Sony Pictures Entertainment is in talks to join Apollo Global Management in its $26 billion bid for Paramount Global — a partnership that would boost the private equity firm’s efforts to wrangle the prize.

If a deal were consummated, Sony would control a significant majority stake in Paramount, according to two people familiar with the discussions but who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Sony and Apollo haven’t formally made a bid for Paramount. Instead, they are on the sidelines during an exclusive 30-day negotiation period that Paramount’s independent board of directors has extended to entrepreneur David Ellison, who heads Skydance Media, the producer of “Top Gun: Maverick” and other Hollywood blockbusters.

That negotiation period expires in early May.

Biden administration restricts oil and gas leasing in 13 million acres of Alaska’s petroleum reserve

The U.S. oil industry’s top lobbying group says Biden administration rules restricting oil and gas leasing in 13 million acres of Alaska’s petroleum reserve are “misguided.” The American Petroleum Institute says the rules limit development in a region “intended by Congress to bolster America’s energy security.”

The Biden administration Friday finalized rules that would restrict new oil and gas leasing and development in portions of the federal petroleum reserve in Alaska that are considered particularly sensitive as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision finalizes protections for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska first proposed last year. Environmentalists are elated. But Senate Republicans says the Democratic president’s action will lead to energy insecurity.