Wiz Khalifa has dropped the official video for “Memory Lane,” the lead single off his album Multiverse.
The song hears Wiz going down, well, memory lane, as he reflects on his relationship with a past lover. “When the days turn to nights / I keep thinking ’bout you moving on,” he raps. “Makes me wonder if you hear this song / Would you right the way that we went wrong?”
His vision was “to do something special with the video and tell a more in-depth story” of the track, Wiz revealed in a press statement.
That story shows a woman making her way into a doctor’s office for an appointment in which a team of physicians attach wires to her head, bringing her back in time, specifically to the days of her relationship with Wiz. She’s seen looking back on the rise and fall of their former bond.
The video for “Memory Lane” is now available to watch on YouTube.
(LOS ANGELES) — Twenty-five police recruits were injured while on a run in Los Angeles early Wednesday when they were struck by a man driving the wrong way, officials said.
About 75 recruits were on the run. The group was mostly Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department recruits, but also included others from nearby police departments, including Pasadena and Glendale.
“It looked like an airplane wreck, there were so many bodies scattered everywhere,” LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a news conference.
Five of the recruits were critically hurt, four suffered moderate injuries and 16 have minor injuries, officials said at a news conference.
Injuries include head trauma, loss of limb and broken bones, officials said. At least one victim is on a ventilator, the sheriff said.
The 22-year-old driver, who has been detained, has minor injuries, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Sheila Kelliher said.
The cause of the crash is unknown. The California Highway Patrol said it’ll investigate whether the crash was intentional or the result of distracted driving or driving under the influence.
Villanueva said the driver blew a 0.0 on a Breathalyzer test.
“It looks like it’s an accident, a horrific accident,” Villanueva said.
The recruits were running on a routine route at the time of the crash, which took place around 6:29 a.m. Wednesday, while it was still dark out, officials said.
“Road guards” wearing reflective vests ran on the outside of the recruits, officials said.
The sheriff’s office also had two patrol cars escorting the runners.
The accident took place just outside of a fire station, so firefighters immediately raced to the scene, officials said.
Some recruits estimated the car was going about 30 mph, officials said.
“It is hard to see, because these young people are getting ready to go put themselves in the line of danger in their career. And who knows that while you’re training to do that you are actually in harm’s way,” Kelliher said at a news conference. “So my heart goes out to all of them as they pursue this career. I hope that they all have speedy recoveries.”
Bruce Springsteen recently sat down for his first-ever interview with Howard Stern,and now, fans are going to able to see what went down.
Variety reports the two-hour interview, which originally aired on Halloween, is set to debut on HBO on November 27 at 10 p.m.; it will also stream on HBO Max.
The conversation had The Boss discussing a wide range of subjects, including his latest album, Only The Strong Survive. It also featured several performances on guitar and piano of such tunes as “Thunder Road,” “The Rising” and “Born to Run.”
(Note Language) Neil Young is one of the many artists who in recent years have sold the publishing rights to their catalog, and for him, doing so was a no brainer.
“I wanted to sell my songs because I don’t have to worry about a f****** thing now,” he tells Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I’ve got the end of my life to go out doing exactly what it is I want to do and not doing what I don’t want to do.”
Neil adds, “That’s the way I feel about it. I don’t have to go on a tour if I don’t want to go on a tour.”
But even with the sale, Neil insists he doesn’t want to hear his music “associated with a product or with a movement or with a politician or with a sport or with anything,” adding, “I like the songs to be the songs.”
And fans shouldn’t think the sale means Neil’s about to stop making music. “It’s what I have to do. I want to do this,” he says. “That’s why there’s 51, 52 albums because I want to do this and I can still feel it. I’d be crazy to stop.”
(NEW YORK) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday disputed a claim by Poland that a missile strike that hit a Polish village killing two people came from Ukrainian air defenses. Polish President Andrzej Duda earlier had called the incident a “tragic accident.”
“I have no doubt that it was not our rocket,” Zelenskyy told reporters. He said Ukraine should be a party to the investigation over the strike.
But U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an on-camera briefing Wednesday said there’s “nothing that contradicts President Duda’s preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland.”
The missile caused an explosion Tuesday about 10 miles from the Polish-Ukrainian border, in the farming village of Przewodow, killing the owner of a granary that was struck and a tractor driver who was transferring maize and corn to the facility, according to Poland’s Law and Justice Ministry.
