The Brief

The Food and Drug Administration approved a new round of vaccines against COVID-19.

The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer and its partner BioNTech were approved Monday for people 12 and older and under an emergency use authorization for children ages 6 months to 11 years old.

"Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death," said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency's rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated."

The vaccines target the omicron subvariant called XBB.1.5, which is no longer the most common strain in circulation. The vaccine makers and FDA say that the vaccine should still provide good protection against COVID. Recent studies support that.

"The data so far suggest that the new COVID vaccines should be really quite effective against even the new emerging variants that we have seen come up in the last weeks," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown School of Public Health who served as the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator. "So I'm actually quite optimistic this new vaccine is going to be protective."

The shots would be given as a single dose for most people 5 years of age and older, regardless of prior COVID-19 vaccination history.

Children younger than 5 may be eligible for multiple doses of this season's vaccine if they had not previously finished a three-dose series with earlier COVID-19 vaccines.

Moderna and Pfizer say they have produced ample supplies of their vaccines.

Recommendations for vaccine rollout are in the worksA panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meets Tuesday to make recommendations on the rollout of the vaccines.

The CDC is likely to recommend the shots for anyone who's at high risk for serious complications from COVID, such as older people and those with weaker immune systems or other health problems.

It's unclear what the CDC will recommend for younger, otherwise healthy people, including children.

Some outside experts think everyone who's eligible should get boosted, especially because the number of people catching the virus and getting so sick they're ending up in the hospital and dying has been rising again for weeks.

"When it comes out, I will get one. I will encourage friends and family to get one," says Dr. Robert Wachter of the University of California, San Francisco. "I think it's important for us to maintain our immunity because COVID is still around and as we're seeing now it's still capable of infecting a lot of people and hurting and killing some of them."

Jha agrees.

"For younger, healthy people I say: 'Look, getting the vaccine will reduce your risk of you know just being out of school, being out of work for a while. It reduces how much you transmit it. There are a lot of good reasons to get your annual COVID shot," Jha says.

"I understand that you know it's been a long pandemic and people just want to move on. The best way to move on is just to get your COVID shot and know that's going to provide a good amount of protection," Jha says.

How many people will get the new vaccines?

Others argue the focus should be on those at high risk because most people are still well protect against severe disease from previous vaccinations and infections.

"Protection against severe disease is already quite strong so an additional booster doesn't add all that much protection," says John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "So it's less important for healthier people compared to people in frail health."

It's unclear how many people want another shot. Only 17% of those eligible for the last booster got one.

"I am worried about whether Americans are going to agree to take this booster in large numbers, and if they do whether they'll walk not run," says Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. "It's really important that Americans get this booster. It's the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself and your family."

The FDA says people should wait at least two months since their last shot to get boosted. Some experts says people should wait at least three months since the last vaccination of infection, while others recommend waiting four to six months.

But some people may want to wait until a couple weeks before when they may be most likely to catch the virus, such as when they're planning to travel, some experts say. Others warn that could be risky because they could catch the virus in the meantime.

"To me some of this gets to be like amateurs trying to time the stock market, which usually goes badly," Wachter says.

Scott Hensley contributed to this report.

News that Warner Bros. Discovery is up for sale has Hollywood buzzing. The legendary film studio, which has grown to include streaming services and cable channels, is currently accepting non-binding bids until Thursday. According to company spokesperson Robert Gibbs, they expect to have a decision about the sale by Christmas.

It's become something of a Hollywood parlor game to guess who will ultimately take over the business, which was founded in 1923 by four brothers: Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner. They owned a movie theater in Pennsylvania before coming to Hollywood to make movies.

Warner Brothers Pictures found one of its first silent picture stars in a German shepherd named Rin Tin Tin. By 1927, the studio made history with its feature-length "talkie" picture: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.

Over the years, Warner Brothers has made or distributed countless iconic films including: Casablanca, The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon in the 1940's. The list goes on, with titles like A Clockwork Orange, Goodfellas, Barbie, as well as Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes cartoons.

Warners Brothers has had multiple owners over the decades. Three years ago, Warner Media, as it was called, merged with Discovery. And in June, the company announced it would split in two, with film, TV and streaming studios in one camp, and in the other, mostly legacy cable channels, including CNN.

The planned split has not yet happened, and a new buyer might get the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery and its film and TV libraries.

As the film industry continues to consolidate, there's speculation that Warner Brothers' old rival Paramount could take over. Having just merged as Paramount Skydance, CEO David Ellison has already made several overtures.

The idea of streaming giant Netflix buying the company has raised antitrust concerns on Capitol Hill. In an earnings call last month, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors, "We've been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks. There is no change there."

Industry watchers suggest other suitors could be Comcast, Amazon, or an investor who's not already in the entertainment business.

Regardless of whoever does end up buying the company, theater owners say they hope making movies for cinemas will be a priority.

