Lawsuit claims A&E’s ‘Storage Wars’ show is rigged

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some of the valuables found hidden in abandoned lockers on A&E’s “Storage Wars” have been added by producers to deceive viewers, a former cast member of the show claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

David Hester‘s suit claims producers have added a BMW Mini and newspapers chronicling Elvis Presley‘s death to lockers in order to build drama for the show and that his complaints about the practices led to his firing.

Hester is seeking more than $ 750,000 in his wrongful termination, breach of contract and unfair business practices lawsuit. A&E Television Network declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.

“Storage Wars” follows buyers who bid for abandoned storage lockers hoping to find valuables tucked inside.

“A&E regularly plants valuable items or memorabilia,” the lawsuit states. Hester’s suit claims he was fired from participating in the series’ fourth season after expressing concerns that manipulating the storage lockers for the sake of the show was illegal.

He claims that producers stopped adding items to his units after his initial complaints but continued the practice for other series participants. The lawsuit alleges entire units have been staged and the practice may violate a federal law intended to prevent viewers from being deceived when watching a show involving intellectual skills.

“Storage Wars” depicts buyers having only a few moments to look into an abandoned unit before deciding on whether to bid on it at auction. The lawsuit claims some of the auction footage on the show is staged.

Hester, known as “The Mogul” on the show, has been buying abandoned storage units and re-selling their contents for 26 years, according to the suit.

Nielsen Co. has ranked “Storage Wars” among cable television’s top-ranked shows several times since its 2010 debut.

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Teva CEO promises to reshape, refocus company by 2017

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Teva Pharmaceutical Industries‘ new Chief Executive Jeremy Levin promised on Tuesday to reshape the company into “the most indispensable medicines company in the world” and to provide significant value to its shareholders along the way.

At a meeting in New York with investors and analysts, Levin, who took over as CEO in May, said Teva would sustain “profitable growth” through 2017 and beyond despite numerous challenges, such as the looming 2015 patent expiration of its most important branded product, the multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone. It accounts for about 20 percent of Teva sales and some 50 percent of its profits.

Teva said it would continue to return money to shareholders through its dividend and $ 3 billion share buyback program, but it did not announce increases to either.

By 2017, Levin said, “Teva will be a reshaped company,” and one that will be more transparent and accountable to Wall Street and its investors than it has been in the past. The Israel-based company provided more details about its cost-cutting plans, areas of focus going forward and new product development.

Investors were not immediately convinced and Teva shares were down 1.9 percent just ahead of the market close in New York.

Levin said that in the future he does not want Teva to be so dependent on one product for a significant portion of its profits, in part through growth of branded generics in emerging markets and through its joint venture with Procter & Gamble Co on over-the-counter consumer products.

But Levin, a former executive of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., said the world’s largest maker of generic drugs would increasingly focus on bringing new medicines to market in its core areas of expertise, such as central nervous system disorders and respiratory diseases.

He said it also would focus on what Teva is calling new therapeutic entities, or NTEs. Those could be new uses, formulations, delivery methods or combinations of existing products.

Levin said China represents an enormous opportunity for future sales of respiratory disease products. “We haven’t yet scratched the surface of how to get into that part of the world,” he said.

NEW DRUGS

Teva has 15 drugs in late-stage development and another 13 programs in mid-stage trials, but has discontinued 12 other products in its pipeline to focus on core areas of expertise.

The company has $ 10 billion available for business development over the next five years.

It took a step toward adding to its portfolio of branded medicines earlier on Tuesday by announcing a deal for worldwide rights to an experimental pain drug being developed by Xenon Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company founded by Michael Hayden, Teva’s new chief scientific officer .

Hayden said NTEs, as they come from proven effective medicines, would provide high returns with much lower risks than developing new molecules. He said the company set a goal of approving development of 10-15 NTEs in 2013 and getting them to market beginning in 2016.

Hayden was particularly enthused by the prospects for Teva’s experimental multiple sclerosis drug laquinimod, a neuroprotective medicine with potential to address progressive as well as relapsing MS. It could hit the European market next year, but U.S. regulators have asked for another Phase III study before considering the drug for the world’s largest market.

Teva also sees the possibility of combining laquinimod with Copaxone, which works through a different anti-inflammatory mechanism, to better treat MS as well as address other neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, ALS and Parkinson’s disease.

The company sees prospects for extending Copaxone use beyond the patent expiration with a new, more convenient, three-times-a-week version compared with its current daily formulation. That could reach the market in 2014.

