In this Sept. 24, 2010 file photo, comedian Stephen Colbert prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts says Colbert will host this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, bringing a new touch to the annual awards show. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
By Brett Zongker
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts says Stephen Colbert will host this year's Kennedy Center Honors, bringing a new touch to the annual awards show.
The center announced Wednesday that Colbert will host the program on Dec. 7. It will be broadcast Dec. 30 on CBS. Colbert will succeed David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" in 2015.
This year's Kennedy Center honorees are Tom Hanks, Sting, Al Green, comedian Lily Tomlin and ballerina Patricia McBride.
Colbert joked that he was he stunned to receive the honor at such a young age. Then he corrected himself, saying it makes more sense for him to host the show rather than receive the award.
Walter Cronkite hosted for more than 20 years, followed by Caroline Kennedy. Glenn Close hosted last year.
This is a display of iPhone 16s in an Apple Store in Pittsburgh on Jan. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Apple on Thursday disclosed its iPhone sales dipped slightly during the holiday-season quarter, signaling a sluggish start to the trendsetting company's effort to catch up to the rest of Big Tech in the race to bring artificial intelligence to the masses.
The iPhone's roughly 1% drop in revenue from the previous year's October-December period wasn't entirely unexpected, given the first software update enabling the device's AI features didn't arrive until just before Halloween, and the technology still isn't available in many markets outside the U.S.
The countries still awaiting Apple's AI suite include China, a key market where the company continued to lose ground. Although he didn't mention China, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors on a conference call that a software upgrade enabling the AI features in more European markets, as well as Japan and Korea will be rolling out in April.
But in the past quarter Apple also was only able to eke out a modest revenue gain across its entire business, although the results came in ahead of the analyst projections that guide investors. The Cupertino, California, company earned $36.3 billion, or $2.40 per share, a 7% increase from the previous year. Revenue edged up from the previous year by 4% to $124.3 billion.
Those numbers included iPhone revenue of $69.1 billion. In China, Apple's total revenue registered $18.5 billion, an 11% decrease from the previous year.
Part of that erosion in China reflected the iPhone's shrinking market share in that country, where homegrown companies have been making more headway. Apple's iPhone year-over-year shipments in China declined nearly 10% in the most recent quarter, while native companies Huawei and Xiaomi posted year-over-year increases of more than... Read More
