He couldn't take more than a few steps without a player or a caddie stopping to congratulate him for his feel-good win at Augusta National. There were so many fans pressed against the fence to get his autograph that it nearly collapsed. Finally, he got into a cart to head to the back end of the practice range.

It's time for the Masters champion to get back to work, and that might prove tougher than the actual work at The Players Championship.

Scott has virtually disappeared since holing that 12-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole to become the first Australian to win the Masters. He was in New York for a couple of days and then headed to The Bahamas where he has a home.

He usually takes a few weeks off after a major to decompress. This time, he waited an extra week before picking up a club. It felt that good.

"I've had a really nice break since the Masters, which I had planned anyway," Scott said Wednesday. "But it was even better because I was floating around on the clouds the last three weeks. It's been an overwhelming time for me."

Once he finally put a club back in his hands, the swing felt as pure as that final round at Augusta. He was eager to compete again, and The Players Championship is enough to get any pro's attention.

It features the strongest and deepest field in golf all year, on a Stadium Course that had can be challenging, frustrating, punishing and rarely dull. Scott won The Players in 2004 after hitting 5-iron into the water on the 18th and making a 10-foot bogey putt to win by a shot.

"It's a nice week for me to come back to Sawgrass and The Players, because I've had such a great run here over the years," Scott said. "I'm excited about playing this week. I hopefully can take my head out of the clouds and come back down to earth and play some good golf."

That would be the only way to make it around this golf course.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the best two players of their generation, each have one win at the home of the PGA Tour. The list of winners ranges from power players such as Greg Norman and Davis Love III to pea shooters in the mold of Fred Funk and Tim Clark.

Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell last won in America on courses designed by Pete Dye: McIlroy at the PGA Championship (Kiawah Island) and BMW Championship (Crooked Stick); McDowell at Hilton Head a couple of weeks ago.

"I think Pete Dye designed a certain type of golf course," McDowell said. "He likes to penalize the player in his own kind of unique way, and this golf course certainly has its dangers. But it's certainly scorable at the same time."

McIlroy was perplexed while playing the sixth hole Wednesday. He hit two shots off the tee, one in the fairway and one in the rough, about the same distance. He hit an iron with the ball in the fairway, pin-high about 15 feet left of the flag. He used the same club from the rough and watched it sail over the green. That's the trouble with this rough. It's not very high, and the ball can jump out of there.

As he played the par-5 ninth, caddie J.P. Fitzgerald reminded him that it's best to lay up on the hole. McIlroy smashed his tee shot and his caddie told him, "You have 266 (yards) to the front. Perfect 5-iron." McIlroy followed his instructions, hit the shot and then threw down another ball and asked for the 3-wood.

He missed to the right of the green, shrugged and said, "Just wanted to get it out of my system."

NBC Sports analyst Johnny Miller said players have to "tippy-toe" their way around the golf course. Scott, meanwhile, is still floating.

There was never a moment where he woke up in the Bahamas and realized that the Sunday playoff in the rain was not a dream, that he indeed had won the Masters. The routine he kept each morning made that impossible.

"When I walk in the closet and I put the green jacket on every morning ... I do," he said as the room filled with laughter. "I've missed it the last couple days. It's the first couple days I haven't had it with me, so that's been a lot of fun just wearing it around the house."

That sums up Scott's extraordinary vacation.

It was such a big deal in Australia to finally have a Masters champion that he was tempted to go home and join the celebration.

But he has bigger plans. The Masters was in April. This is May. The season is not even halfway over, and there are still three majors to be played. Scott certainly never had any intentions of stopping at one.

"It was an incredible response to winning," Scott said. "The prime minister of Australia called me. Like I said, I was overwhelmed. Also, I talked this one over with the people that are around me, and we're in the middle of the year. Yes, it's cause for celebration, but we have a plan in place. It's hopefully not going to stop with the Masters at the moment. I want to keep focused while I can and try to make this my biggest year yet.

"I think we can rustle up some celebration when I get home at the end of the year."

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) -- President Barack Obama, concluding a three-day visit to Mexico and Costa Rica, is cheering Mexican economic advances and pressing other Central American leaders to deal with poverty and security while reaching out to a politically powerful Latino audience back home.

Boosted by reassuring jobs numbers, Obama is calling for greater trade and economic cooperation with the U.S.'s southern neighbors, arguing that economic prosperity is the best antidote to drug and gang violence and, by extension, to the illegal immigration the U.S. is seeking to control.

