UNITED KINGDOM

A 50.6-carat pearl given to Elizabeth Taylor by her one-time husband Richard Burton fetched a staggering $11.8-million at Christie's in New York Tuesday.

Scientists said on Tuesday they had found signs of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang.

Ousted Olympus CEO Michael Woodford, who is campaigning to regain his old job at the disgraced Japanese company, said on Wednesday that he wanted no part in breaking up the firm, now struggling to survive a massive accounting scandal.

Japan's scandal-ridden Olympus Corp faces one of its biggest challenges to survive as an independent company on Wednesday, when it must meet a deadline to file its second-quarter results or be delisted from the Tokyo stock exchange.

Director David Fincher's film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo earned solid early reviews on Tuesday following its London premiere, and the studio behind it pushed up the release in a crowded holiday season.

Silent film The Artist and animated movie Hugo led nominations for Hollywood's Critics' Choice Awards on Tuesday, in a key week that will firm up the field of likely Oscar contenders.

British band The Kooks wrap up the current U.S. leg of their tour this week, setting their sights beyond their first three records and aiming to score a major hit in America with new music to come.

Casseri was connected to a right wing anti-immigrant movement called Casa Pound

Europe's economic prospects next year are so bleak that 2011, for all the euro's agonies, has every chance of being remembered fondly.

Spending cuts proposed by a cash-strapped coalition government in London will likely also exacerbate the problem.

The latest rumors about Arsenal's Dutch striker Robin van Persie say that the stud will be courted heavily by both Barcelona and Real Madrid with Arsenal praying for a prolonged standoff, according to the Guardian.

European marketss ended mixed Tuesday in thin trade as firmer crude prices boosted energy stocks, although the market cut gains after sources said German Chancellor Angela Merkel was against a raising of the funding limit for Europe's future bailout fund.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus, world's first smartphone to run on Android 4.0 aka. Ice Cream Sandwich, will hit Australia on Wednesday but there's no news from Verizon Wireless yet about the smartphone's U.S. launch date.

Among the main beneficiaries of the graphic new movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be babysitters.

A new Web site, You Have Downloaded, tracks what users have downloaded from file-sharing sites based on IP addresses. The site intends to scare and worry users who download music, movies, TV shows and applications frequently without precautions.

Two pandas named Tian Tian and Yang Guang, which have been loaned to the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland by China's Bifengxia panda breeding centre in Ya'an recently, were shown to the press Monday.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus is yet to hit U.S. shores officially but some lucky Android fans seem to have already acquired the highly anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphone from Best Buy and Verizon retail stores over the weekend.

An independent arbitrator cleared the way on Tuesday for mining group Rio Tinto Plc/Ltd to take over Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, saying the $16 billion Canadian group's poison pill defense was not valid.

The player has now been left out of the Chelsea first team for the second successive game.

The highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Nexus has been released in the UK, Japan and Canada, while customers in the United States have been eagerly awaiting its release. The latest Google Android phone will runs only on the Verizon network and is rumored to be hitting stores in U.S. on Dec. 15.

Game publisher Activision is on a high as its latest installment of Call of Duty topped $1 billion in worldwide sales in just 16 days since its Nov. 8 release.