CNET Hit by Layoffs but Says Cuts Are Unrelated to Use of ‘Emerging Technologies’ Like AI

Gisele Bundchen has said her divorce from Tom Brady was “the death of my dream”.The 42-year-old Brazilian model and American former NFL star, 45, were married for 13 years before finalising their divorce in October last year. Speaking to Vanity Fair magazine about the end of their relationship, Gisele said: “It’s tough because you imagine your life was going to be a certain way, and you did everything you could, you know?” Gisele described the speculation that her marriage ended due to Brady’s U-turn in returning to the NFL – following his retirement announcement in February 2022 – as “very hurtful” and “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard”.

Facing the music. American Idol contestant Sara Beth Liebe is calling out Katy Perry after the judge made a not-so-nice joke about motherhood on the show.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor TikTok, trying to fend off potential U.S. government ban over security fears related to the app’s Chinese ownership, is touting new figures reflecting how pervasive and popular it is in America. TikTok announced that as of February 2023, the short-form video app has more than 150 million monthly active users in the U.S. In addition, it said, it has almost 7,000 employees in the United States. And it also claims that TikTok “has evolved into the preferred platform” for nearly 5 million American businesses, most of which are small and midsize companies. “We’re honored to be a home for our immensely diverse community in the United States, made up of nearly half the country’s population, including book lovers, foodies, families, emerging artists and so much more,” the company said in the announcement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After a strategic review, Amazon intends to lay off 9,000 more employees — on top of the 18,000 job cuts it previously announced, CEO Andy Jassy announced Monday. The latest round of cuts will mostly affect employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS), People, Experience and Technology (PXT), advertising and Twitch divisions, according to Jassy. The company’s senior management team expects to make final decisions on which jobs will be eliminated by “mid to late April,” the CEO said. “This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy wrote.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After more than two years, YouTube has lifted its suspension on Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former U.S. president who was booted from major internet platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. “Starting today, the Donald J. Trump channel is no longer restricted and can upload new content,” YouTube said in a statement Friday. “We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election.” YouTube added that Trump’s “channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.” The channel currently has 2.64 million subscribers. The most recent videos uploaded to it (on Jan. 12, 2021) are clips from the far-right OANN (One America News Network) coverage a Trump press conference on the border wall in Texas.

Former TOWIE star Ferne McCann has used her reality series First Time Mum to address last year's voice note scandal, which saw an anonymous Instagram user leak a number of voice messages alleged to be from Ferne. In the leaked messages Ferne, 32, could be heard making disparaging remarks about a number of people, including her former pals Sam Faiers and Billie Shepherd.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UPDATED: Reddit was suffering an hours-long issue on Tuesday that made the popular discussion site inaccessible for many users — and the company didn’t have an ETA on when it will be resolved. In an update at 2:43 p.m. PT, Reddit’s status page said, “We’ve identified a fix which may take some time to implement, in the meantime ready your bananas (or eat them!).” User reports of problems accessing Reddit’s website and apps spiked around noon PT on Tuesday, topping more than 60,000 outage reports, according to monitoring site Downdetector. The Reddit status page, at 12:18 p.m. PT, posted, “Investigating – Reddit is currently offline. We’re working to identify the issue” and subsequently said the problems stemmed from an “internal systems issue.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is pink-slipping another 10,000 employees, coming on the heels of laying off 11,000 last fall. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and CEO, announced the planned cuts in a memo to employees Tuesday as an “update on our Year of Efficiency.” The 10,000 layoffs represent 11.6% of the 86,482 full-time employees Meta reported as of the end of 2022. Zuckerberg said Meta also is instituting a hiring freeze, canceling about 5,000 open job positions. “Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired,” Zuckerberg wrote in the memo (read it below).

Proud of her baby bump! Amid Sadie Robertson’s second pregnancy, the reality TV alum has opened up about learning to embrace her growing figure.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In the wake of the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Wrapbook, a company that provides payroll services for TV and film productions, said payments submitted through its platform will be subject to delays. In messages to clients Friday, Wrapbook said payroll-processing delays caused by the failure of SVB — which came after a historic run on the bank’s deposits — may continue into next week. The shutdown of SVB “will cause payroll to be delayed today, March 10th 2023, and impact the processing of uncashed checks,” Wrapbook said in a statement. The company said it is working to resume payroll processing with SVB while at the same time seeking to process payroll payments with another banking partner.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor About one-fourth of Roku’s cash and equivalents — nearly half a billion dollars — has been held in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was shut down by financial regulators Friday after it collapsed. And the streaming platform company said it’s unsure the extent to which it will be able to recover that cash. SVB, after it faced a run on deposits and failed to raise capital to make up the shortfall, was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the FDIC as receiver of its assets. Roku disclosed in an SEC filing that about $487 million of its $1.9 billion in cash and equivalents is held at SVB, or about 26% of the company’s cash and cash equivalents balance as of March 10. The remaining $1.4 billion is “distributed across multiple large financial institutions,” Roku said in the filing.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Hernan Lopez, former head of Fox International Channels and founder of podcast startup Wondery, was convicted on charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe South American soccer officials in order to secure exclusive broadcasting rights for 21st Century Fox. In April 2020, federal prosecutors indicted Lopez along with another former 21st Century Fox executive, Carlos Martinez, alleging they were part of a conspiracy to pay millions of dollars annually to FIFA officials in South America between 2000-15 in exchange for broadcasting rights to the Copa Libertadores club tournament as well as confidential bidding information for U.S. broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments.

