Yahoo was interested in selling back most of its 40% stake in Alibaba of China and all of its 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, potentially earning the company billions of dollars, but talks to sell its stakes in its Asian partners collapsed.  Clay Moran, an analyst with the Benchmark Company, said, “It’s a significant disappointment, but I don’t think it’s the end of the line.  This has been an ongoing saga and this is just another paragraph in a longer story.”

After several days of negotiations in Hong Kong, the talks to put together a tax-free transaction ended, according to people not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.  The talks between Yahoo and Alibaba and Yahoo Japan’s majority owner, Softbank, were weeks away from being able to announce a deal.  Yahoo still needed formal assurances from the Internal Revenue Service that the transaction would be tax-free.

One of the people briefed on the matter said Alibaba’s lead negotiator, Joe Tsai, told his Yahoo counterpart, Timothy Morse, that the two sides were at an impasse and would most likely need to seek a different deal.  Questions about breakup fees payable if the deal fell apart appeared to hamstring the negotiations.  The value of the company’s stake in Alibaba, about $12 billion as of December, could have been another factor in the breakdown of the negotiations.

Hedge fund Third Point disclosed that it planned to challenge Yahoo for four of the company’s eleven board seats hours after reports about the end of the talks emerged.  Third Point’s nominees are the firm’s chief, Daniel S. Loeb; former chief executive of NBC Universal Jeff Zucker; former Treasury Department official and hedge fund executive Harry J. Wilson; and chief executive of the media consulting firm Activate Michael J. Wolf.  Third Point is one of Yahoo’s biggest shareholders.

The rise in profits occurred despite a dip in advertising sales.  CBS depends on advertising revenue more than other major media companies do because it lacks cable channels, although it does own Showtime.  Next winter’s Super Bowl will be televised by CBS and the network’s expectations are to earn $4 million for each 30-second long commercial spot aired during the game.

Chief executive, Leslie Moonves, said in a conference call with investors that the company’s performance for full year 2011 was “terrific and much better than expected.”  He also issued a bright prediction for the coming year, showing his delight about election ad spending that is expected to be “extremely robust.”  Mr. Moonves commented, “While it may not be very much fun for the politicians, it should be very good for us.”

The quarterly results were disappointing to some analysts when compared to the same period in the previous year.  In the fourth quarter of 2010, the company benefited from spending on political ads and a syndication sale of the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” crime drama.  This year, a $46 million restructuring charge was taken because of a revamp of “The Early Show,” but CBS Corporation’s chief financial officer, Joseph Ianniello, said the company would recoup the costs in 12 to 18 months with the replacement for “The Early Show,” called “CBS This Morning.”

CBS has had some recent successes.  The company received industry praise for the first season of “Homeland,” a drama about antiterrorism efforts that premiered last fall and the CBS broadcast network had success with “2 Broke Girls” and “Person of Interest.”  Mr. Moonves said, “We have fewer requirements for new programming” for next fall because the prime-time schedule is relatively stable, keeping expenses down.

CBS is reportedly in talks with Netflix about “a potential deal to produce a show for them.”  Netflix is currently in the process of acquiring several original TV shows for its service, but refused to comment on its talks with CBS.  Major media companies see Netflix and services like it as a new revenue stream and often express interest in finding a way to work with the service.

1,400 of the jobs will be shifted to San Antonio, Oklahoma City, or the Seattle area, by transferring workers from Wichita or hiring new employees.  800 engineering and project management jobs will be moved to Boeing’s plant in Oklahoma City.  300 to 400 modification and maintenance work employees will be relocated to San Antonio.  200 jobs related to the tanker project will be moved to Washington.  The rest of the positions will be eliminated.

Politicians in Kansas expressed anger about the job cuts and the plant closure, saying that it was a betrayal of promises made last year by the company when they helped the company win an Air Force contract for aerial refueling tankers worth $35 billion.  Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, said that he was “outraged” that Boeing was moving the work to Washington State.