Teva is testing the sleep disorder drug Nuvigil, which it acquired with its $ 6.5 billion purchase of Cephalon last year, for bipolar disorder – a use that could substantially boost sales. The company sees 2013 Nuvigil sales of $ 280 million to $ 320 million, with a possible bipolar approval coming in 2014.

MIS-SIZED OR SMALL DEALS

While Teva was built through a series of large acquisitions, Levin reiterated his desire for mid-sized or small transactions, whether through licensing deals, acquisitions or strategic alliances with large pharmaceutical companies.

The company, whose shares have badly underperformed those of its smaller rivals during the last two years, said on November 30 that it would streamline operations and cut costs by $ 1.5 billion to $ 2 billion during the next five years, with most of the savings realized in 2014 and 2015.

Teva provided details on Tuesday of where it would find much of the savings, including $ 400 million to $ 700 million by centralizing global purchasing power rather than local procurement of goods. It sees another $ 150 million to $ 175 million in savings from shifting away from many small production facilities and instead relying on larger, more efficient manufacturing sites.

A move to centrally controlled supply chain inventory levels could save another $ 110 million to $ 140 million, the company said.

Levin said Teva would also continue to divest non-core assets, a process it began by selling its U.S. animal health business to Bayer for up to $ 145 million.

“We have a plan that’s reasonable and achievable,” Teva Chairman Phillip Frost said.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Dan Grebler and Tim Dobbyn)

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With Chavez Ailing, Venezuela is Front and (More) Center

Is Chavismo, the brand of export-ready, nose-thumbing leftism practiced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, much possible with him no longer in power?

Unlikely, says the market, which has bid up Venezuelan debt, sending benchmark yields to a five-year low, on speculation that the ex-paratrooper will be unable to complete his third term after acknowledging the return of his cancer. The country’s bonds are up 45 percent this year, the second-best showing in all emerging markets, next to tiny Côte d’Ivoire. The Caracas stock exchange—oxymoronic, if you think about it—is up nearly 300 percent year-to-date.

Since taking office in 1998, Chavez, 58, has expropriated more than 1,000 companies and pushed through price controls to turn South America’s biggest oil producer into an example of socialism.

On Monday, Chavez shuttled back to Cuba for further surgery after exhorting his countrymen to vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro if he is unable to stay in office. Just two months after winning re-election for a third six-year term,“El Comandante” was out of the public eye for three weeks leading up to Dec. 7.

“Any successor, whether from the opposition, or handpicked by him, will be more moderate, more market-friendly than Chavez has been,” says Kathryn Rooney Vera, a macroeconomic strategist with Miami-based Bulltick Capital Markets.

The average yields on the South American country’s dollar debt fell to 9.4 percent on Dec. 6, the lowest since February 2008, after rising as high as 11.51 percent following Chavez’s reelection, according to the JPMorgan EMBI Global Index (JPM). The yield on Venezuela’s dollar bonds due 2027 is at its the lowest since November 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“This is not Cuba, nor is it a monarchy where a king designates the next king,” remarked Henrique Capriles, the economically more moderate candidate who opposed Chavez in October, on Sunday. “The last word belongs to the people.” Translation: Capriles is raring for another chance at the presidency.

Venezuelan law stipulates that if Chavez cannot carry out his duties, his vice president would take over until the beginning of a new presidential term on Jan. 10. Should Chavez then not be able to attend his inauguration, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly would assume power while elections are arranged within 30 days. If Chavez does take office but falls too ill within his first four years, his vice president would assume the presidency for 30 days while elections are held.

Venezuela remains one of the more peculiar stories in all emerging marketdom. Thanks to underinvestment by Chavez and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, the country has experienced declining oil production despite having the world’s largest proven reserves—an especially costly missed opportunity for an economy with such high fiscal deficits, under a ruler whose time in office has coincided with oil prices soaring from $ 10 a barrel to triple digits. Even so, Chavez has never defaulted on the nation’s external debt.

Bulltick’s Vera thinks a change of presidential power—particularly a Capriles ascension—could keep pushing down Venezuela’s benchmark borrowing costs to as little as a third of the yield they hit last year.

That speaks volumes about the clout one man has had on a nation’s reputation with markets. “To oversee 14 years of economic decay and still remain so popular …,” she says, “well, no one has Chavez’s charisma.”

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

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So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

RELATED: Jon Huntsman Finds His Voice by Sounding Like a Dad on Twitter

The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

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‘Skyfall’ launches back to top spot with $10.8M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster “Skyfall” has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $ 10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $ 261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $ 918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “Skyfall,” Sony, $ 10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $ 3,170 average, $ 261,400,281, five weeks.