Susan Lucci is in good health following her second emergency heart surgery last year. Speaking with People at the 75th Annual Writers Guild Awards this past weekend, the "All My Children" star had an update on her recovery. "I'm doing really well," Lucci told the outlet.

purported dating tactics, to his new book.“By the way, I have a little gift for our studio audience. Look under your seats, the gift is — it isn’t there!” Oliver joked.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In a wide-ranging restructuring, SiriusXM is eliminating 475 jobs — or about 8% of its headcount — with CEO Jennifer Witz citing economic uncertainty and a need to operate with “greater agility and efficiency.” The satellite radio and audio streaming company is the latest media company to pare back its headcount. Nearly every department across SiriusXM will be affected by the layoffs, Witz wrote in a memo to staff Monday announcing the cuts, which the company disclosed in an SEC filing. “The investments we are making in the business this year, coupled with today’s uncertain economic environment, require us to think differently about how our organization is structured,” Witz wrote. The “decision to reduce our workforce was required in order for us to maintain a sustainably profitable company.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler as the gyrating rock ‘n’ roll icon, has been streamed for a total of about 2.7 billion minutes by HBO Max viewers in the U.S. since it came to the platform Aug. 8, 2022, according to new data from Nielsen. That makes “Elvis” the most-streamed title on U.S. subscription services among the films nominated for in the Oscars best picture category this year — but only if you are looking at the platforms for which Nielsen reports metrics. What’s important here: Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings do not include Paramount+, which added “Top Gun: Maverick” on Dec. 22, whereupon it became the service’s most-streamed movie premiere to date. Nielsen also does not report streaming estimates for Showtime, which has the rights to best-picture frontrunner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Ryan Seacrest is still happy to be hosting . Seacrest and the  crew, including judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan took over ET, asking each other questions about season 21 and the craziest auditions they've witnessed to date.«Yes. Yes, I am,» Seacrest said when asked if he's still happy hosting the singing competition series. «I really like the live shows.»This group has been together for six seasons, and they've seen some things in that time.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Neal Mohan posted his first open letter to creators as YouTube’s new boss, coming after CEO Susan Wojcicki stepped down last month. Mohan, previously the video platform’s chief product officer, detailed new features and tools coming in 2023 and beyond. “Creators and artists are the heart of YouTube, and I’ll continue to put them first,” Mohan, whose new title is SVP, head of YouTube, wrote in the letter, continuing the tradition of Wojcicki’s regular updates to creators. “In today’s challenging macroeconomic climate, we’re offering opportunities to grow a business on our platform.” Wojcicki exited as CEO after nine years at the helm but will continue in a role as an adviser to Google and Alphabet. According to Mohan’s letter, he first visited YouTube’s offices 15 years ago when it was located above a pizza parlor: “In its earliest start-up days, I saw YouTube’s potential. Now, I’m incredibly excited to lead it into the future.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Dish Network is working to recover from a cyberattack that disrupted its internal servers and customer-service operations — and said the hack may have resulted in the theft of personal information. On Feb. 23, Dish execs announced on the operator’s earnings call that the company had experienced a network outage. After an investigation by cyber-security experts and outside advisers, Dish determined that the outage was due to “a cyber-security incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities,” the company disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday. On Monday, Feb. 27, Dish said, it “became aware that certain data was extracted from the corporation’s IT systems as part of this incident” and said it’s possible that an investigation “will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jean Smart is “doing well” following a recent heart procedure. The “Hacks” star announced on Feb. 23 that she had undergone an unspecified procedure. Production on Season 3 of the HBO Max series has paused while she is on the mend. “She’s doing well,” co-star Hannah Einbinder told Variety on the red carpet at the SAG Awards. “She’s recovering. We just visited her.” Co-star Poppy Liu added, “She requested a lot of photos from all of us. We will be FaceTiming with her.”