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  • Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024
Anheuser-Busch InBev sees operating profits rise for 2023 despite backlash over Bud Light
Six-packs of Bud Light, Budweiser and Michelob Ultra are displayed at a liquor store, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Fairfield, Calif. Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch has reached a contract agreement with the Teamsters union that avoids a strike at its U.S. plants. The union had threatened a strike at the brewer’s 12 U.S. plants if an agreement on a new five-year contract wasn’t reached by 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
By David McHugh, Business Writer
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP -- 

Multinational beer and beverage company Anheuser-Busch InBev — maker of Budweiser, Bud Light, Stella Artois and Corona — reported on Thursday a 7% increase in operating profit for last year, even as as sales sagged in the United States due to a decline in demand for Bud Light.

The earnings news came hours after the company avoided a strike by 5,000 of its U.S. workers as negotiators reached agreement late Wednesday.

Normalized operating earnings, which exclude financial factors such as interest and taxes, rose 7% to $19.98 billion in 2023. That's the figure the company uses to demonstrate its underlying performance.

Full-year profit declined to $6.89 billion from $7.60 billion the year before. Total revenue rose 7.8% to $59.38 billion. The company's CEO Michel Doukeris cited "another year of consistent profitable growth" in which it reduced debt and saw its credit rating upgraded.

U.S. revenue declined 9.5% for the year and More

  • Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024
"Naked Gun" reboot set for 2025, with Liam Neeson to star
Actor Liam Neeson appears at the premiere of the film "Hunt For The Wilderpeople" in London. Paramount Pictures is moving ahead with a long-gestating remake of “Naked Gun,” the studio announced Wednesday. Neeson will star as the bumbling police detective Debin in the role made famous by Leslie Nielsen. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, file)
NEW YORK (AP) -- 

Lt. Frank Drebin is back on the case.

Paramount Pictures is moving ahead with a long-gestating remake of "Naked Gun," the studio announced Wednesday. Liam Neeson will star as the bumbling police detective Drebin in the role made famous by Leslie Nielsen.

Akiva Schaffer ("Hot Rod," "Pop Star: Never Stop Stopping") will direct the film, set for release in July 2025. The script is by Dan Gregor, Doug Man and Schaffer, who collaborated on 2022's "Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers."

The "Naked Gun" films, derived from the TV series "Police Squad!", were high-water marks for slapstick comedy. They ran over six years: "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad" (1988), "The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear" (1991) and "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult" (1994).

Nielsen died in 2010 at the age of 84. Before playing Lt. Drebin, Nielsen had been largely a dramatic actor.

"It's been dawning on me slowly that for the past 35 More

  • Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024
Comedian Richard Lewis, who recently starred on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," dies at 76
Comedian Richard Lewis attends an NBA basketball game in Los Angeles on Dec. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo, File)
By Mark Kennedy, Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- 

Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname "The Prince of Pain," has died. He was 76.

Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.

A regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series "Anything But Love" and the reliably neurotic Prince John in "Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men In Tights." He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," kvetching regularly.

"I'm paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I'm not thrilled about," he once joked More

  • Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024
Ryan Gosling, Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste set to perform at the Oscars
Ryan Gosling arrives at the 96th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
By Lindsey Bahr

The Oscars just got an infusion of Kenergy.

Ryan Gosling will sing the pop power ballad " I'm Just Ken " at the show on March 10, the show's producers announced Wednesday. Others set to perform their nominated original songs include Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, Jon Batiste, Scott George and the Osage Singers and Becky G.

Gosling is also nominated for best supporting actor that evening. While in character as Ken in a promo for the show with Jimmy Kimmel, he shrugged that he's not going to win. In fairness, even if it was a joke, he might not be wrong: His fellow nominee Robert Downey Jr. has been sweeping the season.

"I'm Just Ken," written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, still has a chance, however, even if the other "Barbie" song, Eilish and Finneas's soulful "What Was I Made For" seems to be the clear awards favorite to date, having already won a Grammy. But the Ken ballad is also the one everyone has wanted to see on the More

  • Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024
Zuckerberg meets LG, Samsung chiefs in Seoul as Meta ramps up AI ambitions
In this photo provided by LG Electronics, its CEO William Cho, from left, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and LG COO Kwon Bong-seok pose for a photo after their meeting at LG Twin Towers headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Zuckerberg discussed cooperation on extended reality (XR) devices with LG Electronics executives on Wednesday, as he visited South Korea for the first time in about 10 years. (LG Electronics via AP)
By Jiwon Song & Hyung-Jin Kim
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed cooperation on extended reality devices with LG Electronics executives on Wednesday as part of his visit to South Korea that highlights Meta's ambitions in artificial intelligence.

South Korea is the second leg of Zuckerberg's three-nation Asian tour that observers say is meant to discuss partnerships with tech powerhouses and forge good relations with business and government leaders in the region. He already visited Japan and will travel to India later this week.

