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| Singer Gwen Stefani joins judges panel on NBC's 'The Voice' Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 06:36 PM PDT  Singer Gwen Stefani will be sitting alongside fellow star musicians Pharrell Williams, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton in the forthcoming season of NBC's singing talent competition "The Voice," the Comcast Corp-owned network said on Tuesday. Stefani, 44, who rose to fame as the blonde-haired sultry lead singer of Southern California rock group No Doubt, will join Pharrell in taking over from current judges, Colombian singer Shakira and R&B star Usher. NBC also said that Christina Aguilera, one of the show's original four celebrity coaches, will return for the eighth season next year. Full Story | Top |
| PR Newswire agrees to curb early access for high frequency traders Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 06:10 PM PDT By Karen Freifeld NEW YORK (Reuters) - PR Newswire will require customers that receive direct feeds of its market-moving releases to certify they will not engage in high-frequency trading on the information, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said late Tuesday. Schneiderman has been conducting a sweeping investigation of Wall Street practices that provide elite groups of traders with early access to information. Marketwired and Berkshire Hathaway Inc's Business Wire, which also distribute news releases, agreed to stop providing direct feeds to high-frequency traders earlier this year. PR Newswire has never supplied its direct data feed to high frequency trading firms, a company spokesman said. Full Story | Top |
| With Lego makeover, 'The Simpsons' gets fresh face 25 years on Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 04:32 PM PDT  By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fox's hit animated show "The Simpsons," which has used donut-loving Homer and his dysfunctional family to satirize U.S. popular culture for 25 years, is celebrating another milestone with a plastic makeover featuring Lego building blocks. "Brick Like Me," airing on Sunday, marks the show's 550th episode and adds a notch in this year's revival of the popular Danish plastic building brick, after the runaway success of February's "The Lego Movie." "The Simpsons," created by Matt Groening and premiering in 1989, has rarely changed its basic visual form in a quarter century. "Brick Like Me," the brainchild of longtime "Simpsons" writer-producers Brian Kelley and Matt Selman, will see both the cartoon characters and town of Springfield reimagined in the form of the plastic toy brick blocks. In a clip of footage shown to Reuters, Homer and Marge wake up in their 3D Lego forms and Homer tumbles, disassembling himself. Full Story | Top |
| 'Mr. Peabody & Sherman' push DreamWorks into loss Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 04:15 PM PDT (Reuters) - DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc reported its first quarterly loss in five quarters as the Hollywood studio took an impairment charge related to the weak box office performance of the movie "Mr. Peabody & Sherman". Shares of the Hollywood studio were down 1 percent in extended trading on Tuesday, after falling as much as 6 percent immediately after the results were released. Three of DreamWorks' last four movies have had weak box office returns and the company has so far taken charges totaling about $157.5 million, more than its revenue in the quarter ended March 31. The studio, which made the popular "Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda" series, is aiming to make sequels as they require less advertisement costs and their international ticket sales often exceed those of their predecessors. Full Story | Top |
| Spain charges soprano Montserrat Caballe over tax evasion Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 11:21 AM PDT  Spanish prosecutors have charged Montserrat Caballe, one of the world's best-known sopranos, with tax evasion for failing to declare some 500,000 euros ($690,900) of income, a court document showed on Tuesday. The document accuses Caballe, 80, of not declaring income from performances in 2010 in Andorra, a principality nestled in the eastern Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France. A lyric soporano renowned for her performances of Italian opera, she is also famous for collaborating with the late Freddie Mercury of rock group Queen on his hit album Barcelona - the city of her birth - and the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Spain has been cracking down on tax evasion as it attempts to fill public coffers and rein in a large public deficit during a prolonged economic crisis. Full Story | Top |
| Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher lead cast of new 'Star Wars' film Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 11:11 AM PDT  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Harrison Ford will lead returning and rising stars, including Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Andy Serkis and Oscar Isaac, for the anticipated new "Star Wars: Episode VII" film, Walt Disney Co and Lucasfilm said on Tuesday. Ford, Fisher and Hamill, who were rumored to be returning to director J.J. Abrams' reboot of the franchise, will be joined by the series' original stars Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2). ... Full Story | Top |
| "Gentleman's Guide" musical tops Broadway's Tony nominations Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 10:28 AM PDT  By Chris Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - The musical satire "A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder" led the nominations for Broadway's annual Tony awards on Tuesday, scoring 10 nods including for best musical, director and leading actor. The comedy about a would-be heir who must "eliminate" several distant relatives who stand between him and an inheritance featured no top-name stars, but beat out several high-profile new musicals, including "Bullets Over Broadway" and "Rocky," which were not nominated for the top prize. Woody Allen received a nomination for best book of a musical for writing "Bullets Over Broadway," based on his 1994 film. The show had five other nominations, most in technical categories. Full Story | Top |
| Glam Media changes name to Mode, expands into online video Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 10:14 AM PDT By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Glam Media, the online lifestyle publishing company, is changing its name to Mode Media and heading into the increasingly crowded market offering original online video programming. The company said on Tuesday it would launch 10 original online video series and create its own video production studio. The new programs, on topics ranging from food to home design, are due to debut on Tuesday on websites owned by Mode Media. Internet and technology companies such as Yahoo Inc, Aol Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp are racing to develop original online video programs, spurred by the success of Netflix Inc's House of Cards series. Full Story | Top |
| World Chefs: New York's Marc Forgione recalls surviving recession Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 03:02 AM PDT  By Richard Leong NEW YORK (Reuters) - Marc Forgione chronicles in his first book how his eponymous New York restaurant that opened in 2008 survived early tough reviews and the Great Recession and became a Michelin-star destination. This 35-year-old son of Larry Forgione, who is considered a pioneer of modern American cuisine, trained with top European and American chefs after college. Some of the recipes feature regularly at Marc Forgione, whose menu critics have praised for its use of seasonal local ingredients with modern techniques. A: I really wanted people to know the story of how everybody had to work to keep up what is now Marc Forgione and how to keep it going. Full Story | Top |
| China customs to intensify checks for harmful print material- report Monday, Apr 28, 2014 10:08 PM PDT  A China media watchdog has urged customs to intensify checks of luggage entering China to block "harmful publications," said the official Xinhua news service, as Beijing executes a selective crackdown on imported media in the name of social order. The National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications, during a meeting in the southern city of Zhuhai, called for customs officials to check all luggage crossing the border at certain key checkpoints for "harmful publications," according to a meeting circular quoted by Xinhua. Print publications are already tightly screened for dissident material smuggled across the Hong Kong border. Over the weekend, Beijing blocked Chinese websites from delivering four popular U.S. television shows, including the relatively innocuous but highly popular "The Big Bang Theory," attracting widespread popular criticism from Chinese fans. Full Story | Top |
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