80

Crews of hundreds can typically spend years making a single animated feature — and it's not uncommon during what "Kung Fu Panda 2" director Jennifer Yuh Nelson describes as a "messy, creative process" for a director to be fired midway through a production. It happened to Jan Pinkava, who was directing 2007's "Ratatouille" before Brad Bird took over the Oscar-winning Pixar film. And it happened to Chris Sanders ("How to Train Your Dragon"), who was removed from Disney's "American Dog" in 2006, before it was reimagined as "Bolt.

The Obama administration's Home Affordable Refinance Program is at last helping legions of American homeowners with upside-down mortgages. Nearly 1.1 million homeowners with little or no equity were able to refinance last year under HARP, which assists borrowers who are current on their monthly payments. That's nearly as many as in the three previous years combined, and the latest figures show that early this year, the pace of these refis abated only slightly. The program has become a success story after a stumbling start with slack lender participation.

Kristen Bell and fiance Dax Shepard have welcomed their baby girl. Shepard, 38, who stars in NBC's "Parenthood," announced the arrival Thursday on Twitter and revealed the newborn's name, which falls in line with Jessica Simpson's masculine-name-for-females heuristic. "Lincoln Bell Shepard is here," Shepard tweeted . "She has mom's beauty and dad's obsession with breasts. Hooray!" PHOTOS: Oddly fantastic celebrity baby names Added the new mommy: "My new roomate poops her pants and doesn't pay rent...basically @daxshepard1 pre-sobriety :)

So how many omega-3 fatty acids are enough — and how should you get them? That likely depends on your age and your specific health concerns. The United States does not yet have guidelines for DHA or EPA, and consensus among nutrition experts is elusive. But specialty groups, some governmental agencies and individual experts have started to take a stand. For healthy adults without major medical issues, the European Food Safety Agency recommends a daily dose of 250 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA, while the National Heart Foundation of Australia suggests 500 milligrams.

Hotel magnate Barron Hilton, grandfather of heiress Paris Hilton, has bequeathed 97% of his estimated $2.3-billion net worth to his father's charity foundation, officials said Wednesday. The contribution to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, to come from the sale of Hilton Hotels Corp. and the pending sale of Harrah's Entertainment Inc. after the money is placed in a trust, is the largest in the foundation's history and will bring its value to about $4.5 billion.

It was the sort of letter designed to get attention. "Final attempt to notify," it said on the outside. Within, an official-looking "product warranty expiration notice" said that my Toyota's service contract "is expiring or has expired. " It provided a number to call "to extend coverage. " This was troubling because when I purchased my "certified pre-owned" car from a dealer in 2011, I paid $1,700 for a seven-year, 100,000-mile extended warranty. Now it was expiring? The answer, of course, was no. And the racket I'm about to run down is yet another reminder that you need to examine closely anything that even remotely looks like a financial warning.

Marcel Melanson was a hero in Compton. The fire battalion chief led teams that raced to help victims of car crashes and street violence. Three years ago, he got national exposure as a star of a BET reality TV program that followed Compton firefighters on emergency calls. "We're constantly battling the perception of the city," he told the Los Angeles Times when the show premiered. "It's constantly thought of as this bad place. " On Friday, he was back in the public eye, but under very different circumstances.

The last time I was in Rome I saw a young man in linen shorts and wraparound sunglasses, talking on a cellphone and smoking a cigarette while riding a Vespa, moving fast down a narrow street in the direction of the Piazza Navona. Perhaps only an Italian can do that, and only in the Eternal City, but there is something timelessly cool about the classic Italian scooter. As a motorcycle snob, I never rode a scooter -- or wanted to. Give me horsepower and performance, I said. Scooters are for ... amateurs.

With financial help for the nation's small businesses locked in a congressional imbroglio and bank loans still tough to get, many smaller firms are turning reluctantly to high-dollar lenders of last resort. Across the nation, small businesses are paying private lenders annual rates of up to 36% plus fees to get the cash they need to buy inventory, pay their mortgages and meet payroll. These private lenders say they're supporting small businesses at a time when credit is scarce, providing loans that help borrowers fix their credit scores or buy equipment to expand.

When Angelina Jolie attended the Cannes Film Festival this year, she caused a stir -- and not just on the red carpet. Beauty boards buzzed about her radiant skin, speculating on the recent transformation. Was it plastic surgery? A chemical peel? British magazine Grazia claimed to have the inside scoop -- derma rolling.