LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - ABC's "Nashville" has invited sisters Lennon and Maisy Stella and actor Chris Carmack back to Season 2 as series regulars, an individual close to the production told TheWrap.

Lennon and Maisy have been with the series since its pilot episode. The girls play Rayna's (Connie Britton) children, Maddie and Daphne. Born from musical parents - country duo, The Stellas, the Canadian youngsters gained popularity on YouTube. Their single, "Telescope," from the season's third episode was released.

Carmack joined the series as a recurring character on the first season's final six episodes. He plays Will, a country singer who fears his homosexuality will harm his career. Carmack was expected to transition into a series regular role once ABC renewed the series.

Before "Nashville," Carmack starred as Luke Ward on "The O.C." He had also appeared in guest roles on "Drop Dead Diva," "Desperate Housewives" and "CSI: NY," among many others.

"Nashville" was renewed in May despite a rocky season in the ratings. The season finale of scored a 1.9 in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic. That was up 12 percent from last week's 1.7, its best ratings performance in the key demo since mid-January.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the promotions.

The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

Hardcover Fiction Last Week

1. "Inferno" by Dan Brown (Doubleday,

$29.95) 2

2. "Second Honeymoon" by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Little, Brown, $28.00) 1

3. "And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $28.95) 3

4. "Affliction" by Laurell K. Hamilton (Berkley, $28.95) -

5. "The Heist" by Janet Evanovich (Bantam, $28.00) 4

6. "Bad Monkey" by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf, $26.95) 8

7. "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman (William Morrow, $25.99) 5

8. "Beautiful Day" by Elin Hilderbrand (Reagan Arthur, $28.00) 6

9. "The Eye of God" by James Rollins (William Morrow, $27.99) 7

10. "The Silver Star" by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $26.00) 9

Hardcover non-fiction

1. "Happy, Happy, Happy" by Phil Robertson (Howard Books, $24.99) 1

2. "Lean In" bySheryl Sandberg (Knopf, $24.95) 2

3. "The Duck Commander Family" by Willie & Korie Robertson (Howard Books, $23.99) 3

4. "American Gun" by Chris Kyle (William Morrow, $29.99) 4

5. "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls" by David Sedaris (Little, Brown $27.00) 6

6. "Unbreakable" by Jenni Rivera (Atria, $25.00) -

7. "Life Code" by Dr. Phil McGraw (Penguin,

$26.00) 9

8. "Eleven Rings" by Phil Jackson (Penguin, $27.95) 7

9. "Shred: The Revolutionary Diet" by Ian K. Smith (St. Martin's, $24.99) 5

10. "Dad Is Fat" by Jim Gaffigan (Crown Archetype, $25.00) 8

Week that ended July 7, 2013, powered by Nielsen BookScan (c) 2013 The Nielsen Company.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney)

The phrase is a take on former Republican Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus' jibe that "Madison is 30 square miles surrounded by reality."

The city is known for its liberalism and quirkiness. In 2009, it adopted the plastic pink flamingo as its official bird.

Dreyfus was running for governor in 1978, when he took his dig at the city. Paul Soglin was mayor then and is mayor again now.

He tells the Wisconsin State Journal (http://bit.ly/135bG6R ) that he told a Dreyfus aide the statement was wrong, not in sentiment, but in square mileage. The city had grown.

Soglin says his proposal shows the city has a sense of humour.

___

Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj

Now, enter the goat cafe, which houses a pair of friendly goats for customers to pet, play with and even take for walks through Tokyo's concrete jungle.

Rena Kawaguchi and her staff brought the animals - named Sakura and Chocolat, or Cherry and Chocolate - three years ago, hoping to attract a new breed of animal-loving customers and spice up flagging weekend business.

"Back then animal cafes were booming, places where you could play with cats or dogs," Kawaguchi said. "But we reckoned a normal animal like that wouldn't have the wow factor of a goat."

Customers can pet the goats in their pen while drinking a coffee, or book a slot to take them for a walk through the crowded area surrounding Shibuya station, a hub for commuters and Tokyo's trend-conscious youth.

"When you live in the city like I do, places where you can meet animals are so far away and you rarely get the time to go there," said Kotaro Nakazato, a 21-year-old university student.

"Having them nearby like this makes it easy to commune with nature."

Keeping the goats has its challenges. Staff have to muck out their pen between serving customers, and the goats are fed special protein-rich pills to prevent foul-smelling droppings.

With the goats proving a hit, Kawaguchi says she's got even bigger plans. An elephant cafe is at the top of her list, although it was not clear what her pen-cleaning staff thought of the prospect.