2. “Rise of the Guardians,” Paramount, $ 10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $ 2,858 average, $ 61,774,192, three weeks.

3. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” Summit, $ 9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $ 2,511 average, $ 268,691,029, four weeks.

4. “Lincoln,” $ 8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $ 4,427 average, $ 97,137,447, five weeks.

5. “Life of Pi,” Fox, $ 8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $ 2,828 average, $ 60,948,293, three weeks.

6. “Playing For Keeps,” FilmDistrict, $ 5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $ 2,027 average, $ 5,750,288, one week.

7. “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney, $ 4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $ 1,770 average, $ 164,402,934, six weeks.

8. “Red Dawn,” FilmDistrict, $ 4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $ 1,538 average, $ 37,240,920, three weeks.

9. “Flight,” Paramount, $ 3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $ 1,288 average, $ 86,202,541, six weeks.

10. “Killing Them Softly,” Weinstein Co., $ 2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $ 1,158 average, $ 11,830,638, two weeks.

11. “Silver Linings Playbook,” Weinstein Co., $ 2,171,665, 371 locations, $ 5,854 average, $ 13,964,405, four weeks.

12. “Anna Karenina,” Focus, $ 1,544,859, 422 locations, $ 3,661 average, $ 6,603,042, four weeks.

13. “The Collection,” LD Entertainment, $ 1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $ 1,060 average, $ 5,455,328, two weeks.

14. “Argo,” Warner Bros., $ 1,482,346, 944 locations, $ 1,570 average, $ 103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. “End of Watch,” Open Road Films, $ 751,623, 1,259 locations, $ 597 average, $ 39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. “Hitchcock,” Fox Searchlight, $ 712,544, 181 locations, $ 3,937 average, $ 1,661,670, three weeks.

17. “Talaash,” Reliance Big Pictures, $ 449,195, 161 locations, $ 2,790 average, $ 2,397,909, two weeks.

18. “Taken 2,” Fox, $ 387,227, 430 locations, $ 901 average, $ 137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. “Pitch Perfect,” Universal, $ 305,765, 387 locations, $ 790 average, $ 63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. “The Sessions,” Fox, $ 218,973, 197 locations, $ 1,112 average, $ 4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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C-Sections Save Kids and Moms in Tanzania

It never ceases to amaze me how much the world says it wants to save children’s lives and how rarely it tries to do the one thing that has been proven to protect more youngsters than anything else–keeping their mothers alive. (Maybe if it was called “orphan prevention?”) That is why I was so pleased to hear that Tanzania‘s efforts to expand skilled medical care to all women during labor and delivery have started to pay off. Dying during childbirth–typically from bleeding, high blood pressure or infection–is one of the most common causes of mortality for women in the poorest regions of the world–despite the fact that death in these situations is largely preventable.The president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, spoke on October 2 at the United Nations in New York about the encouraging results of a pilot program designed to safeguard the lives of pregnant women in the remotest parts of the country–far from any hospital or major medical center. He began, however, by reciting a few sobering statistics. Currently, about 454 pregnant women die for every 100,000 live births of children in Tanzania. That ratio translates to about 8,500 women dying during or shortly after childbirth each year in Tanzania (population 46 million). Or another way of looking at it, 23 women die during childbirth each and every day there. By contrast, the maternal death rate in the U.S. was 12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2007, or 548 women across the country annually .The main idea for improving the maternal death rate in Tanzania (or any other poor country) is simple to explain and supported by solid evidence–although the logistics for putting it into place can be daunting. However it takes some getting used to–and a bit of background information–for people who are used to living in the richest parts of the world.First, the background information. Ideally, when a pregnant woman develops an infection, has a worrisome increase in blood pressure or starts bleeding excessively, you’d like to treat the cause–with antibiotics, antihypertensives or anti-clotting medication, as needed. But these medications or, more often, the people with the knowledge needed to administer them correctly during pregnancy are often not available in the poorest areas of the world. On the other hand, delivering the baby right away, via cesarean section, can frequently solve the immediate problem and save both the mom’s and child’s life or simplify their subsequent treatment.Now, you might think that correctly giving medication is easier than performing surgery, but in fact, that is not always the case. It can actually be easier and safer to train nurses and clinical officers (individuals who are trained to give basic medical care in many poor countries but who are not medical doctors) to perform cesarean sections in many areas of the world where access to sophisticate medical care is simply unavailable.And so that is what Tanzania did. With support from Bloomberg Philanthropy, the government’s Ministry of Health expanded access to emergency obstetric care in a few health care districts by training non-physicians to perform cesarean sections and upgrading rural health centers so that the operations could be performed there.The results were so promising that the country is expanding its efforts, this time with $ 8 million in support from Bloomberg Philanthropy and another group called the H & B Agerup Foundation. As announced at the October press conference, the rate of women dying during childbirth in one coastal Tanzanian health district where cesarean sections were more widely available fell by 32 percent in two years. That may not seem like a lot when the burden is so great, but it gives reason to hope that the trend can be turned around–even under very difficult circumstances. After all, as President Kikwete said, “It is not fair for a woman to die for giving birth, for giving life to another human being.” 