In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama also made the case that deepening economic ties with the Americas means more jobs in the United States.

"One of the best ways to grow our economy is to sell more goods and services made in America to the rest of the world," he said. "That includes our neighbors to the south."

During the trip Obama has tried to modulate the exercise of U.S. influence. He has refused to insert himself in Mexico's strategy for confronting narcotrafficking, even if it means more limited access by U.S. security officials to Mexican law enforcement. In Costa Rica, he urged Central American leaders to integrate their economies, reduce their high energy costs and confront the violence in the region.

"As governments, our job is to make sure that we're doing everything we can to provide security and opportunity and ladders for success and prosperity for our people," he told the regional leaders at the start of a dinner Friday. "Economic growth that creates jobs, security for people so that they can be safe in their own neighborhoods, and development that allows people to live in dignity."

On Saturday, Obama to speak and takes questions during a forum on economic growth and development.

In addition to its economic aims, the trip served as a nod by Obama to the vast Hispanic population in the United States, which heavily supported him in the 2012 election and which retains strong family and cultural ties to Latin America.

"In fact," he said Friday in a speech aimed at young people in Mexico City, "without the strong support of Latinos, including so many Mexican Americans, I would not be standing today as president of the United States. That's the truth."

A theme during the trip was the U.S. effort to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, an issue of intense interest among Latinos in the United States and in Mexico and Central America.

The vast majority of the 11 million immigrants illegally in the U.S. are from Latin America, 6 million of them from Mexico alone. Obama supports legislation that would give those immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship and he told Univision in an interview aired Friday that he would not sign a bill that did not provide such a pathway. Republicans are demanding greater border security.

"The truth is, right now, our border with Mexico is more secure than it's been in years," he said in the radio address. "We've put more boots on that border than at any time in our history, and illegal crossings are down by nearly 80 percent from their peak in 2000."

The immigration legislation should be a compromise, he said, "which means that nobody got everything they wanted including me."

As Congress debates immigration legislation, Obama's bullish even overly rosy depiction of Mexico's economic prospects were meant to convince the U.S. public and lawmakers that Mexico no longer poses the illegal immigration threat it once did.

"The long-term solution to the challenge of illegal immigration is a growing and prosperous Mexico that creates more jobs and opportunities for young people here," he said.

Mexico, Obama said, has lifted millions of people from poverty.

But while Mexico's economy has grown, it has yet to trickle down to average workers. Huge poverty rates held steady between late 2006 and 2010, the most recent year for which government statistics are available. Between 40 and 50 percent of the population of 112 million Mexicans live in poverty, earning less than $100 a month.

Even as he tried to keep the focus on the economy and immigration, Obama did not escape the issue of drugs and violence wracking the region. In the Costa Rican capital Friday, Obama said the U.S. and Latin America share "common effects and common responsibilities" for the troubles and argued to his dining companions Friday that his country has suffered from the drug epidemic as well.

"If you go to my hometown of Chicago, and you go to some neighborhoods, they're just as violent, if not more violent than some of the countries at this table in part because of the pernicious influence of the drug trade," he said.

Drug-fueled violence remains an undeniable part of daily life in many parts of the region. Costa Rica has fared better than many of its neighbors, but it worries about spillover from nearby countries. Honduras, for example, now has the highest homicide rate in the world, with about 7,200 people murdered last year in the tiny nation of 8 million people, most in drug-related crime.

Obama acknowledged the role of U.S. demand for drugs and said his administration has spent $30 billion to reduce demand in recent years. But he acknowledged that the United States remains a "big market" and that "progress is sometimes slower than we'd like it to be."

Obama also could not avoid entanglements beyond the region. Questions about Syria dogged him and his aides during the trip. On Friday, he virtually ruled out sending U.S troops into the country torn by civil war, saying he did "not foresee a scenario" for doing so.

In the Republican address Saturday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory argued that Washington should learn from Republican governors on how to make government work efficiently. He said governors need Washington to give states more flexibility, independence and accountability and called on Obama to show more leadership.

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Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

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Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn

The Rio de Janeiro state revealed that a further 75m (63.4m) has been poured into modernising the ground ahead of this summers Confederations Cup, with the first game on the pitch to be played between Italy and Mexico on June 16.

The Maracana reopened at the end of last month, but the exhibition on April 27 was plagued by problems, according to reports, with seats still being installed and pavements around the stadium incomplete.

Ticket gates not working, journalists being prevented from taking pictures and holes in the floor were among the issues reported by media outlet Jornal do Brasil.