In response to the incident, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday called an urgent meeting with the Polish Committee of the Council of Ministers for National Security and Defense Affairs. Duda said the NATO ally also strengthened the readiness of the Polish armed forces, including air defenses.
The Polish foreign minister also summoned the Russian envoy to explain the explosion near the Ukrainian border.
The incident came on the same day Russian forces fired 90 missiles into Ukraine, affecting power systems, enterprises and residential buildings, according to Zelenskyy.
Russia denied responsibility for the missiles that landed in Poland. After Polish authorities released images from the site, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the wreckage was elements of an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile, which it claimed is used by the Ukrainian Air Force.
Duda said that it was probably a Russian-made S-300 missile, but that there is no evidence that it was a missile launched by the Russians.
Russia claimed that its precision strikes were carried out on targets within Ukrainian territory and at a distance no closer than 35 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border.
After he was briefed on the incident, President Joe Biden spoke with Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday.
Biden expressed “deep condolences for the loss of life in Eastern Poland” and offered “full U.S. support for and assistance with Poland’s investigation,” the White House said in a statement.
Hours after the explosion, the White House held an emergency roundtable meeting with G-7 and NATO world leaders in Bali, Indonesia regarding the explosion in Poland. Biden met with leaders of Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the EU.
After the meeting, Biden told reporters it is “unlikely” that the missile that hit Poland was fired from Russia and said leaders would support the investigation into what happened.
“I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened,” Biden said.
Biden also said that recent Russian missile attacks on Ukraine have been “totally unconscionable” and were a point of discussion at the meeting. The White House also condemned the attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, calling them “barbaric.”
Russia called Biden’s response “reserved and far more professional reaction” compared to other countries.
However, Austin blamed Russia on Wednesday for the ongoing conflict.
“Whatever the final conclusions may be, the world knows that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for this incident, which launched another barrage of missiles against Ukraine specifically intended to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure,” Austin said.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Luis Martinez, Will Gretsky and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
While Brendan Fraser continues on the awards track for his performance in The Whale, you won’t see him at the upcoming Golden Globe Awards.
While the controversial Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization that runs the event, has vowed to clean up its image, the actor is standing fast.
As reported, Fraser claimed to GQ in 2018 that he was sexually groped in 2003 by Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Philip Berk, an event that contributed to a depressive spiral for the one-time box office champ. Berk, who was fired years later for making racial insensitive remarks, denied the accusations.
In 2021, the HPFA itself was targeted by a Los Angeles Times exposé that revealed the group didn’t have a single journalist of color in its ranks; that same year, Berk was fired for his emailed comments, not the Fraser accusations. The organization saw its partner NBC walk away, and held a non-broadcast, celebrity-free event in 2021.
To GQ‘s November issue, Fraser says he received a “non-apology” from the group after his accusations went viral and triggered an internal investigation into Berk’s behavior.
Now, even if he’s nominated for the January 2023 event — which seems likely — Fraser vows he “will not participate,” regardless of the fact Berk is no longer with the HFPA. “I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” Fraser said, adding, “…my mother didn’t raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that.”
The Doom Patrol star also relayed that while sharing his story was difficult, he is grateful it resonated with some fans he meets, who share that his story helped them deal with their own trauma.
(Note Language) Neal Schon isn’t happy that someone is copying the cover of Journey’s 1981 album, Escape. The guitarist has called out the Cruise to the Edge festival, accusing promoters of ripping off the image.
The Escape cover features a spaceship exploding out of a planet, leaving shattered pieces of it in its path, while the poster for Cruise to the Edge, a prog rock festival featuring Steve Hackett, Big Big Train and more, is only slightly different. It also has a spaceship bursting out of a planet, although the ship is slightly different in shape.
Well, the similarities were not missed by Schon, who shared his disdain, tweeting, “What the f*** do people think? That your (sic) not going to see this? It’s a blatant rip off.” The tweet includes a pic of the Cruise to the Edge announcement along with Schon’s comment on the pic, which reads “Give me a f***** break. It’s Journeys (sic) Escape art.”
(NEW YORK) — A rude awakening for the tech industry this year has triggered a slew of layoffs at major companies.
Sales at top tech firms have retreated from the blistering pace attained during the pandemic, when billions across the world were forced into isolation. Customers stuck at home came to rely on delivery services like e-commerce and virtual connections formed through social media and videoconferencing.