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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Behind Alcatel-Lucent’s Desperate Search for Cash

Alcatel-Lucent, the Paris-based telecom gear maker born of a 2006 transatlantic merger, has entered a desperate new phase in its struggle to stay afloat. As Bloomberg News reported on Dec. 4, it is in talks with Goldman Sachs (GS) and other banks to obtain at least €1 billion ($ 1.3 billion) in financing.

The deal would buy the company some time as it faces €2.3 billion in debt repayments over three years. It probably would have to sell off some major assets and pledge others, however—such as patents held by its venerable Bell Labs subsidiary—as collateral, the corporate equivalent of hocking the family jewels. “Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) is now using more or less last-resort financing options,” says Alexander Peterc, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas (BNP) in London.

It would be a humbling blow—yet it may already be too late for Alcatel-Lucent to repair its fundamental problem: It is simply too inefficient and starved for cash to compete successfully against rivals.

Its weakness was further underscored this week, when Chinese gear maker ZTE (763) obtained a record $ 20 billion credit facility from China Development Bank. Already the world’s fifth-largest supplier of wireless equipment, ZTE is likely to surpass Alcatel within two years and move into third place worldwide behind China’s Huawei Technologies and Sweden’s Ericsson (ERIC).

Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen, who took over in 2008, has struggled to get the company back on track through a series of job reductions and smaller asset sales. Even so, its costs are out of whack with competitors’. Even taking into account 5,500 job cuts announced in October, revenue per employee was €49,700 ($ 65,000), at least 14 percent less than those of rivals Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, according to a Bloomberg News analysis.

To reach similar levels of productivity, Alcatel-Lucent would have to shed another 10,000 workers, about 15 percent of its workforce. Verwaayen said earlier this year that such drastic cuts were “out of the question” and the French government and labor unions would fiercely oppose them.

Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent is burning through an average €700 million euros in cash annually and had made a profit only one year out of the past six. On Dec. 4, its already junk-rated debt was downgraded further by Moody’s Investors Service (MCO), which said it didn’t believe the company could “materially” reduce its cash burn this year.

The financing plan being negotiated with banks would involve Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse (CS) providing a first tier of financing, with a second tier including Citigroup (C) and possibly JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and European banks such as Barclays (BCS), Bloomberg News reported. Collateral could include its patent portfolio, partly inherited from Bell Labs, which was part of Lucent Technologies at the time of the 2006 merger. Alcatel-Lucent is considering the sale of such assets as its undersea fiber-optic cable unit.

Some other gear makers are downsizing in the face of competition from China as well as weak sales in Europe. Finnish-German joint venture Nokia Siemens, for example, is cutting 23 percent of its ranks. Verwaayen told analysts last month that Alcatel-Lucent would “look at the reality of the market from a cost point of view, not assuming that Europe will come back next year.”

Cutting costs will be particularly challenging for Alcatel-Lucent, though, because it’s involved in so many businesses—a fact the company bragged about in the 2006 merger, when it said it had “the most comprehensive wireless, wireline, and services portfolio in the industry.”

With reporting by Marie Mawad, Adam Ewing, Matthew Campbell, and Beth Jinks

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Amazon’s Android Appstore explodes, downloads increase 500% over last year

Amazon’s (AMZN) Appstore is on fire. While the marketplace may not boost as many apps as Google’s (GOOG) Play Store, it has seen substantial growth in the past year. In fact, the company announced on Thursday that its Appstore has seen downloads increase more than 500% since last year. Amazon also revealed that the number of developers utilizing in-app purchasing doubled in the third quarter and that 23 of the top 25 grossing apps now incorporate the technology.