"As long as we have more movies," says Daniel Loria, senior vice president at The Boxoffice Company, which analyzes data from studios and theaters. "That doesn't mean the same amount, doesn't mean less, but more movies. I think you're going to find folks in the movie theater industry support any business decision that gets us there."

Loria recalls that after Disney purchased Fox and Fox Searchlight, their combined studios significantly reduced the number of films they released in the theaters. Crunching the numbers, Loria says in 2016, a year before the merger announcement, Disney and Fox released a total of 38 theatrical films. This year, the consolidated studios released 18.

That's a problem for theater owners who've been struggling to bring audiences back to cinemas after the COVID-19 pandemic shut them down; they're competing with movie-watching on TVs, computers and phones.

Some theater owners and cinephiles also fear studio conglomerates will only greenlight a few big-budget blockbusters, leaving the lower budget indies behind.

"The concern is you're going to see less of that risk taking, less of that experimentation and less of that embracing new directors, new filmmakers in the future," says Max Friend, the CEO of Filmbot, the ticketing platform for independent cinemas in the U.S. "It's really important that there are studios that are funding and supporting, cultivating that kind of work."

He points out that this year, Warner Brothers made a string of critical hits, including Ryan Coogler's Sinners, the horror film Weapons and Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another.

Friend wonders if the next owner will take similar risks with future original, creative films.

Warner Bros. Discovery is a financial supporter of NPR.

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A downtown hearing kicked off Wednesday, during which a federal judge will consider holding the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court. The hearing is the latest step in a long-running legal saga regarding the city's response to the region’s homelessness crisis.

The hearing was ordered by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who has been overseeing a settlement in a lawsuit brought against the city by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of downtown business and property owners. L.A. Alliance sued the city, and county, in 2020 for failing to adequately address homelessness.

Several witnesses are expected to testify during the contempt-of-court hearing, including Gita O’Neill, the new head of the region’s top homeless services agency, and Matt Szabo, the L.A. city administrative officer.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger watched at least part of Wednesday’s hearing in the courtroom.

Why now?

Carter said in court documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations under court orders. During a hearing last week, the judge pointed to several delays, including recently reported issues related to data and interviewing city employees.

The judge noted that similar concerns have come up at previous hearings. Carter told attorneys for the city in March 2024 that he “indicated to the mayor that I’ve already reached the decision that the plaintiffs were misled” and “this is bad faith,” according to court transcripts.

The judge said in a Nov. 14 order that he’s concerned the “delay continues to this day.”

The contempt hearing is expected to cover whether the city has complied with court orders and provided regular updates to the court under the settlement agreement.

Reducing delays

Attorneys for the city have pushed back against the hearing, filing objections with the judge and making an unsuccessful emergency request with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block it from happening.

City authorities also asked the appeals court to press pause on the judge’s order to appoint a monitor in the case to make sure the city stays on track with the settlement. The city argued that Carter handed the monitor “a blank check to interfere with the democratic process,” according to court documents.

The appeals court partly denied the city’s request. It allowed Wednesday’s hearing to move forward, but it agreed to pause the appointment of Daniel Garrie as monitor.

In light of that response, attorneys for the city have argued that looking at the city’s cooperation with Garrie “would be inappropriate” during the hearing and that L.A. “cannot be held in contempt for either the substance or the manner of its compliance with the order,” according to court documents.

Previous hearings related to the settlement have elicited tense questioning of witnesses and harsh words from the judge, who has been vocal about reducing delays and moving the case forward.

In an opening statement Wednesday, Theane Evangelis — one of the attorneys representing the city — urged the judge to “turn down the heat” on the closely watched case. Evangelis said the “city is constantly under fire” in court while L.A. has made “enormous strides” in getting people off the streets.

Elizabeth Mitchell, lead attorney for L.A. Alliance, said the city treats transparency as a burden.

She said Wednesday that the “city still fights oversight harder than it fights homelessness” and that the court should address L.A. 's “consistent” delays throughout the case.

What’s next?

The hearing will resume Dec. 2, when more witnesses can appear in person.

City authorities told the court they believed a one-day hearing wouldn't be enough time to go over all the evidence.

If the judge does find the city of L.A. in contempt of court and that it "isn't doing what it promised to do," the consequences could range from nothing all the way up to serious sanctions, according to Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance.

Umhofer told LAist after the hearing that sanctions could include the court ordering more intensive monitoring of the city’s performance, imposing new requirements on the city, monetary penalties or possibly a receivership.

Carter previously stopped short of seizing control of the city’s hundreds of millions of dollars in homelessness spending and handing it to a court-appointed receiver, deciding against that option in a June ruling.

L.A. Alliance is considering asking for an extension to the settlement agreement, Umhofer said.

“The city has gotten away with not complying for a very long time,” he said. “So extending the agreement can be among the things that we might ask for ... given the pattern of delay and obstruction."

Evangelis and Bradley Hamburger, another attorney representing the city, declined LAist’s request for comment after the hearing.