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Hightimes Holding Corp., whose stable of cannabis-focused publications includes High Times, Dope and Culture, has announced the signing of a letter of intent to acquire California-based cannabis holding company Humboldt Heritage Inc. and its subsidiaries Humboldt Sun Growers Guild and Grateful Eight LLC. Hightimes says the acquisition gives them cannabis growing, processing and product manufacturing capabilities, and will make the company one of California’s largest vertically integrated operators. “High Times’s mission is to connect consumers to cannabis—not only the best access and experience, but by producing the best products available for our consumers across the country, and eventually the world,” said Hightimes Holding Corp. executive chairman Adam Levin.
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Lee Enterprises, which owns such newspapers as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Arizona Daily Sun, has launched Health Bright Marketing, a full-service marketing company that specializes in healthcare organizations. Health Bright is headquartered in Michigan alongside Sunny Media, a Lee Enterprises-owned agency specializing in marketing services for the automotive industry. “Health Bright is equipped to provide broad-reaching, impactful marketing solutions to healthcare organizations of all sizes,” said Lee operating vice president and vice president of advertising Ray Farris. The company also announced that it has named Mark McDowell vice president of Health Bright Marketing. Lee closed a deal on March 16 to buy 31 daily newspapers, including the Buffalo News, from Berkshire Hathaway and its BH Media Group.
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W magazine, which Condé Nast sold to Future Media Group in June, is going on hiatus. The magazine’s next print issue, which had been set to publish in May, is being postponed indefinitely. A report in the New York Times said that editor Sara Moonves called her staff on Monday to inform many of them that they were being furloughed. Those who work on the publication’s online content are staying on, but their salaries will be cut back. While Future Media Group chief executive Marc Lotenberg told the Times that the coronavirus pandemic was partly to blame for the hiatus, he also acknowledged that W’s payments to its vendors have been late since January. The Times report noted that people on the editorial team remain hopeful that another buyer might emerge to take the title.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