(Reporting by Ruairidh Villar; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Paul Tait)

A series of showdown votes was set for next week on seven appointees. But in classic Senate fashion, as the rhetoric grew more intense, the two sides constructed an escape hatch in the form of a rare private meeting set for Monday evening where all 100 senators can seek a compromise out of public view.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., set the day's events in motion with a searing speech accusing Republicans of trying to deny Obama the right to have his team in place. In a chamber where senators routinely refer to one another as "my distinguished friend," he accused the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, of failing to live up to his commitments to allow votes on all but the most extraordinary circumstances.

Moments later, McConnell said Reid was misquoting him and at the same time failing to honor his own word not to change the rules of the Senate unilaterally. To do so would be a violation of minority rights, he warned, subject to be repeated by any majority in the future. When the drafters of the Constitution gave the Senate the power of advice and consent on nominations, he said, "I don't think they had in mind sit down and shut up."

In Senate-speak, Reid's comments were a threat to invoke the so-called nuclear option, by changing the rules midway through the year to a mere majority vote. Such changes usually are made when lawmakers first convene after an election and require a two-thirds majority, enough to ensure they are bipartisan.

Ironically, a similar set of circumstances occurred during George W. Bush's presidency, when Democrats blocked yes-or-no votes on several of his judicial nominations. The then-majority leader, Republican Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, threatened to change the rules to majority vote, and Democrats protested vehemently.

The crisis passed when a bipartisan group of senators worked out a compromise that led to the confirmation of some of the judges and the rejection of others.

There was little sign of such conciliation on the Senate floor during the day.

When Reid formally called in late afternoon for test votes on the seven, Democrats had arranged for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. to be presiding. Warren was once considered a top candidate to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but faced stiff Republican opposition. She used the resulting prominence to launch a successful run for the Senate.

This time, McConnell said "the guy right over here on my left," referring to Reid, was manufacturing a crisis. If it weren't avoided, he added, Reid is "going to be remembered as the worst leader of the Senate ever."

The seven nominees include Richard Cordray, named to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whom Reid said was first nominated in July, 2011; and three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, Richard Griffin and Sharon Block, both appointed in December 2011 and Mark Pearce, whose appointment was made last April. Obama named Griffin and Block as recess appointees, bypassing the Senate, but an appeals court has ruled he overstepped his authority and their tenures are in doubt.

Fred Hochberg, nominated as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States; Labor Secretary- designate Tom Perez and Gina McCarthy, Obama's pick to head the EPA, are also among the nominations involved. All three were appointed in March.

As the leaders clashed, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., proposed that Republicans and Democrats meet next week to try and reach a compromise. The session will likely be held in an ornate room where the Senate met before the current chamber was built, an arrangement that permits lawmakers to bar the public and the press.

According to Senate records, the most recent such meeting was in January 2007 when Reid and McConnell wanted to improve working relations among all 100 senators.

U.S. Attorney George Beck said that Ward was arrested Monday on counts of bribery relating to a sports contest and conspiracy for allegedly trying to fix the point spread for the Tigers' game against Arkansas on Jan. 25, 2012.

A federal grand jury indictment last week of Ward was unsealed Tuesday. The one-page document did not list alleged co-conspirators but said the scheme continued after that game. Beck says Ward offered to pay teammates to participate in the point-shaving scheme.

Ward came off the bench in the 56-53 loss but crumpled to the floor after playing only 19 seconds with an apparent leg injury.

Auburn still covered the 9 1/2-point spread.

There were 590 loans in July (as compared to 539 in June) and the 20-year monthly loan pool size was $398,994,000 vs. $385,598,000 a year ago. This month's debenture rate is 3.15% compared to 2.38% a year ago. Additionally, there were 53 ten-year loans totaling $34,982,000. The debenture rate for these ten-year loans that are funded bi-monthly and represent equipment purchases is 1.89%, compared to 1.19% in July 2012.

"We see more small business loans delivered compared to last month and year-over-year, which is putting oxygen into the economy for job creation. Borrowers should lock in these historically low interest rates given the sharp, recent increases we've seen,"said Beth Solomon, President and CEO of NADCO."Small businesses can lock in a very low rate for 20 years with the SBA 504 loan which is very unusual in small business finance. They should run, not walk, to their nearest Certified Development Company or bank to ask about it."

"As we continue to climb out of the recession, small business lending volume remains historically high and even at current, higher funding levels borrowers are accessing long term fixed rate funds at historically low rates," Solomon continued.

Solomon concluded:"If we want to strengthen and sustain the economic progress we've seen recently, we need to ensure small businesses get the capital they need. Our members will continue to work closely with the Small Business Administration and local business leaders and lenders to equip and empower small businesses to grow and create jobs."

