IBT Staff Reporter

Hollywood did a bit better than the rest of California last month. The state's unemployment rate ticked up from 12 percent to 12.1 percent, with about 8,400 jobs lost during August, according to new U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.

Stocks rose for a fifth day in a row on Friday and the S&P 500 scored its best week since early July on signs euro zone leaders were acting together to limit any damage from its sovereign debt crisis.

Countrywide Financial's lawsuit losses could compel parent Bank of America Corp to put up the unit on the bankruptcy block, Bloomberg reported citing four people with knowledge of the firm's strategy.

Director Gary Ross has finished principal photography on Lionsgate's highly anticipated movie, The Hunger Games, the studio announced on Thursday.

Casting directors on the east and west coasts have ratified a new contract, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 399 told TheWrap Friday.

Reality TV star Tareq Salahi on Friday filed for divorce from his runaway wife Michaele, and accused her of having an affair with Journey guitarist Neal Schon.

Paramount Pictures has rescheduled the Eddie Murphy comedy A Thousand Words, and will release it March 23, 2012, instead of January 13, 2012.

Has Bravo axed half the housewives in its New York franchise? Real Housewives of New York City star Sonja Morgan says the rumors are true, but Bravo says not so fast.

Cliff Claven's going to be jealous.The U.K.'s favorite letter carrier -- that's postie in Britain -- is coming to the big screen.

The Writers Guild of America, East, has elected Jeremy Pikser its vice president, the union announced Friday.

Facebook is a technology business, but during an interview Friday at the Paley Center, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg made it sound like a digital utopia.

Playing soul legend Ray Charles won Jamie Foxx an Oscar -- what will it do for Javier Colon's career?

MTV is adding six new shows to its lineup -- two comedies and four unscripted programs -- the network announced Friday.

The Starz network has scheduled a special marathon of Spartacus: Blood and Sand to honor the series' breakout star, 39-year-old Andy Whitfield, who died on September 11 after a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

If you go down to the woods tonight, carry a big-ass gun is the most cogent take-away from the tepid and confused new remake of Sam Peckinpah's controversial classic, Straw Dogs.

Health and fitness guru Bob Harper shot to fame as a trainer on The Biggest Loser reality TV series, which beings is 12th season on Tuesday on NBC, after becoming an improbable hit for its network.

Star bond-fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach breached his duties to Trust Company of the West in their messy divorce but the investment firm should not be awarded any damages, a jury ruled.

A soon-to-be-auctioned Beatles contract for a 1965 California concert reveals that the Fab Four took a firm stand in support of the era's civil rights movement, refusing to play before a segregated audience.

Hollywood did a bit better than the rest of California last month.

Ryan Gosling may be one of Hollywood's hottest leading men and a heartthrob at that, but he doesn't shy away from tough-guy violence. In fact, he finds it suits him sometimes as in his newest film, Drive.

Two of Twitter's earliest investors have left the company's board of directors, the latest change to the fast-growing social media company's leadership.

Four bank tellers at an HSBC bank branch in Brooklyn, New York will get a new trial on their claim that they were subject to a racially hostile work environment, thanks to a law passed in 2005 that lowered the threshold for establishing workplace hostility.

Investors drove Research In Motion's stock down 20 percent on Friday as dismal quarterly results raised prospects that the BlackBerry maker will be sold, broken up, or at least placed under new leadership.

Consumer sentiment in the United States rose in early September, but Americans remained very gloomy about the future with their expectations for the economy falling to the lowest level since 1980.

Current and former BP executives and directors won dismissal on Thursday of one of several U.S.-shareholder lawsuits filed over last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Want to know why video game stocks pop or drop? Check the reviews.

Star bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach was awarded $66.7 million by a jury over his messy divorce from money management firm Trust Company of the West, in one of the ugliest battles ever to grip the multitrillion-dollar bond-fund world.

Research In Motion's dismal quarterly results, the latest in a string of disappointments by the BlackBerry maker, could prove a boon to prospective buyers eyeing its treasure trove of wireless patents.

Canada took its fight against a U.S. tax evasion law to American newspapers on Friday, sending a letter that says the new regulation is wasteful and raises privacy concerns.