Texas Instruments cuts 1,700 jobs, winds down tablet chips

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Texas Instruments is eliminating 1,700 jobs, as it winds down its mobile processor business to focus on chips for more profitable markets like cars and home appliances.

Texas Instruments said in September it would halt costly investments in the increasingly competitive smartphone and tablet chip business, leading Wall Street to speculate that part of the company's processor unit, called OMAP, could be sold.

The layoffs are equivalent to nearly 5 percent of the Austin, Texas-based company's global workforce.

"A sale would have been better than a restructuring but a restructuring is certainly better than nothing," Sanford Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said.

TI has been under pressure in mobile processors, where it has lost ground to rival Qualcomm Inc. Leading smartphone makers Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd have been developing their own chips instead of buying them from suppliers like TI.

Instead of competing in phones and tablets, TI wants to sell its OMAP processors in markets that require less investment, like industrial clients like carmakers.

TI is expected to continue selling existing tablet and phone processors for products like Amazon.Com Inc's Kindle tablets for as long as demand remains, but stop developing new chips.

"This year, the Kindle runs on the OMAP 4 and next year's Kindle is slated, we believe, for OMAP 5. We believe that program is well along to completion and do not expect that the termination of OMAP will disrupt those plans," said Longbow Research analyst JoAnne Feeney.

Amazon had reportedly been in talks to buy the mobile part of OMAP.

TI said it expects to take charges of about $325 million related to the job cuts and other cost reduction measures, most of which will be accounted for in the current quarter. Its previously announced financial targets for the fourth quarter do not include these costs, TI said.

The company, which has 35,000 employees around the world, expects annualized savings of about $450 million by the end of 2013 from the action.

TI shares rose to $29 in after-hours trading after closing at $28.76, down 2 percent on Nasdaq.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew in New York and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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R.A. Dickey, David Price win Cy Young awards

NEW YORK (AP) — R.A. Dickey languished in the minors for 14 years, bouncing from one team to another before finally perfecting that perplexing knuckleball that made him a major league star.

David Price was the top pick in the draft and an ace by age 25, throwing 98 mph heat with a left arm live enough to make the most hardened scout sing.

Raised only 34 miles apart in central Tennessee, Dickey and Price won baseball's Cy Young awards on Wednesday — one by a wide margin, the other in a tight vote.

Two paths to the pantheon of pitching have rarely been more different.

"Isn't that awesome?" said Dickey, the first knuckleballer to win a Cy Young. "It just shows you there's not just one way to do it, and it gives hope to a lot of people."

Dickey said he jumped up and yelled in excitement, scaring one of his kids, when he saw on television that Price edged Justin Verlander for the American League prize. Both winners are represented by Bo McKinnis, who watched the announcements with Dickey at his home in Nashville, Tenn.

"I guess we can call him Cy agent now," Price quipped on a conference call.

The hard-throwing lefty barely beat out Verlander in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, preventing the Detroit Tigers' ace from winning consecutive Cy Youngs.

Runner-up two years ago, Price was the pick this time. He received 14 of 28 first-place votes and finished with 153 points to 149 for Verlander, chosen first on 13 ballots.

"It means a lot," Price said. "It's something that I'll always have. It's something that they can't take away from me."

Other than a 1969 tie between Mike Cuellar and Denny McLain, it was the closest race in the history of the AL award.

Rays closer Fernando Rodney got the other first-place vote and came in fifth.

The 38-year-old Dickey was listed first on 27 of 32 National League ballots and totaled 209 points, 113 more than 2011 winner Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington lefty Gio Gonzalez finished third.

Cincinnati right-hander Johnny Cueto and Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel each received a first-place vote, as did Gonzalez. Kershaw had two.

Dickey joined Dwight Gooden (1985) and three-time winner Tom Seaver as the only Mets to win the award. The right-hander went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA, making him the club's first 20-game winner since Frank Viola in 1990, and became the first major leaguer in 24 years to throw consecutive one-hitters.

Perhaps most impressive, Dickey did it all during a season when the fourth-place Mets finished 74-88.

"It just feels good all over," he said on MLB Network.

Dickey switched from conventional pitcher to full-time knuckleballer in a last-ditch effort to save his career. It took him years to finally master the floating, darting pitch, which he often throws harder (around 80 mph) and with more precision than almost anyone who used it before him.

"I knew what I was going to be up against in some regard when I embraced this pitch," Dickey said.