A second event to celebrate the stadiums reopening was scheduled for May 15, but officials have ruled out this happening now, casting doubt on how well-equipped the stadium will be for this summers prelude competition to World Cup 2014.

Espn.com/br reports that the reason for the delay is that vital work on the Maracana would have to be halted, jeopardising its completion date in June.

The next time that the ground will open its doors will be a friendly between England and Luiz Felipe Scolaris Selecao on June 2, the second time this year that the footballing giants will face each other after the Three Lions beat the South American side in February.

are capable of eruptions dwarfing anything ever seen in recorded history, expelling thousands of times more magma and ash than even a Mount St. Helens or Pinatubo. A supervolcanic eruption could wreak as much havoc as the impact of a mile-wide asteroid,by blotting out the sun with ash, reflecting its rays and cooling the Earth a phenomenon called a "volcanic winter." Adozen or so supervolcanoes exist today, .

The largest supervolcano eruption of the past 2.5 million years wason the Indonesian island of Sumatra about 75,000 years ago. Researchers say Toba spewed out a staggering 700 cubic miles (2,800 cubic kilometers) of magma, equivalent in mass to more than 19 million Empire State Buildings. By comparison, the infamous blast from the volcanic Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883, one of the , released about 3 cubic miles (12 cubic km) of magma.

About the same time the eruption took place, the number of modern humans apparently dropped cataclysmically, as shown by genetic research. People today evolved from the few thousand survivors of whatever befell humans in Africa at the time. The giant plume of ash from Toba stretched from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea, and in the past investigators proposed the resulting volcanic winter might have caused this die-off. []

However, recently scientists have suggested that Toba did not sway the course of human history as much as previously thought. For instance,and dating from after the eruption hinted that people coped fairly well with any effects of the eruption.

Now researchers have found that the evidence shows Toba didn't actually cause a volcanic winter in East Africa where humans dwelled.

"We have been able to show that the largest volcanic eruption of the last two million years did not significantly alter the climate of East Africa," said researcher Christine Lane, a geologist at the University of Oxford.

Ash in Africa

Lane and her colleagues examined ash from Toba recovered from mud extracted from two sites at the bottom of Lake Malawi, the second largest lake in the East African Rift Valley.

"We first started looking for the Toba ash a few years back, but it's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, so it took a while," Lane told OurAmazingPlanet. "Between myself and my co-author Ben Chorn, we systematically processed every centimeter of sediment between 24 to 46 meters [78 to 150 feet] depth in the central basin core. The layer is so small that if we leave any gaps in our search, we could miss it completely."

Their analysis discovered that a thin layer of ash in this sediment about 90 feet (27 m) below the lake floor was from the last of the Toba eruptions, known as Youngest Toba Tuff.

"Thedispersed huge volumes of ash across much of the Indian Ocean, Indian Peninsula and South China Sea," Lane said. "We have discovered the layer of volcanic ash was carried about twice the distance as previously thought, over more than 7,000 kilometers [4,350 miles]."

The amount of ash found in the Malawi sediment core (a cylindrical log of sediment drilled from the ground), was more than the scientists expected to find.

"I was surprised to find so much ash in the Lake Malawi record," Lane added. "The ash is very tiny, composed of shards of volcanic glass smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Nevertheless, in a lot of records I have worked on previously, even within just a few hundreds of miles of an eruption center, we sometimes only find less than 100 shards of glass within a gram of sediment. In Malawi, we have thousands of shards of glass per gram, which really shows how voluminous the Youngest Toba Tuff was."

Quick recovery

If the area had seen dramatic cooling because of all the ash spewed into the atmosphere, living matter near the lake surface would likely have died off, significantly altering the composition of the lake's mud. However, when the researchers investigated algae and other organic matter from the layer that contained the ash from Toba, they saw no evidence of a significant temperature drop in East Africa. Apparently, "the environment very quickly recovered from any atmospheric disturbance that may have occurred," Lane said.

But these results, detailed online April 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, don't mean that .

"It is important to realize that every volcanic eruption is different and the Youngest Toba Tuff provides only one example," Lane said. "The impact of an eruption depends not just on the amount of ash erupted, but also the composition and volume of aerosols, how high in the atmosphere the ash is injected and the meteorological conditions at the time."

As for what might explain the near-extinction humanity apparently once experienced, perhaps another kind of catastrophe, such as disease, hit the species. It may also be possible that such a disaster never happened in the first place genetic research suggests modern humans descend from a single population of a few thousand survivors of a calamity, but another possible explanation is that modern humans descend from a few groups that left Africa at different times.