Over the past 12 months there have been 7,711 loans totaling $5.2 billion at an average debenture rate of 2.26%.

Each month, NADCO provides its debenture rate (plus the twelve month average debenture rate), monthly pool size (loan volume in dollars) and other relevant and insightful data. Combining historic data and assessed monthly, the SBLR serves as a measurement of the health of small business lending -- a core contributor to the health of the U.S. economy. The SBA 504 loan requires every $65,000 of finance to create or maintain one job. Businesses securing 504 loans create 25% more jobs than non-504 businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

ABOUT THE NADCO SMALL BUSINESS LENDING REPORT (SBLR) This is a measure that tracks, on a monthly basis, the loan volume for owner-occupied real estate and asset financing administered through the Small Business Administration's Certified Development Company (CDC) lending initiative (also known as the 504).

ABOUT THE SBA's 504 LOAN INITIATIVE The 504 loan initiative is a self-funded long-term financing tool at no cost to taxpayers providing small businesses with long-term, fixed-rate loans with down payments as low as 10%. Certified Development Companies (CDC) work with the SBA and private sector lenders to provide financing to small businesses under the 504 loan program.

ABOUT NADCO The National Association of Development Companies (NADCO) is the trade association of Certified Development Companies (CDCs) - nonprofit companies that have been certified by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide financing for small businesses under the SBA 504 Program. NADCO represents nearly 270 CDCs, serving all 50 states. In 2012, the industry provided $6 billion to nearly 10,000 U.S. small businesses.

SOURCE National Association of Development Companies (NADCO)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Polish farmers marched through Warsaw's streets Wednesday to back government plans to repeal a ban on the religious slaughter of animals.

Lawmakers will vote Friday on a government draft law that would reinstate religious slaughter provided it is done only in slaughterhouses and excludes certain forms of immobilizing the animal. The vote's outcome could go either way, since the issue is divisive and some among the ruling party's lawmakers oppose the practice.

Until January, Poland was making about 500 million euros ($650 million) per year exporting kosher and halal meat to Israel and Muslim countries like Egypt and Iran. But the business practically ground to a halt in January, after ritual slaughter was banned under pressure from animals' rights groups, which say it causes unnecessary suffering because the livestock aren't stunned before being killed.

Islamic and Jewish slaughter involves a swift cut to the throat of a conscious animal and death by bleeding. Polish law requires that an animal be stunned first.

About 150 farmers with a life-size figure of a cow marched to parliament and the Agriculture Ministry to back the government plan, but around 100 artists and intellectuals issued a letter opposing it.

"We appeal for a vote against the slaughter of animals in Poland without stunning," well known academics and actors said in the letter. "Exposing conscious beings to pre-terminal suffering, while we kill them for our own needs, is a terrifying evil and the majority of Poles age against it."

But at stake are about 6,000 jobs offered by the industry, at a time when around 13 percent of adult Poles are without a job, and major contracts.

About 200,000 tons of kosher or halal beef and poultry were exported annually before the ban, or up to 30 percent of Poland's beef exports and about 10 percent of poultry exports, according to Witold Choinski, the head of an organization of meat producers.

In a sign of the industry's success, exports were growing between 20 and 30 percent per year recently as the largely agricultural Poland has capitalized on its low labor costs and a reputation for healthy farm animals.

Following 10 days of political tension and suspense during which the coalition government come close to breaking up, Cavaco Silva sought Wednesday to restore calm by ruling out snap elections and keeping the current government in office.

Cavaco Silva's announcement ensured the country continues, for the moment at least, complying with the terms of the three-year 78 billion euros ($101 billion) rescue it received two years ago.

But it was what came next that raised concerns about how Portugal will survive beyond the bailout and whether the country, like Greece before it, may need a second lifeline.

In his presidential address Cavaco Silva asked the country's feuding political parties to surrender their political agendas and work on a shared medium-term economic recovery strategy. He also suggested the possibility of an early election in the middle of next year, but with the agreed economic strategy covering a period beyond that so as to ensure stability.

Investors are afraid the politicians may fail to find common ground on Portugal's economy and consequently pitch the country into chaos, or come up with a watered-down compromise plan that fails to reassure financial markets.

Either result could end in the country being unable to support itself financially and going back to its creditors for more help. That is precisely the kind of development the other 16 countries sharing the euro currency have long feared and fought to avoid after struggling for more than three years to escape their debt crisis.

Citigroup economists said in a note Thursday "the political crisis in Portugal is far from over." It added that "the president's proposal is likely to keep political uncertainty high in coming weeks."