However, persistent recession fears, rising interest rates and a shift back toward a pre-pandemic lifestyle have bludgeoned the industry.
The downturn has sent stocks tumbling and companies reeling. A slew of industry stalwarts have cut a combined tens of thousands of workers in an effort to slash costs.
Here are some of the tech companies that have imposed layoffs this year:
Meta: Cut about 11,000 employees
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that the company would be laying off about 11,000 employees — an estimated 13% of its workforce.
Meta reported a second consecutive quarter of declining sales last month, as the company contends with a widespread drop in online ad spending and rising competition from TikTok. Shares of the company’s stock have plummeted about 65% this year.
“We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint,” Zuckerberg said.
“We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go,” he added.
Twitter: Cut about 3,700 employees
Days after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the company earlier this month began layoffs that will cut roughly half of its 7,500-person workforce.
“Today is your last working day at the company,” the company said in an email to employees, which ABC News has reviewed. The subject line read “Your Role at Twitter” and was sent to the personal email addresses of those laid off.
Those laid off will remain employed by Twitter and receive compensation and benefits until the first week of January 2023, though the date may vary for employees. Affected employees were already locked out of their Twitter systems, such as email and Slack.
Musk, who said he overpaid for the platform at the purchasing price of $44 billion, faces pressure to boost the company’s profits. Earlier this month, he said the company is losing $4 million each day.
Amazon: Cut about 10,000 employees
Amazon is set to lay off about 10,000 workers, marking the largest job cuts in the company’s history and the latest employee losses in a battered tech industry, the New York Times reported on Monday. The layoffs could begin as early as this week.
The cuts amount to less than 1% of the company’s 1.5 million workers worldwide, but the job losses arrive at a time when the company typically expands its workforce during the busy holiday season.
The cuts will be concentrated in the Amazon department that specializes in devices, such as the voice-assisted Alexa, the Times reported. Jobs will also be lost in retail and human resources.
Shares in Amazon are down 18% this year. Third-quarter earnings released by Amazon last month fell short of analyst expectations for revenue, sending the stock down 13% in extended trading on the day of the announcement.
Lyft: Cut about 700 employees
Rideshare company Lyft laid off about 700 workers or 13% of staff earlier this month, the company said in a memo to employees.
In the memo, co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer attributed the job cuts to “a probable recession sometime in the next year” as well as inflation and an increase in rideshare insurance costs.
The company’s stock has fallen about 71% this year, more than double the decline in the tech-heavy Nasdaq index over that period.
Laid-off employees will receive 10 weeks of pay, health care coverage through next April and assistance landing elsewhere, among other benefits, the memo said.
Stripe: Cut about 1,100 employees
Earlier this month, fintech company Stripe announced it would lay off 14% of its workforce or about 1,100 employees.
“We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding,” CEO Patrick Collison said in a memo to employees.
The company will pay departing employees 14 weeks of severance as well as their annual bonus for 2022, among other benefits, the memo added.
Redfin: Cut 862 employees
Online real estate broker Redfin laid off 862 workers or about 13% of its workforce last week, the company said in a financial filing.
The company has cut more than a quarter of its staff since April due to a housing downturn that the company expects to last through next year, the filing said.
An aggressive series of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve has sent mortgage rates soaring to a 20-year high last month, as the U.S. endures an ongoing slowdown in home sales and housing construction.
Salesforce: Cut hundreds of employees
Enterprise software company Salesforce cut hundreds of workers last week, TechCrunch reported.
In an Investor Day presentation last month, CFO Amy Weaver said the company is seeking greater profitability, as it aims to reach a 25% operating margin by 2026.
The company’s stock has dropped about 38% this year.
Microsoft: Cut nearly 1,000 employees
Microsoft last month announced layoffs for nearly 1,000 employees worldwide, the company confirmed to ABC News.
While significant, the job losses affected less than one half of 1% of the company’s 221,000 employees worldwide.
The job cuts came across different positions, levels and geographic regions, Microsoft confirmed.
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” the company told ABC News in a statement. “We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.”
Robinhood: Cut 23% of employees
Online financial trading platform Robinhood announced in August that the company would lay off 23% of its workforce, following cuts in April that affected 9% of employees.
“We have seen additional deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash,” CEO Vlad Tenev said in a blog post. This has further reduced customer trading activity and assets under custody.
Retail stock trading online soared amid pandemic-related stimulus payments in 2020 and 2021, but has waned this year as consumers face rising costs.