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg met LG Electronics CEO William Cho for two hours to talk about business strategies for extended reality — known as XR — device development, LG said in a statement.

While experiencing Meta's latest virtual-reality headset, the Quest 3, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Cho "expressed a keen interest in Meta's advanced technology demonstrations, notably focusing on Meta's large language models and its potential for on More

  • Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024
After dementia reveal, producers of "Wendy Williams" documentary hope viewers see why they made it
This image released by Lifetime shows Wendy Williams, subject of the Lifetime documentary "Where is Wendy Williams?" (Calvin Gayle/Lifetime via AP)
By Alicia Rancilio

If you watched Lifetime's Wendy Williams docuseries that premiered over the weekend and felt uncomfortable, you weren't alone.

"Where is Wendy Williams?" premiered over the weekend and featured numerous scenes of the former talk show host unsteady, belligerent, confused and also drunk. Her manager would regularly find liquor bottles hidden throughout her apartment, behavior that producers say unnerved them while filming. But they say they didn't know at the time that Williams had dementia, which the public learned late last week.

"We all became very concerned for her safety. To be honest, I was so concerned she would fall down the stairs and for numerous different reasons," said Erica Hanson, an executive producer who can be seen and heard speaking to Williams at certain moments in the series.

Hanson said soon after she and the filmmakers were told Williams had dementia by her son, they turned the cameras off.

"We decided to More

  • Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024
424 Post and Harbor team to launch Culver Post
A Culver Post suite
LOS ANGELES -- 

Sound studio 424 Post and global postproduction studio Harbor have entered into a collaboration with the launch of Culver Post, a full-service post studio with future-centric 4K theatrical HDR mastering capabilities. The strategic partnership, announced by 424 Post VP of operations Richard Burnette and Harbor founder/CEO Zak Tucker combines the two companies’ decades of industry expertise and talent across picture and sound postproduction for cinema, streaming, broadcast and advertising.

Culver Post offers five stages for theatrical color grading and sound mixing. According to Harbor color scientist Matthew Tomlinson, one stage features a 34-foot, 8K Samsung IWA LED cinema display and a Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex cinema sound system with Dolby Atmos for mastering projects in 4K HDR in a theatrical setting. Able to accommodate more than 50 people, the stage provides a true cinema-style environment for HDR or SDR color grading and immersive sound More

  • Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024
PlayStation to cut about 900 jobs as layoffs in technology, gaming sector continue
A logo of Sony is seen at the headquarters of Sony Corp. on May 10, 2022, in Tokyo. Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony’s profit rose 13% in October-December on growing growing sales of music, image sensors and video games, the company said Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
By Michelle Chapman

Sony will cut about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division, or about 8% of its global workforce, becoming the latest company in the technology and gaming sector to announce layoffs.

Sony cited changes in the industry as a reason for the restructuring.

"The industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead," Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said in a blog post Tuesday. "We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future technology in gaming, so we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community."

The layoffs Tuesday arrive one month after Microsoft said it would cut nearly 2,000 workers after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. And Riot Games, the developer of the popular "League of Legends" multiplayer battle game, said in January that it was laying off 11% of More

  • Monday, Feb. 26, 2024
Motion Picture Academy separates Short Films and Feature Animation Branch into two distinct branches
Motion Picture Academy logo
LOS ANGELES -- 

The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted today to make the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch two distinct branches--the Animation Branch and the Short Films Branch.

The Animation Branch represents approximately 700 Academy members working within every aspect of the animation industry. The branch will have two governor representatives on the Board of Governors and oversee the Animated Feature Film and Animated Short Film awards.

The Short Films Branch comprises more than 200 Academy members whose artistic work encompasses both narrative and nonfiction short filmmaking. The branch will have one governor representative on the Board of Governors to be elected for a term starting in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and oversee the Live Action Short Film award.

“The Academy is dedicated to advancing and evolving with our growing global membership and with the film industry,” shared Academy CEO Bill More

  • Monday, Feb. 26, 2024
Supreme Court casts doubt on GOP-led states' efforts to regulate social media platforms
The Guardian of Law sculpture is seen at the west entrance of the Supreme Court on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
By Mark Sherman
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 

The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on state laws that could affect how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. The cases are among several this term in which the justices could set standards for free speech in the digital age.

In nearly four hours of arguments, several justices questioned aspects of laws adopted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas in 2021. But they seemed wary of a broad ruling, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett warning of "land mines" she and her colleagues need to avoid in resolving the two cases.

While the details vary, both laws aimed to address conservative complaints that the social media companies were liberal-leaning and censored users based on their viewpoints, especially on the political right.

Differences on the court Wednesday emerged over how to think about the platforms — as akin to More

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