IBT Staff Reporter

The Los Angeles Lakers continued their stumbling start to a new era with a 100-91 road loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday as the visitors matched their poorest opening to a campaign for nine years.

A ballot initiative requiring Los Angeles porn actors to wear condoms has qualified for the June election, organizers said on Tuesday.

Welcome back to Hobbiton.

A federal judge has approved American International Group Inc's $450 million settlement with rival insurers to end litigation accusing AIG of underreporting premiums on workers' compensation policies.

A federal judge has approved American International Group Inc's $450 million settlement with rival insurers to end litigation accusing AIG of underreporting premiums on workers' compensation policies.

The New York Times Co said it will sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash as it looks to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites.

A U.S. appeals court agreed to resolve a dispute among institutional investors over whether Bank of America Corp's $8.5 billion mortgage debt settlement should be sent back to a New York state court for approval.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency request to put its securities fraud lawsuit against Citigroup Inc on hold so it can quickly appeal a judge's decision to reject its proposed settlement with the bank.

Flaws in a widely used wireless technology could allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instruct them to send text messages or make calls, according to an expert on mobile phone security.

Sears Holdings Corp will close as many as 120 of its Kmart and Sears discount and department stores after its holiday sales slumped, sending its shares sliding more than 27 percent to their lowest level in three years.

Irish singer Sinead O'Connor has ended her fourth marriage after just 16 days, blaming pressure and disapproval from the family and friends of her new husband Barry Herridge.

Holland Taylor offers no apologies for never settling down, getting married or having children.

That Adele's 21 will rank as the year's top-selling album is no surprise - the English singer-songwriter's hits Rolling in the Deep and Someone Like You dominated playlists in 2011. What is surprising is that 21, released by independent British label XL Recordings, sold more than 5 million copies.

General Electric Co agreed to buy life insurer MetLife Inc's online bank on Tuesday, in a deal that will let GE's capital arm expand its funding base and lessen reliance on wholesale markets.

Pina, Wim Wenders' 3D documentary about dancer-choreographer Pina Bausch, opened to an impressive $88,399 at three New York locations over the weekend, leading the specialty market.

Whale Wars star Capt. Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherds are returning to Animal Planet for another whale defense campaign in June.

AMC has renewed its second highest-rated show for a second season.

Dan Aykroyd has joined Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis in the political comedy Dog Fight, TheWrap has confirmed.

Making a film about an iconic politician like Britain's Margaret Thatcher is akin to walking into a movie minefield, and casting an American -- even one as revered as Meryl Streep -- is asking for more trouble.

People magazine said on Tuesday that a cover apparently featuring Twilight actor Taylor Lautner coming out as a gay man was 100 percent fake.

Is Maria Shriver ready to continue the long tradition of Kennedy women who've forgiven their husbands' extracurricular activities?

If Univision has its way, the future will look a lot like last night: Aided by repeat-heavy slates on the Big 4 networks, the Spanish-language network edged out CBS for the highest overall ratings of the night.

In a bid to boost its digital revenue, the Los Angeles Times has struck a deal with Arkadium, a major online game developer, to add more than two dozen games to that section of its Web site.

Among musicians, flat is a word you don't want to hear. But to the industry, flat is truly music to everyone's ears.

Joe Bodolai -- who wrote for Saturday Night Live for the 1981-1982 season and co-wrote the first draft of the Wayne's World movie with Mike Myers -- has died in an apparent suicide, according to various reports. He was 63.

With his hit Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen wrote a humorous piece of fiction in which the protagonist hung out with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Salvador Dali.

The sudden death in November of rapper Heavy D was due to a pulmonary embolism caused by deep leg vein thrombosis, the Los Angeles Coroner's office said on Tuesday.

Improving labor market conditions lifted U.S. consumer confidence to an eight month high in December, but persistently weak house prices remain an obstacle to faster economic growth.

The U.S. Treasury again shied away from labeling China a currency manipulator on Tuesday, but it rapped the country for not moving fast enough on exchange rate reforms.