He was the first cut at Mets spring training in 2010 but earned a spot in the big league rotation later that season and blossomed into a dominant All-Star this year. He led the NL in strikeouts (230), innings (233 2-3), complete games (five) and shutouts (three) — pitching through an abdominal injury most of the way.

"I am not a self-made man by any stretch of the imagination," Dickey said. "The height of this story, it's mind-blowing to me, it really is."

A member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team and a first-round draft pick out of Tennessee, Dickey was devastated when the Texas Rangers reduced their signing-bonus offer from more than $800,000 to $75,000 after they discovered during a physical that he was missing a major ligament in his pitching elbow.

Undeterred, perseverance got him to the big leagues anyway. When he failed, the knuckleball brought him back.

Among those he thanked ceaselessly for helping him on that long and winding road to success were all his proud knuckleball mentors, including Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield and Hall of Famer Phil Niekro.

"It brings a real degree of legitimacy I think to the knuckleball fraternity and I'm glad to represent them and I'm certainly grateful to all those guys," Dickey said. "This was a victory for all of us."

Dickey said he received 127 text messages and 35-40 phone calls in the moments immediately following the Cy Young announcement.

The only call he took was from Niekro, a 318-game winner from 1964-87. The first texts Dickey responded to were from Wakefield and Hough.

"Most well-deserved," Niekro said in a comment provided by the Hall of Fame. "I'm super proud of him, as a pitcher and as an individual."

Dickey has one year left on his contract at $5.25 million and New York general manager Sandy Alderson has said signing the pitcher to a multiyear deal is one of his top offseason priorities. Alderson, however, would not rule out trading his unlikely ace.

"I believe the Mets are going to be a lot better and I want to be part of the solution," Dickey said, adding that he hopes the sides can strike a deal and he'd be happy to end his career in New York.

"I want to be loyal to an organization that's given me an opportunity," he said. "At the same time, you don't want to be taken advantage of. I've been on that side of it, too, as a player."

Price went 20-5 to tie Jered Weaver for the American League lead in victories and winning percentage. The 27-year-old lefty had the lowest ERA at 2.56 and finished sixth in strikeouts with 205.

Verlander, also the league MVP a year ago, followed that up by going 17-8 with a 2.64 ERA and pitching the Detroit Tigers to the World Series. He led the majors in strikeouts (239), innings (238 1-3) and complete games (six).

Price tossed 211 innings in 31 starts, while Verlander made 33. One factor that could have swung some votes, however, was this: Price faced stiffer competition in the rugged AL East than Verlander did in the AL Central.

"I guess it's a blessing and a curse at the same time," Price said. "There's not an easy out in the lineups every game. It feels like a postseason game."

The No. 1 pick in the 2007 amateur draft out of Vanderbilt, Price reached the majors the following year and has made three straight All-Star teams.

Despite going 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA in 2010, he finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to Felix Hernandez, who won only 13 games for last-place Seattle but dominated most other statistical categories that year.

The two MVP awards will be announced Thursday. Verlander's teammate, Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, is a leading contender in the American League.

NOTES: The last AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Youngs was Boston's Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. San Francisco RHP Tim Lincecum did it in the National League in 2008-09. ... Price and Dickey became the fourth pair of Cy Young winners born in the same state, according to STATS. The others were Jim Lonborg and Mike McCormick in 1967 (California), Viola and Orel Hershiser in 1988 (New York) and Pat Hentgen and John Smoltz in 1996 (Michigan). ... Niekro and his brother, Joe, both finished second in Cy Young voting, as did fellow knuckleballer Wilbur Wood.

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“Twilight Saga” ends with movie love letter to fans

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Twilight” fans bid an emotional farewell this week to Bella, Edward and Jacob in “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” the romantic book and movie franchise that ignited a pop culture infatuation with blood-sucking vampires and werewolves.

The tumultuous love triangle between human girl Bella Swan, vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black, that has gripped avid fans known as “Twi-hards” for seven years, comes to a tantalizing end as “Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ hits movie theaters around the world.

The “Twilight” film franchise, based on a series of novels by Stephenie Meyer, rocketed the three main stars, Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob), into the spotlight and the first four films have grossed more than $ 2.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

For director Bill Condon, who shot both parts of “Breaking Dawn” together and split into two movies post-production, the fifth and final film was all about the fans – who get a surprise twist to the ending.

