Under increasing pressure from Netflix's mail-order and online services and Redbox's $1 mall kiosks, among other competition, Blockbuster will shutter up to 40% of its stores over the next two years to boost profitability and save $26 million in working capital, Sarah McBride reports. It previously planned to close 1,000 stores, but the figure has risen to as many as 1,560 of its 3,750 outlets. Consumers' viewing patterns are shifting as well. "Home-video sales are estimated to fall between 8%-10% this year, according to Adams Media Research, in part because people are spending more time with other types of …

Serena Williams' ballistic tirade at a line judge at the U.S. Open Saturday night may have earned her a finger-wagging in the editorial pages of the New York Times, but it's not likely to have much impact on her pocketbook, Rich Thomaselli writes. The Times was particularly upset with Williams' subsequent press conference, where it says she trafficked in "the language of glib self-forgiveness" and gave us a "virtuoso display of the sports cliché, saying little and apologizing for nothing." She did apologize Monday. But the experts who Thomaselli and Emily Bryson York …

Kraft might sell venerable brands such as Maxwell House and Oscar Mayer in order to raise enough cash to finance an acquisition of British candy company Cadbury, several sources tell Josh Kosman. When the company made its $16.7 billion stock-and-cash bid for Cadbury last week, it said it would pay 60% in stock and raise about $8 billion in cash for the balance. But Kraft's stock price has slipped to yesterday's close of $26.11 from more than $28 when it made the offer, which may force it to consider beefing up the cash offering. Kraft would not comment. …

Michelle Gass, one of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz' most-trusted advisers and architect of the multibillion-dollar Frappuccino franchise, is moving out of her key marketing role to run the company's Seattle's Best Coffee division, Emily Bryson York reports. "Moving [Seattle's Best Coffee] into a distinct and separate business unit will provide the focus necessary to enable SBC's full potential in the specialty coffee marketplace," says Schultz. As senior VP-marketing and category, Gass played an integral role in crafting Schultz's transformational agenda for Starbucks, Bryson York writes, and she has spearheaded the chain's drive to healthier and better-tasting food. …

JPMorgan Chase is taking the wraps off of new credit card features called "Blueprint" today that include such anomalies as allowing consumers to avoid interest on purchases such as groceries and to even accumulate interest on other purchases, Kathy Chu reports. Other new features allow consumers to track spending and create payment plans. Linda Sherry, director of national priorities at advocacy group Consumer Action, calls Chase's new offering "revolutionary" because it "rewrites the rules on credit card use." The group previously has been critical of the banks fees and rates. William Wallace, president of Chase's credit card services …

Toys "R" Us will open more than 80 locations on short-term leases in malls and shopping centers across the country starting next month, Allison Abell Schwartz reports, as well as 260 temporary stores within Babies "R" Us locations. All told, the holiday push this year represents an additional million square feet of selling space, according to chairman and CEO Jerry Storch. "This is a great time to reinforce our authority position in the toy marketplace, a great time to increase our brand penetration and a great time to drive incremental sales," says Storch. He also asserts that "the last …

Book retailers are heavily discounting Dan Brown's lastest novel, The Lost Symbol, which went on sale at midnight, but the industry is looking at it as a vehicle to generate the kind of buzz and excitement that it hasn't seen since the last Harry Potter installment was published more than two years ago. Amazon, for example, has cut the novel's $29.95 price by 46% to $16.17, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reports. "Based on tens of thousands of pre-orders, we expect this to be a monster," says Sessalee Hensley, buyer at Barnes & Noble. Borders said 188 of its 511 …