Future research will analyze what effects Toba may or may not have had on other lakes in East Africa.

"Whilst from this we can hypothesize that the global climatic impact was not as dramatic as some have suggested, we will need to find similarly high-resolution records of past climate from other regions that also contain Youngest Toba Tuff in order to definitively test this," Lane said.

Follow OurAmazingPlanet, and .Original article at .

Network NBC said on Monday that Green, a former judge on the popular contest, is slated to perform his new song "Only You." Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Stewart will perform material from his upcoming album, "Time," his first release of original material in over a decade.

Stewart and Green will perform on the May 8 episode, while Grammy-winning country-pop trio Lady Antebellum will promote their forthcoming album "Golden" on the May 14 episode.

Pop singer Robin Thicke, singer-producer Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I. will all perform on the May 14 episode of "The Voice," which averages about 14 million viewers over its two weekly shows.

The competition's fourth season, which installed pop singers Shakira and Usher to replace Green and Christina Aguilera as judges, reaches its climax in June, when one of the aspiring contestants will be proclaimed the winner and get a recording contract.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey. Editing by Jill Serjeant and Andre Grenon)

The former state lawmaker starting her second term in Congress will be running against fellow Democrat and incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who was appointed to the post after longtime Sen. Daniel Inouye died in December.

Schatz's appointment by Gov. Neil Abercrombie came as a surprise to some in Hawaii, after Inouye wrote the governor just before he died saying his last wish was to have Hanabusa named to replace him.

Hanabusa told The Associated Press on Thursday that voters on the islands didn't have much of a chance to influence Abercrombie's decision.

"Brian was not elected. He was appointed," she said. "And I don't think the people have really had an opportunity to weigh in on who they want to represent them in the United States Senate."

Schatz is a former lieutenant governor who has already stockpiled more than $1 million in campaign cash and more than a dozen endorsements from key groups. Under Hawaii law, Schatz was sworn in immediately after being appointed for a term to last until the state's next election next year's midterms.

Hawaii's primary is Aug. 9, 2014. The winner between Schatz and Hanabusa would then need to win a general election against a Republican or other opponents, though no other major candidates have declared themselves in the race. The 2014 winner will hold the seat for two years until 2016, the end of Inouye's original term.

Hanabusa's presence in the race gives Schatz a true opponent in a state known to vote heavily Democratic; in an open Senate race last year, Democrat and then-U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono trounced Republican former Gov. Linda Lingle by double digits.

It's the first time voters will directly pick a replacement for Inouye.

"We are going to afford them that opportunity," Hanabusa said.

Hanabusa said that while she disagrees with Abercrombie's pick of Schatz, she acknowledges it was his decision to fill the seat.

"That doesn't then somehow say that Brian is entitled to that seat and that he is an incumbent in the true sense of the word," Hanabusa said.

Schatz' campaign spokesman Bill Meheula said in a statement that the race will be about the kind of future Hawaii wants for its people and next generation.

"We look forward to sharing the Senator's work and vision for Hawaii, and we welcome Rep. Hanabusa to the race," Meheula said.

Earlier Thursday, the campaign announced endorsements of Schatz from the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Hanabusa says Hawaii's delegation became younger after Inouye died and that she has the most experience of any candidate.

Hanabusa says Inouye's letter to Abercrombie endorsing her was a high compliment that came after years of conversations she had with Inouye about succession and the right time for her to move from the House to the Senate.

According to the Federal Election Commission, Schatz had $1 million in campaign cash as of March 31, compared with nearly $249,000 for Hanabusa. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee plans to back Schatz.

Hanabusa said she doesn't think her Senate run will cost Democrats a seat in the House.

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Oskar Garcia can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oskargarcia

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says the eight per cent cut to the election watchdog's 2013 budget is symptomatic of a government that has no respect for democratic institutions.

He accuses the Conservatives of showing a consistent willingness to cheat during elections citing the so-called in-and-out affair and the robocall scandal.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says the budget cut is worrying and part of a pattern by Conservatives to discourage people from taking part in the democratic process.

However, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government will shortly introduce legislation aimed at helping Elections Canada crack down on abuse, such as the thousands of misleading, automated phone calls that directed voters to the wrong polling stations in 2011.

He says it will also incorporate changes in response to a report, released Tuesday, which found an average of 500 serious procedural errors were made by polling officials in each riding in the 2011 election.