“Amazon offers the best end-to-end solution for app and game developers,” said Aaron Rubenson, Director of Amazon Appstore for Android. “Developers can use Amazon Web Services’ building blocks as the infrastructure for their games. To enhance customer engagement, they can add features like GameCircle’s Leaderboards, Achievements, Friends, and Whispersync. Amazon’s In-App Purchasing allows developers to generate additional income. Finally, since discovery can be a major challenge for app developers, we’re providing more and more ways to help developers reach customers on Amazon, Kindle Fire devices, and in our Appstore. We’re working hard to make lives easier for developers, and to give them more ways to grow their business.”

The success of Amazon’s Appstore is directly related to the success of its Kindle Fire line of tablets. Unlike most Android devices, the Kindle Fire does not include access to Google Play and instead must rely solely on Amazon’s offering for content and applications.

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Bond movie “Skyfall” beats “Lincoln” at box office

(Reuters) – James Bond showed remarkable staying power as the latest installment of the spy series, “Skyfall,” captured the box office title and collected $ 11 million in its fifth week in U.S. and Canadian movie theaters, outgunning Steven Spielberg‘s “Lincoln” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the final installment of the blockbuster vampire series.

“Skyfall,” the 23rd film in the series featuring Agent 007, also led movies at the box office when it first opened on November 2 and is already the best-selling movie in the 49-year old series. This weekend, it became the highest grossing movie in Sony Pictures‘ history with $ 918 million in ticket sales worldwide. The film distributed by Sony‘s Hollywood studio, has collected nearly $ 262 million in domestic sales, according to the movie tracking site Hollywood.com.

The animated “Rise of the Guardians” from Dreamworks Animation was second with $ 10.5 million in ticket sales. The movie, which was made for $ 145 million, opened with a disappointing $ 23.8 million when it first hit movie theaters on November 21. Since then, it has been steadily working its way toward becoming a solid family hit this season.

“Rise of the Guardians, which features Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and other childhood favorites who join together to save the world, was one of two family movies in a season traditionally heavy in family films. The other, Disney’s “Wreck-it Ralph,” collected $ 4.9 million for seventh place.

“Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the box office leader for the past three weeks, tallied $ 9.2 million in ticket sales. The five-movie series, released by Lions Gate Entertainment, is based on Stephenie Meyer‘s best-selling book about young vampire love and has collected more than $ 1.3 billion in overall domestic ticket sales.

“Lincoln,” which chronicles the 16th president’s successful fight to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery, had total ticket sales of $ 9.1 million, according to studio estimates provided by the box office division of Hollywood.com.

“Life of Pi,” director Ang Lee’s movie about a boy who escapes a shipwreck but then shares his lifeboat with a tiger, sold $ 8.3 million in tickets to finish in fifth place. The movie, released by the Fox studio, is based on a best-selling 2001 novel by Yann Martel.

Hollywood studios shied away from scheduling major movies this weekend, steering clear of the expected blockbuster “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which Warner Brothers will release on December 14. The movie, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy novel about wizards and dwarves, features many of the same actors from the blockbuster “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

The only new major release, the romantic comedy “Playing for Keeps” starring Gerard Butler and Jessica Biel, opened with a lackluster $ 6 million, which was on target with forecasts by industry experts.

(Reporting by Ronald Grover and Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Bill Trott and Jackie Frank)

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Health workers march in Spain’s capital against cuts, reforms

MADRID (Reuters) – Thousands of health workers, on strike since last month, marched on Sunday in Madrid to protest against budget cuts and plans from the Spanish capital’s regional government to privatize the management of public hospitals and medical centers.

It was the third time doctors, nurses and health workers have rallied since the local authorities put forward a plan in October to place six hospitals and dozens of medical practices under private management. The plan also calls for patients to be charged a fee of 1 euro for prescriptions.

Workers launched an indefinite strike last month against the plan, which has not been endorsed by the centre-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Health workers in the capital are striking Monday-Thursday each week and seeing patients only on Fridays, while also responding to emergencies.

Spain’s 17 autonomous regions control health and education policies and spending. They have all had to implement steep cuts this year as the country struggles to meet tough European Union-agreed deficit targets.

Dressed in white scrubs, the protesters shouted slogans such as “Health is not for sale” and “Health 100 percent public, no to privatizations”.

“Of course, privatization can be reversed. Actually the question is not if it can be reversed, because privatization should never have a future,” said Luis Alvarez, an unemployed man from Madrid attending the demonstration.

Belen Padilla, a doctor at Madrid’s hospital Gregorio Maranon, said one million citizens had already signed a petition rejecting the plan.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by Peter Graff)

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