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Scores of staff in Britain to be made redundantGlobal advertising firm WPP will cut a total of 7,200 jobs this year, many in Britain, Europe and the US, where growth has been falling as the recession forces companies to slash their advertising and marketing budgets. About half this number has already been lost, with the rest expected to go by the end of 2009, sources close to the company say. WPP is on target to reduce its global workforce by over 6% to 106,000 by the end of 2009, either through severance or by not replacing staff who leave. Scores of people in London, as well as elsewhere in the UK, could be affected.The company's actions illustrate the severity of the slump that is hitting industries across the globe and leading to ever higher rates of unemployment.London-based WPP, headed by Sir Martin Sorrell, is one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world, with clients that include Ford, Colgate, IBM, HSBC and Kellogg's. But the downturn is forcing multinationals to rein

In this much-hyped debut, a child genius obsessively maps his Huck Finn-like world. Along the way he loses Tim AdamsOpening Reif Larsen's The Selected Works of TS Spivet brings to mind that useful old instruction of Mark Twain: 'Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.' Larsen wants to transport his reader to something like the world of Huck Finn, that place of adventure where adult codes are suspended. To this end, he places us in the head of Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet (TS for short), a 12-year-old prodigy with a compulsion to make maps of the world in order better to understand it. Spivet lives on Coppertop Ranch in the wilds of Montana and it quickly becomes clear that the cartography he is interested in is not the stuff of the Ordnance Survey. His co-ordinates are all over the place: he maps the flight paths of bats around his house, the dyn

The renaissance in Mexican movies is a fraternal affair. The movement's biggest stars-Alfonso Cuarón ('Y Tu Mamá También'), Guillermo del Toro ('Pan's Labyrinth') and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu ('Amores Perros')-are all pals, much like that band of brothers (Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola) behind American cinema's 1970s 'golden age.' Cuarón, del Toro and Iñárritu are all listed as producers of the latest Mexican delight, 'Rudo y Cursi,' which is directed by Cuarón's actual brother Carlos, and stars 'Y Tu Mamá's' irresistible duo, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna-who have been best friends since they were 9 years old. It's definitely a family affair.

Comedian Ellen DeGeneres and her actress partner Portia de Rossi topped a poll that asked American moms which celebrities they would feel most comfortable leaving their kids with....

British actor Christian Bale forced a rewrite of upcoming action movie "Terminator Salvation," because his star had grown too big for the small role of John Connor he chose, the filmmakers said on Friday....

U.S. film icon Al Pacino is in talks to star in a big-screen adaptation of Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking."...

Gossip maven Liz Smith has written about the hoped for, but unplanned sequel to the mega hit big screen musical Mamma Mia! in her recent column on WowOWow.com.

Former "Family Matters" star Jaleel White is dishing to ET about playing a flustered groom-to-be on his new Web series, "Road to the Altar" -- and he's candid about how it feels to still get recognized for his famed TV character, nerdy Steve Urkel, all these years later! On "Road to the Altar," Jaleel plays Simon, a guy who wants to marry his fiancee, but who "definitely bit off more than he can chew when it comes to the actual preparations," the 32-year-old actor tells ET. Meanwhile, Simon's fiancée is focused like a laser beam on the big day. "And that's really what it's about," Jaleel says of the series. "It's about her obsessing over every detail and me trying to pull her back."

Even though the summer movie season is synonymous with sequels, remakes, and everything else that lacks some kind of originality, movie studios are always on the lookout for the next big franchise.

A short article about the talented Adam LambertSource: K.M. LoveringPublished: May 02, 2009