The individuals charged with educating Guerrero's children, and helping build a brighter future for a country , have been on strike since a federal education reform bill was introduced almost two months ago.

The bill is part of a wider reform agenda by Presidentwhich aims to feed economic opportunity and growth in . Other initiatives discussed include boosting competition in the telecommunications industry and increasing bank lending rates.

But in yet another sign that President Enrique Pea Nieto is facing pushback on his ambitious reform plan, this week scores of educators took to the streets armed with sticks and spray paint. They broke windows, threw papers and plants out of buildings, vandalized furniture and office equipment, and set fire to political offices, according to Mexican news outlets.

Teach and learn vandalism, read todays front page of Mexican newspaper Reforma, with photos splashed above the fold showing a political party office in Guerrero engulfed in flames, and a highway road block using a kidnapped 18-wheeler from state-owned oil company PEMEX in the neighboring state , which is also experiencing teacher protests.

Earlier this year President Pea Nieto passedthat aims to diminish the tight grasp of Mexicos powerful teachers union and reverse common practices like teachers receiving pay despite not showing up to work. According to The Christian Science Monitor:

The reform strips the education union arguably the most powerful in of its influence over the hiring of teachers. It provides for a system of merit-based pay and promotions, subjects Mexicos estimated 1 million teachers to evaluations, and requires exams of those entering the profession. All with greater oversight by the federal government.

In , educators upped protests after state legislators failed to incorporate the 200,000-member education unions demands to water down the federal legislation at the state level on Tuesday.

The mayor of Chilpancingo, where the vandalism took place yesterday afternoon, told Mexican newspaper Milenio that hes requested federal assistance. The governor of Guerrero announced viathathad been issued for the head of the state Education Workers Union, Minervino Moran, and another union leader, for masterminding the destruction of property, reports the .

Guerrero, home of the well-known beach destination , has repeatedly made headlines this year for violence and theand self-defense groups.

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ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Angry teachers on Wednesday attacked offices of Mexico's main political parties in the capital of the southwestern state of Guerrero to protest against an education overhaul, breaking windows, spray-painting walls and starting fires.

Dozens of teachers opposed to President Enrique Pena Nieto's new education reform ran riot in the city of Chilpancingo, trashing installations of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the main opposition parties.

Police were nowhere to be seen.

Television footage showed masked protesters throwing chairs, papers and plants out of the upper floors of the PRI offices in Chilpancingo as others destroyed images of Pena Nieto and sprayed colorful graffiti about him on the walls of buildings.

Teachers in Guerrero, home to the popular beach resort of Acapulco, are fighting the legislation that aims to revamp the country's failing education system by imposing tougher oversight of teaching standards and cracking down on abuses.

The law takes away control of teacher assessment from a powerful teachers union and seeks to end the practice of teachers passing on posts to relatives or simply selling them.

Teachers have been one of the most militant groups in Mexico in recent years, periodically causing major disruptions in some states during efforts to force through change.

"We need to avoid the law of the jungle imposing itself, chaos and the breakdown of public order," PRI chairman Cesar Camacho said, pledging to investigate the unrest.

Images from Milenio Television also showed protesters armed with sticks attacking offices of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which also backed the education reform.

The footage showed people had set fire to a building next to the PRI complex. It was unclear if it belonged to the party.

Milenio's website quoted Chilpancingo Mayor Mario Moreno as saying the city lacked the means to take on the protesters. "We've already asked for federal assistance," he said.

Previous demonstrations in Guerrero have shut down main roads in the state, which is already suffering from a wave of violence that spawned vigilante-style "community self-defense" groups.

The groups have taken the law into their own hands, rounding up who they see as suspects, including police, and prompting criticism the government is no longer in control of some areas.

Guerrero state police said elements from the self-defense groups were among the people attacking the political offices.

The protests in Chilpancingo kicked off after Guerrero's state congress on Tuesday rejected demands from the teachers to amend the education bill, which involves constitutional changes that must be approved by Mexico's state legislatures.

To escape disruption from the protests, the state congress moved this week to Acapulco, which last year became the murder capital of Mexico with more than 1,000 homicides reported.

Pena Nieto signed the education law in February. Lawmakers must still draw up separate legislation to implement it.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner and Mohammad Zargham)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - As the temperatures rise, a group of young up-and-coming actors are hoping a string of high-profile movies will help their movie careers heat up.

Some, like Aubrey Plaza and Charlie Hunnam, are already known to television viewers for their work on "Parks and Recreation" and "Sons of Anarchy," respectively. Others, such as Jamie Campbell Bower, soon to make tween girls swoon in the upcoming "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones," still enjoy lives of relative obscurity.