Coinbase: Cut about 1,100 employees
Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase in June laid off 1,100 workers or about 18% of full-time positions.
In a memo to employees, CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong cited an apparent economic downturn and an anticipated decline in trading revenue.
“We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom,” he wrote.
The company cut about 60 additional workers in its recruiting and institutional onboarding departments last week, The Information reported.
(WAUKESHA, Wis.) — Darrell Brooks is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for driving his SUV into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last year, killing six people and injuring dozens more.
Wednesday’s sentencing comes after dozens of victims of the attack confronted Brooks in angry, emotional statements on Tuesday.
Prior to Judge Jennifer Dorow’s sentencing, several people spoke on Brooks’ behalf in Waukesha County court on Wednesday over Zoom, starting with his mother, Dawn Brooks.
“Jail is not the only answer,” she told the court. “Help, treatment, hospitalization and medication — it plays a big role in preventing this, where we are today, if it would have been offered sooner.”
She also read the Maya Angelou poem “Caged Bird.”
“Everyone who suffers from mental illness is caged. All they want is to be free of their illness and become mentally well,” she said, adding that she believes society has an obligation to help others through treatment and medication.
Brooks’ grandmother, Mary Edwards, told the court that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 12.
“It was that disorder that caused him to drive through that crowd,” she said. “It is my prayer that he will be treated for this illness.”
A jury found Brooks, 40, guilty last month on all 76 counts, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide, for barreling his SUV into a Christmas parade on Nov. 21, 2021.
Those killed were Tamara Durand, 52; Wilhelm Hospel, 81; Jane Kulich, 52; Leanna Owen, 71; Virginia Sorenson, 79; and Jackson Sparks, 8.
Addressing the court on Tuesday during the first day of the sentencing, survivors detailed how Brooks robbed them of their sense of personal safety, trust and peace and affected them physically and mentally. Parents recalled frantically searching for their children, and the injuries they endured in the attack. Family members honored the memory of those who were killed. Many who addressed the court asked for the maximum sentence possible.
Several of those who spoke in court were children who recounted the horror and long-lasting impact of that day.
“I know that I lost a piece of myself that day, and I’m still trying to find it,” one young victim who was dancing in the parade when the attack occurred told the court on Tuesday.
Another dancer who was injured in the parade spoke of being scared of cars at the bus stop.
“It is getting closer and closer to Nov. 21 and I don’t think I’m ready for this day to come,” the 12-year-old victim told the court on Tuesday. “On this day each year, I and many others will think of how a peaceful event that has been a tradition in Waukesha for over 50 years, and brought smiles and laughter to everyone, turned into tragedy.”
The sentencing hearing was briefly paused Tuesday morning after an unknown person threatened a mass shooting at the Waukesha County Courthouse, authorities said. The threat is under investigation and security at the courthouse was increased, the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office said.
Brooks was also briefly removed from the courtroom on Tuesday for what Dorow described as his continued “defiant behavior,” which had included shouting at and interrupting the judge and prosecutors.
Brooks initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease but withdrew the plea in September. He dismissed his public defenders during the trial and went on to represent himself.
Prior to the start of the trial, Brooks’ mother had written to the judge in September asking that he not be allowed to represent himself in court because “he is not stable mentally enough,” Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN reported at the time.
(NEW YORK) — Twitter employees have till Thursday evening to commit to being “extremely hardcore” or accept three months of severance upon their exiting the company, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk wrote in a company-wide email. The internal email sent out this morning was obtained by ABC News and first reported by Platformer.
With the subject line “A Fork in the Road,” Musk wrote: “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore.”
“This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he added. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
For those who wish to be part of the “new Twitter,” Musk directs employees to “click yes” on a forms link embodied in the email.
“Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance,” Musk wrote. “Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”
Twitter will from now on be more “engineering-driven,” he wrote — with less focus on design and product management.
“Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway,” Musk wrote. “At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
On Tuesday, Twitter fired “dozens” of employees over comments they made on an internal Slack channel criticizing new owner Elon Musk, two former employees had told ABC News.
Controversy has surrounded Musk since he purchased the social media site at the end of October for roughly $44 billion.
In the days since he acquired Twitter, Musk fired top executives, laid off half of the company’s staff, formed a content moderation council that will review account reinstatements and revamped the platform’s subscription service, Twitter Blue.
ABC News’ Max Zahn and Teddy Grant contributed to this story.
