reach of over 4.3 billion subscribers across more than 180 countries.

The merger would combine Paramount, home of classic films such as Chinatown and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with its financial partner on several recent big releases, including Top Gun: Maverick and Star Trek Into Darkness.

Under the agreement, Skydance will invest around $8bn in Paramount, including paying $2.4bn for National Amusements, which controls the group.

National Amusements owns just 10% of Paramount Group’s shares but accounts for almost 80% of its voting rights.

Paramount said it expected to close the deal by the summer of next year.

Paramount Global traces its origins back more than a century to the founding of Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1914.

The studio has made many hit films, including the Godfather, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible series.

But the entertainment giant has struggled over the past decade. Paramount Global’s shares have fallen by more than 75% in the last five years.

Skydance is owned by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, who founded US technology giant Oracle.

The announcement came after eight months of negotiations that saw Redstone holding talks with a number of potential partners including Sony and private equity firm Apollo.

In April, Paramount’s chief executive Bob Bakish left the company after clashing with Ms Redstone over the planned Skydance deal.

The deal comes as the global entertainment industry is being transformed by the video-streaming revolution.

(BBC News)

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Anudi returns to SL

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Anudi Gunasekara, Miss Sri Lanka at the 72nd Miss World pageant, has returned to Sri Lanka following the conclusion of the pageantheld in Hyderabad, Telangana, India on May 31.

The global event, which featured contestants from 108 countries, saw Miss Thailand being crowned as Miss World 2025.

Although Anudi delivered remarkable performances throughout the competition, becoming the first Sri Lankan in history to reach the final rounds in the Head-to-Head and Multimedia categories, she did not advance into the final 40 contestants.

Thanking for her warm welcome in Sri Lanka and for the love and support from Sri Lankans throughout the competition, she pointed out that participating in the Miss World pageant was a once in a lifetime experience.

She also told reporters that she was not expecting to take part in any other pageants.

“I do not intend to take part in any other pageants. My only lifetime desire was to join the Miss world pageant. I achieved that feat. So, I do not think I need to take part in any other pageants,” she said.

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M*A*S*H actress Loretta Swit dies aged 87

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Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy awards for her role on the popular comedy TV series M*A*S*H, died on Friday, according to her representative.

She died at her home in New York at age 87, her publicist Harlan Boll told the BBC. She likely died of natural causes, although a coroner’s report is pending.

On M*A*S*H, Swit played US Army nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The series, which followed a mobile Army surgical hospital during the Korean war, ran for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983.

Swit was nominated for numerous awards, and appeared in nearly every episode of the series, including the finale which attracted a record 106m US viewers.

The show remains one of the most successful and acclaimed series in US television history. Its season finale was the most watched episode of any TV series in history when it ended in 1983.

As “Hot Lips,” Swit played a tough but vulnerable Army nurse who gained the nickname after having an affair with Major Frank Burns, who was played by Larry Linville.

The show used comedy and pranks to tackle tough issues like racism, sexism and the impacts of PTSD within the military, at a time when US forces were withdrawing from Vietnam and dealing with the consequences of that conflict.

It was based on the 1968 book, “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors,” penned by a former Army surgeon.

Swit was born Loretta Szwed in New Jersey and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Along with M*A*S*H, she also appeared in numerous other TV shows, movies and even game shows over her career.

She took to the Broadway stage in plays including Same Time, Next Year; Mame; and Shirley Valentine – a role for which she won Chicago’s top theatre prize, the Sarah Siddons Award.

Her TV work included appearances on The Muppet Show, Mission: Impossible and Murder, She Wrote.

In addition to her Emmys, Swit was nominated for four Golden Globe awards.

“Acting is not hiding to me, it’s revealing. We give you license to feel,” she said in an interview with the Star magazine in 2010. “That’s the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that’s when you’re dead.”

Speaking to an author about her character on M*A*S*H she said: “Around the second or third year, I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes. … She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.”

Swit was also an artist and animal rights activist, and established a charity to campaign against animal cruelty, according to a statement from her publicist Mr Boll.

Jamie Farr, who also starred in M*A*S*H as Corporal Klinger, called Swit his “adopted sister”.

“From the first time I met her, on what was supposed to be a one-day appearance on M*A*S*H, we embraced each other and that became a lifetime friendship,” Farr said in a statement. “I can’t begin to express how much she will be missed.”

(BBC News)

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Anudi makes history at Miss World Multimedia challenge

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Anudi Gunasekara has made history for Sri Lanka by clinching the title of First Runner-Up from Asia in the Miss World Multimedia challenge at the 72nd Miss World Festival held in Telangana, India.

This places her in the global Top 20 and earned her a position among the Top 8 winners worldwide -an unprecedented feat for a Sri Lankan contestant.

It was also Sri Lanka’s first-ever placement in the Top 20 of three Miss World fast-track events: Talent, Head-to-Head Challenge, and Multimedia.

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