If the films that these five actors are headlining connect with audiences, then they will soon find themselves within reach of the A-list. If the movies fail, the climb to the top of the Hollywood heap will get a lot steeper.

HENRY CAVILL

How He'll Spend his Summer: Spreading truth, justice and the American way in the Superman reboot "Man of Steel" (June 14).

Upcoming: If "Man of Steel" lives up to the strong buzz, Cavill will finding himself donning Superman's signature cape and tights for many more installments. He is also attached to "The Great Wall," which is set in China in the 15th century and centers on two British warriors squaring off against monsters.

Why He's Ready to Break Through: With his broad shoulders, cleft chin and matinee idol looks, "The Tudors" star has a flair that recalls Hollywood swashbucklers of old like Eroll Flynn. He's been shortlisted for big parts in the past (James Bond, for instance) but has fallen just short of landing them; "Man of Steel," though, could be the franchise-ready role he's been narrowly missing. Judging by the epic trailer, it looks as if Cavill may have the screen presence to do what Brandon Routh, who played the role in the ill-fated "Superman Returns," could not - to make this alien-born adventurer relatable and, well, human.

JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER

How He'll Spend his Summer: Helping Lily Collins rescue her mother as the half-human, half-angel bad boy at the center of "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" (August 23).

Upcoming: Depending on the box office, more "Mortal Instruments." After all, the popular young-adult series that inspired the movie boasts six books.

Why He's Ready to Break Through: He's already toyed with heartthrob-dom with supporting roles in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and "The Twilight Saga." With "Mortal Instruments," his swoon-worthy charms will be prominently on display. That kind of young adult idolatry can do wonders for a career. Just ask Robert Pattinson.

AUBREY PLAZA

How She'll Spend Her Summer: Racking up sexual experiences as a college-bound high school senior in "The To Do List" (August 16)

Upcoming: Assuming it gets renewed, season six of "Parks & Recreation." The anti-romantic comedy "A Many Splintered Thing" opposite Chris Evans, which should hit theaters later this year.

Why She's Ready to Break Through: With her deadpan delivery and role as a work-allergic intern on "Parks & Recreation," Plaza steals nearly every episode. Her wit has also given hermemorable supporting turns in films like "Funny People" and "Safety Not Guaranteed," but she's poised to get a lot more attention with her biggest movie role yet. With a cast that includes "SNL" funnyman Bill Hader and a raunchy premise, "To Do List" could be just the vehicle she needs to move from must-see TV to film stardom.

CHARLIE HUNNAM

How He'll Spend his Summer: Slaying giant monsters known as "Kaiju" with Rinko Kikuchi in Guillermo Del Toro's "Pacific Rim" (July 12).

Upcoming: New seasons of "Sons of Anarchy," the wildly successful FX show he stars in alongside Ron Perlman and Katey Segal. Working on a project about Vlad the Impaler.

Why He's Ready to Break Through: He already holds the lead role on one of the most successful shows on cable television, which has given him more visibility than anyone on this list. He's also developed a close relationship with Plan B, Brad Pitt's production company, which wants to turn at least one of his scripts, "Vlad," into a feature. Now Hunnam, a Brit who grew up tough, is ready to be a leading man in the vein of fellow Brits and Aussies Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy. Teaming with Del Toro on a big summer film is a good way to start.

MILES TELLER (and SHAILENE WOODLEY)

How They'll Spend Their Summer: Teller will star in "The Spectacular Now" as Sutter Keely, a high school senior who can't fathom why his classmates wants to think about their futures when the present is so grand. Then his girlfriend breaks up with him and he meets Aimee (Woodley), an ambitious senior with dreams of college. The two, as you might expect, start to fall in love. Can Sutter mature enough to make it last?

Upcoming: Teller will star in a couple of romantic comedies, "Are We Officially Dating?" and "Two Night Stand," before taking a supporting role in Summit's potential young adult franchise "Divergent." That film could also be crucial for Woodley, who will star.

Why They're Ready to Break Through: Woodley already portended a bright future with her performance in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," while Teller showed some range in "Rabbit Hole" and "Project X" before starring in "21 and Over." "The Spectacular Now" was a crowd-pleaser at Sundance, earning rave reviews for both of them. Teller is uproarious without being inane and Woodley gives a subtle but affecting performance in a little movie that may have the heart and charm to connect with a wider audience.