“The real challenge was to make sure it was a satisfying climax,” Condon told reporters. “The film opens with an overture of all the main scenes from all five movies, and at the end, I…brought (it) back to the spirit of the old movies.”

The movie pays homage to the angst-ridden teenage romance between Bella and Edward that was underscored by the off-screen real-life romance between Stewart, 22, and Pattinson, 26.

“Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ shifts the action from a love story to a family story, as the Cullen clan recruit their extended vampire family to protect Bella and Edward’s daughter Renesmee from an ancient vampire coven.

“I think it’s very sweet, especially the ending of it, I think it’s very close to the book as well. It seems to be that it’s really made for the fans,” Pattinson told Reuters.

GOING OFF BOOK

While the past four films have stayed true to the books, author Meyer and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg came up with a plot twist that adds a major scene that may surprise movie-goers.

“(The action) is off screen in the novel because we only see what Bella sees, and this was just a way of making visual what some of the other characters might have seen,” Meyer told reporters.

“It does feel very surprising. There’s something new to see but to me it doesn’t seem like it’s going hugely off the page,” she added.

While the fourth film saw Bella’s human life draw to a conclusion when she died giving birth to a human-vampire hybrid baby with new husband Edward, “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” sees Bella as a mother and a newly-transformed vampire.

“The coolest thing about vampire Bella is that I got to play her as a human for so long, and the special parts of each vampire are always informed by the great things that they were as a human and so I got to walk in those shoes,” Stewart told Reuters.

“Everything made total sense to me. I waited for so long (to play a vampire), once I finally got it, it was so comfortable, I couldn’t wait,” the actress added.

“The Twilight Saga,” first published in 2005, kicked off a wave of vampire or supernatural-themes books, films and TV shows including HBO’s “True Blood,” the CW TV network’s “The Vampire Diaries” and Richelle Mead’s “Vampire Academy” series of young adult novels.

As the sun sets on the franchise Meyer brought to life, the author said that while she didn’t rule out the possibility of finding more stories in the vampire-werewolf universe, she had closed the chapter on the Cullens.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to these (stories). Someday I’ll write down what was going to happen next. It’s sad knowing I don’t have another party with the kids again, I really hope I have a chance to at least see my friends again,” she told Reuters.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Booze calories nearly equal soda's for US adults

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans get too many calories from soda. But what about alcohol? It turns out adults get almost as many empty calories from booze as from soft drinks, a government study found.

Soda and other sweetened drinks — the focus of obesity-fighting public health campaigns — are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent, the new study found.

"We've been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new," said Cynthia Ogden, one of the study's authors. She's an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released its findings Thursday.

The government researchers say the findings deserve attention because, like soda, alcohol contains few nutrients but plenty of calories.

The study is based on interviews with more than 11,000 U.S. adults from 2007 through 2010. Participants were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours.

The study found:

—On any given day, about one-third of men and one-fifth of women consumed calories from beer, wine or liquor.

—Averaged out to all adults, the average guy drinks 150 calories from alcohol each day, or the equivalent of a can of Budweiser.

—The average woman drinks about 50 calories, or roughly half a glass of wine.

—Men drink mostly beer. For women, there was no clear favorite among alcoholic beverages.

—There was no racial or ethnic difference in average calories consumed from alcoholic beverages. But there was an age difference, with younger adults putting more of it away.

For reference, a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola has 140 calories, slightly less than a same-sized can of regular Bud. A 5-ounce glass of wine is around 100 calories.

In September, New York City approved an unprecedented measure cracking down on giant sodas, those bigger than 16 ounces, or half a liter. It will take effect in March and bans sales of drinks that large at restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands.

Should New York officials now start cracking down on tall-boy beers and monster margaritas?

There are no plans for that, city health department officials said, adding in a statement that while studies show that sugary drinks are "a key driver of the obesity epidemic," alcohol is not.

Health officials should think about enacting policies to limit alcoholic intake, but New York's focus on sodas is appropriate, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a public health advocacy group.

Soda and sweetened beverages are the bigger problem, especially when it comes to kids — the No. 1 source of calories in the U.S. diet, she said.

"In New York City, it was smart to start with sugary drinks. Let's see how it goes and then think about next steps," she said.

However, she lamented that the Obama administration is planning to exempt alcoholic beverages from proposed federal regulations requiring calorie labeling on restaurant menus.