The Lisbon stock exchange closed down 2.01 percent, at 5,423, Thursday while Europe's main bourses were higher. The interest rate on the country's 10-year bonds, an indicator of how risky investors see the country, crept up to 6.79 percent.

Portugal first had to go its fellow euro countries and the International Monetary Fund for help in 2011 to avert bankruptcy after investors, spooked by its high debts and low growth, stopped lending it money.

The bailout program runs out in a year's time. After that, Portugal needs to go back to markets where investors dislike uncertainty.

The three major international ratings agencies still classify Portugal's credit worthiness at junk status. And in 2014 and 2015 Portugal has to issue bonds worth 14 billion euros and 15 billion euros, respectively, to service maturing loans and bonds, according to its bailout creditors.

Despite two years of spending cuts and labor reforms demanded in return for the bailout, Portugal remains mired in debt and recession and with the burden of a 17.6 percent jobless rate. That kind of economic record is unlikely to endear it to lenders.

Any failure to stick to economic discipline once the loans end would also exclude Portugal from the European Central Bank's offer to buy the bonds of countries struggling with high borrowing costs. To qualify for the ECB program, the mere promise of which has already helped out Spain and Italy maintain their debts, a country must promise to reform their finances.

Portugal's fiscal health has improved over the course of its bailout program the deficit fell to 6.4 percent of GDP last year from 10.1 percent in 2010 but the sacrifices made are now at risk.

The chance of a compromise plan is slim. Austerity policies, such as pay cuts and tax hikes, have already split the two governing coalition partners and angered the main opposition Socialist Party, which wants to change course toward growth measures and is still insisting on early elections.

Coaxing the parties to overcome their differences won't be easy and could backfire by driving them further apart.

"This could go very well or very badly," Jornal de Negocios said in an editorial Thursday.

The three parties said they would consider holding talks, but their perfunctory responses demonstrated how they were stunned by the president's unanticipated proposal, which heralded what will likely be weeks of political jockeying for advantage.

One thing the head of state did seem to get right was catching the mood of the people, as the Portuguese increasingly express ill-feeling toward squabbling politicians.

The politicians "have to unite and to say yes" to the president's proposal, said Maria Luisa Sousa, who was selling fish at Lisbon's Ribeira market, next to the River Tagus. "It doesn't work if the parties pull one way and then the other. They cannot govern that way. We have to have faith now, we will see. It could work."

Market shopper Helena Antunes, 57, was less confident. "Our politicians have no class," she said. "Everybody knows they are the ones that sacrifice people, but they don't sacrifice themselves."

A protest erupted in Parliament when several dozen demonstrators in the public gallery yelled "Resign!" at lawmakers and threw down confetti of red and yellow cards, used in sport to signify admonishments.

The aim is to make an online public database of these ubiquitous but understudied prehistoric , the researchers say. The team is hoping to flesh out a picture of regional hillfort fashions and to get a better idea of how these structures were used.

Starting Monday (July 8), citizens can submit information about their local hillforts on the . The researchers are looking for details like the style and number of ramparts, ditches or entrances. And they aren't just interested in well-preserved Iron Age forts; the project leaders are also seeking data on sites where crop marks are the only traces left. []

Eventually, the database dubbed "An Atlas of Hillforts in Britain and Ireland" will be searchable by region and by characteristics. It will also be linked toso that each fort can be studied in the context of its landscape, the researchers say.

"There is huge variety in where the hillforts were sited and the materials used to construct them," Gary Lock, emeritus professor of archaeology at the University of Oxford and co-director of the project, said in a statement.

"Hillforts in the upland areas are often stone-built, while those in lowland areas are often made of timber and earth," Lock added. "Some were constructed in prominent positions on the very top of hills, while others were on slopes or not even on hills at all. We want to shed new light on why they were created and how they were used."

Another co-director, Ian Ralston, of the University of Edinburgh, said they hope the project will lead to discoveries of new archaeological sites and new information about ones that are already known.

"We expect the results of this project to change our vision of these iconic monuments," Ralston said in a statement.

For all their prominence, hillforts have not been the subject of much academic research, the project leaders say. Most were built after about 700 B.C. and used until the Romans arrived in the middle of the first century A.D. But others were constructed even earlier and enjoyed use afterin some parts of Britain and Ireland.

Researchers also believe that hillforts were not military strongholds, but rather settlements occupied for short periods or meeting places for religious activities and festivals, and market days. The forts vary widely in style and size. Some in Argyll and west Wales cover less than 2.5 acres (1 hectare), while others like Ham Hill in Somerset enclose areas as big as 200 acres (80 hectares).

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