WASHINGTON (AP) — As ransomware attacks surge, the FBI is doubling down on its guidance to affected businesses: Don’t pay the cybercriminals. But the U.S. government also offers a little-noticed incentive for those who do pay: The ransoms may be tax deductible.

The IRS offers no formal guidance on ransomware payments, but multiple tax experts interviewed by The Associated Press said deductions are usually allowed under law and established guidance. It’s a “silver lining” to ransomware victims, as some tax lawyers and accountants put it.

But those looking to discourage payments are less sanguine. They fear the deduction is a potentially problematic incentive that could entice businesses to pay ransoms against the advice of law enforcement. At a minimum, they say, the deductibility sends a discordant message to businesses under duress.

NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T will join its media operations with those owned by Discovery, creating a new company in a $43 billion deal that will oversee CNN, HBO, TNT and TBS along Discovery’s Food Network, HGTV and others.

With the agreement Monday, AT&T is pulling back from a yearslong campaign to break into the streaming and entertainment sector, where big players are slugging it out with increasingly large war chests dedicated to premium and original content.

That arena that has been flooded in the past two years with new players including those owned by AT&T and Discovery, which operate HBO Max and Discovery+, respectively.