It could set up a confusing scenario in which, say, a raspberry iced tea may have a calorie count listed, while an alcohol-laden Long Island Iced Tea — with more than four times as many calories — doesn't. "It could give people the wrong idea," she said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

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'30 Rock' heroine Liz Lemon to wed this month

NEW YORK (AP) — Liz Lemon is getting married and you're invited.

Fans of "30 Rock" might have reasonably assumed that Lemon, the harried TV producer played by Tina Fey, would ride out the series' seventh and final season as a perennial bachelorette unlucky in love. But Fey, who is also the creator and producer of the NBC comedy, clearly thought otherwise.

In the "30 Rock" episode airing Nov. 29, Lemon will wed.

Who's the lucky guy? He's Liz's latest fella, Criss Chross (played by guest star James Marsden), a Peter Pan-ish would-be entrepreneur who hatches ventures such as an organic gourmet hot-dog truck.

On Thursday, NBC made the grand announcement that Ms. Elizabeth Miervaldis Lemon, 42, would be presenting herself to be married to Mr. Crisstopher Rick Chross — "But not in a creepy way that perpetuates the idea that brides are virgins and women are property."

The invitation also specifies that guests (i.e., you viewers) should plan to "bring your own snacks."

No preview of the episode has been made available.

The series, which airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. EST, will conclude early next year.

"30 Rock" is the saga of Lemon, the overextended producer of a fictitious comedy show loosely inspired by "Saturday Night Live" (where Fey toiled for nine seasons as cast member and writer). Liz is surrounded by kookie comrades like company boss Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), her boisterously unhinged star.

A recurring theme of "30 Rock" has been Lemon's comicaly flawed love life. Short-lived boyfriends have included quirky airline pilot Carol Burnett (played by Matt Damon), immature businessman Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters) and dimwitted pediatrician Dr. Drew Baird (Jon Hamm).

But clearly there was something special about Criss, who first arrived on the scene last season.

Even before meeting him, Donaghy was disapproving: "Lemon, I have said 'Good God' to you before," he huffed, "but I don't think I've ever MEANT it until now: Good God!!!"

But Criss is different, Liz insisted: "I'm more relaxed around him. My jaws stopped popping. And for once I'm not overthinking everything."

Jack wasn't convinced. He noted that Criss is a puppy-dog-eager dork who carries a Sunglass Hut credit card and owns a ukulele plastered with an Obama sticker.

Is this a match made in heaven? The wedding invitation says, "Whatever. It's no big whoop." But the episode is sure to be a very big whoop.

___

Online:

http://www.nbc.com/30-rock

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McDonald's U.S. chief steps down

Jan Fields, president of McDonald's USA has stepped down, the company said Friday. 

Fields, 57, will be succeeded by Jeff Stratton, currently the company's global chief restaurant officer.

"This was a business decision," said McDonald's spokeswoman Heidi Barker.  She added that Fields and CEO Don Thompson had "some long discussions about the state of the business and the decision was made that it was time to make a change in the leadership of the U.S. business."

Fields' departure comes days after the Oak Brook-based burger giant announced its first monthly same store sales decline in nearly a decade.

The company has cited sluggish demand and increased competition for the decline. Barker emphasized that the decision was not made based on one month of sales, but looking at the total business with an eye on the future. Her departure is effective Dec. 1.

Jeff Stratton, also 57, who currently serves as the chain's global chief restaurant officer, will take over as president of the U.S. business. A 40-year McDonald's veteran, Barker said Stratton is credited with overseeing a number of critical initiatives, including the multi-billion-dollar restaurant remodeling program expected to boost same store sales around the world, and a new point-of-sale system which has increased restaurant efficiency and speed of service.

In the U.S. Stratton's team oversaw the redesign of the majority of the chain's 14,000 restaurants to make room for the McCafe program, which has added $1 billion in sales annually.

Fields stepped into the role in 2010, succeeding Don Thompson who is now the burger giant's CEO.  She previously served as chief operating officer of McDonald's USA, stepping into that role in 2006. Fields is a 35-year veteran of McDonald's who began her career with the company behind the restaurant counter. Barker said Fields remains active in a number of boards, including Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Fields plans to spend time with family and friends, "maybe in a warmer climate," Barker said.

"She has been a great leader and an inspiration for many folks here," Barker said. "But we felt it was time for a change."

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

McDonald's Corp. said Thursday it is replacing Jan Fields, president of its U.S. business.

The move comes a week after the world's largest hamburger chain reported its first monthly decline in global restaurant sales in nine years.