He said, “It is hard to believe that conditions would have changed so rapidly over the past few months to bring about the decision to not only move the tanker finishing work elsewhere, but to also close down the entire facility.  The fact that Boeing is now refusing to honor its commitment to the people of Kansas is greatly troubling to me and to thousands of Kansans who trusted that Boeing’s promise would be kept.”

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has been charged with creating plans for the Pentagon to adjust its war strategies and weapons programs to save $450 billion or more over the next 10 years.  Mark Bass, a vice president for a division in Boeing’s military business, told reporters that the plant was too large and inefficient to be competitive as the cost cuts at the Pentagon start to affect business.

Mr. Bass said labor costs at the plant were higher than at rival sites.  The plant has 97 buildings and stretches across two million square feet of space.  The plant competes for maintenance work with smaller companies that can operate out of two aircraft hangars.  A study by Boeing concluded that the plant’s business “would continue to erode.”

Boeing’s other contracts for modifying and maintaining military aircraft are nearing their end.  Company officials said some of the modification contracts, for airborne command and logistics-support planes, were ending, and plans for updating B-52 bombers had not materialized as expected.  Boeing is now planning to finish assembling the giant refueling planes in Wichita.  The president’s planes, known as Air Force One, are maintained by Boeing at the Wichita plant.

Daniel Radcliffe (Photo by Bianca Smith)

“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe has admitted being drunk while filming several scenes in the movie, although he attests that he never drank at work.

“I can honestly say I never drank at work on Harry Potter. I went into work still drunk, but I never drank at work. I can point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes,” the 22-year-old actor said.

Radcliffe quit drinking in 2010. Before that, however, he reported drinking every night, and that it became so bad, he became “a recluse at 20”, staying at home alone to drink, just so that his drunk behaviour does not get seen in public.

He added he was grateful the paparazzi were never able to capture him in his drunken states.

Radcliffe said his dependence on alcohol began while he was filming “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” as his fame grew and, with it, the pressure that comes to those in the limelight.

He was 18 years old at the time – seven years from the day he was shot to international stardom with the first Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.

Eventually, he realized he was destroying himself and became a teetotaller in August 2010.

Today, he is promoting his first film after the Potter series, “The Woman in Black.”

Radcliffe has previously received critical acclaim for his work in the theatrical productions “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Equus”.

Beyonce in concert in July 2011 (Source: asterix611)

Pop star Beyonce Knowles, 30, and her rapper husband, Jay-Z, 42, have announced the birth of a daughter on Saturday.

The very couple were the subject of massive rumours via the Internet. There was speculation that the singer had already given birth prior to Saturday. However she was spotted out visibly pregnant on New Year’s Eve in New York City.

The baby was named Blue Ivy Carter and weighed exactly 7 pounds.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, released a song titled ‘Glory’ shortly after the birth of the baby. In the song, he sang of the couple’s struggle to have a baby, even mentioning a miscarriage in the past for Beyonce.

The couple secretly married in New York City in 2008 after 6 years of dating.

Many patients at Lennox Hill Hospital, on the Upper East Side of New York City, bitterly complained to the media. They claimed that due to the superstar couple’s presence at the hospital, they were denied access to their own family members over the weekend.

A spokesperson for the hospital denied all of those claims. They also stated that the Carter family was not given any special accommodations, and no patients were denied any access into the hospital.

Many celebrities around the world took to the social media giant Twitter to congratulate the couple.

Cold Play frontman Chris Martin and his actress wife Gwyneth Paltrow are very close friends of the couple. Paltrow took to Twitter with the following: “Welcome to the world, Blue. We love you already.”

Latoya Jackson quipped, “A lovely congratulations to Beyonce and Jay-Z for bringing a wonderful bundle of joy into the world. What a wonderful talent she will be.”

Beyonce had a caesarean section late Saturday night, and her husband never left her side, according to published reports.

A hospital spokesperson gave a statement to the Houston Chronicle, a publication from the city the songstress hails from: “Mother and baby are doing fine.”