Fields, 57, will be succeeded by Jeff Stratton, currently the company's global chief restaurant officer.

Company spokeswoman Heidi Barker Sa Shekhem said the move was "a business decision by senior management."

"We feel that now was the right time to make a change in leadership for the U.S. business," Shekhem said. She said she did not know what Fields's future plans were.

McDonald's replaced its chief executive officer in July.

Fields has been with McDonald's for more than 35 years.

MCD data by YCharts

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40-year-old fatally shot inside Gresham neighborhood store

A man was found fatally shot in a store on 1100 block of West 84th Street. (WGN-TV / November 14, 2012)

By Peter Nickeas and Julie Unruh




Chicago Tribune

7:24 a.m. CST, November 14, 2012

A man was shot and killed as he worked behind a plexiglass barrier in a convenience store in the Gresham neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

Police responded to a call of shots fired in the 1100 block of West 84th Street around 7:40 p.m. Tuesday and found Elahmadi Goba, 40, lying behind the counter, authorities said.

He appeared to have been shot by someone who fired through the plexiglass that separated the register area from the rest of the store, police said. The glass had at least one bullet hole in it and the door to the closed off area was locked, police said. Paramedics had to force their way in.

A resident in the neighborhood, Katrina Simmons, described Goba as a "good man" who was pleasant to his customers.

"(If you’re) short a couple dollars, he’ll be like, 'Yea, go ahead, go ahead on and get you what you need. You could always come back and give me back whatever you have to owe me or whatever,' " she said. "He was a good man."

It's not clear if the store was robbed, police said. The store is just east Paul Cuffe Math-Science Technology Academy Elementary School.

An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Goba had lived in the 500 block of East 79th Street, officials said.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

Peter Nickeas is a Tribune reporter. Julie Unruh is a WGN-TV reporter.

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AT&T sees $1 billion opportunity in company cybersecurity

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Companies will double or triple spending on cybersecurity in the coming years as attacks grow more sophisticated and frequent, creating a billion dollar business opportunity for U.S. carrier AT&T Inc, it said on Wednesday.

Attacks on AT&T networks have doubled in the past four months and now tend to be more targeted to evade detection, Frank Jules, president of AT&T's global enterprise unit, said at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference.

"We see them on a daily basis and they are now getting smaller instead of coming in huge waves, which were easier for us to detect," he said.

"Every chief information officer at major corporations that I meet wants to talk about security. I think this will be a $40 billion market one day."

Jules said AT&T's strategy for its global business solutions unit was to accompany big multinationals as they expand overseas to provide them not just with connectivity but new products and services like security and machine-to-machine technology, which puts mobile SIM cards into everything from cars to vending machines.

AT&T said in early November it would boost capital spending on its U.S. network by about 16 percent to $22 billion a year for the next three years to upgrade its wireless and wireline networks.

The announcement came after two consolidation deals this autumn look set to change the competitive landscape in the U.S. telecom market in which Verizon and AT&T are leaders and Sprint Nextel Corp and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile are trying to keep up with their network and marketing firepower.

Japanese mobile operator Softbank Corp announced in mid-October it would buy about 70 percent of Sprint for $20.1 billion, which some have predicting will give Sprint the capital to expand its network and potentially buy peers.

Deutsche Telekom is also seeking to merge its T-Mobile USA unit with smaller rival MetroPCS in an effort to keep up with larger operators in the United States.

Competition regulators scuppered a plan for AT&T to buy T-Mobile last year over concern it would lead to higher prices for consumers and a worse service.

Asked to comment on the Softbank deal, Jules said it was too early to see how newly-strengthened Sprint would impact the market.

"We wish we were able to buy T-Mobile, but we weren't permitted to do that. This new Sprint will be a competitor that we'll watch very closely," he said.

(Reporting by Leila Abboud; Editing by Mark Potter)

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AP source: Marlins trade 3 stars to Blue Jays

MIAMI (AP) — Reacting to the Miami Marlins' latest payroll purge on Twitter, slugger Giancarlo Stanton gave it three exclamation marks.

He wasn't exaggerating. The Marlins' spending spree a year ago didn't work, so they went the salary-dumping route again Tuesday, shedding some of their biggest stars and multimillion-dollar salaries in one blockbuster deal.

The Marlins swapped high-priced talent for top prospects, trading All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, left-hander Mark Buehrle and ace right-hander Josh Johnson to the Toronto Blue Jays, a person familiar with the agreement said.

The person confirmed the trade to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the teams weren't officially commenting. The person said the trade sent several of the Blue Jays' best young players to Miami.

The stunning agreement came less than a year after the Marlins added Reyes, Buehrle and closer Heath Bell in an uncharacteristic $191 million spending binge as they rebranded and moved into a new ballpark. The acquisitions raised high hopes, but the Marlins instead finished last in the NL East.

Salary-paring actually began in July, when the Marlins parted with former NL batting champion Hanley Ramirez, second baseman Omar Infante and right-hander Anibal Sanchez, among others. Bell, the team's high-profile bust, was traded to Arizona last month.

Under owner Jeffrey Loria, long the target of fan acrimony, the Marlins have usually been among baseball's thriftiest teams. Management pledged that would change with the new ballpark, but team officials were disappointed with attendance in 2012, and revenue fell far short of their projections.

Even so, the blockbuster deal came as a shock. The players involved must undergo physicals before the trade becomes final.

Stanton, the Marlins' precocious slugger, wasn't involved in the deal but wasn't happy about it.

"Alright, I'm (mad)!!! Plain & Simple," he tweeted shortly after the news broke.

The housecleaning was also the subject of much mirth on Twitter.

"Good trade, I think we won it," tweeted FakeSamson, a site that mocks team president David Samson.

Toronto star Jose Bautista had a different interpretation.

"Its a good day to be a bluejay!" he tweeted.

The swap was easier for the Marlins to swing because of their longstanding policy of refusing to include no-trade clauses in contracts.

The deal gave an immediate boost to the Blue Jays, who have not reached the playoffs since winning their second consecutive World Series in 1993. Toronto went 73-89 this season and finished fourth in the AL East for the fourth straight year, again falling short in a division that includes big spenders.

The Marlins changed their name a year ago but failed to change their losing ways, and instead of contending for a playoff berth, they finished 69-93, their worst record since 1999.

The Marlins drew more than 2.2 million fans but had projected attendance of nearly 3 million. Team officials blamed the difference in part on manager Ozzie Guillen's laudatory comments early in the year about former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which antagonized a large segment of an already-small fan base.

Guillen was fired after only one season with the team and replaced this month by the Marlins' former backup catcher, Mike Redmond.

President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest hinted at a big change in direction less than two weeks ago.

"We've kind of lost our Marlins way," he said. "The real Marlins way was we always outperformed our challenges. Whatever our challenges were, whether it was playing in a football stadium or weather or a lack of fans, or lack of revenue for that matter, we always found a way to outperform our challenges."

It now appears management will field a team with the expectation players will outperform their contracts, which was the franchise model for most of the past decade. The roster shake-up during the season reduced the payroll to $90.3 million from $112 million on opening day, and now could be dramatically lower next season.

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Anne Hathaway reveals oatmeal paste diet for ‘Les Miserables’

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood starlet Anne Hathaway credits a strict diet of dried oatmeal paste for helping her shed some 25 pounds (11 kg) for her role in the forthcoming big screen musical “Les Miserables.”

“I had to be obsessive about it – the idea was to look near death,” Hathaway told Vogue about preparing for her role as the consumptive prostitute Fantine in the musical version of Victor Hugo‘s classic 19th century French novel.

Hathaway, 30, told the December edition of the magazine, that she first lost 10 pounds (5 kg) to begin filming and then later dropped another 15 pounds (7 kg) by eating nothing but two thin pieces of oatmeal paste a day.

“Looking back on the whole experience – and I don’t judge it in any way – it was definitely a little nuts,” said “The Dark Knight Rises” actress. “It was definitely a break with reality, but I think that’s who Fantine is anyway.”

Extreme body changes have become part of Hollywood lore, even factoring into the marketing of films. Natalie Portman received much publicity for dropping some 20 pounds (9 kg) for her Oscar-winning role as a ballerina in 2010′s “Black Swan.”

Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the famished star of the life-or-death thriller “The Hunger Games,” made waves last week vowing never to diet for a role.

Hathaway said it was a rocky transition back into everyday life after filming.

“I was in such a state of deprivation – physical and emotional,” she said. “When I got home, I couldn’t react to the chaos of the world without being overwhelmed. It took me weeks till I felt like myself again.”

Directed by Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”), “Les Miserables” is scheduled to be released on December 25 in the United States and is seen as a strong contender for Oscar nominations. The film version of the stage musical also stars Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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