IBT Staff Reporter

Independently-made Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker won a second key film critics award on Monday in a week heavy with nominations that are likely to set the stage for the Oscars.

More U.S. consumers have turned to the great American pastime of watching television as the recession strained household budgets, a survey set to be released on Tuesday shows.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai used a keynote anti-corruption speech on Tuesday to defend the most senior of his officials to be convicted of graft in years, a move that could anger Western backers who demand more accountability.

Who wants to be a comic-book pop star?

It was October 2007, a month before filming began on The Lovely Bones, when Fran Walsh realized she had miscast her male lead.

An Italian man who broke Silvio Berlusconi's nose and teeth by striking him with a souvenir model has apologised to the Italian prime minister for his cowardly and rash act, the attacker's lawyers said.

U.S. computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc said on Tuesday it won intellectual property cases in both the United States and Britain.

Wall Street was headed for a lower open on Tuesday as producer prices rose more than expected, igniting fears of inflationary pressures, and a gauge of manufacturing activity in New York state unexpectedly plunged in December.

UBS AG will not sue its former bosses after risky bets on subprime mortgages and a strategy of helping U.S. clients dodge taxes by hiding money in secret accounts brought the Swiss bank to its knees.

U.S. producer prices rose faster than expected in November, while a gauge of manufacturing in the New York state unexpectedly fell this month, creating a potential headache for the Federal Reserve.

Volkswagen is poised to expand its automotive empire by making a full takeover bid for German truckmaker MAN SE, a German newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an unidentified company executive.

Wells Fargo & Co said on Monday it would buy Prudential Financial Inc's minority stake in retail brokerage joint venture Wells Fargo Advisors for cash, instead of cash and stock as it planned earlier.

Real estate website Zillow.com, one of the most popular vehicles for U.S. home sales searches, on Tuesday said it expanded its services to include the rental market.

Many survivors of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic of 2003 suffer from persistent mental health problems and chronic fatigue years later, new research from Hong Kong shows.

The government must craft a plan next year to get its ballooning debt under control or face possible panic in financial markets, a bipartisan panel of budget experts said in a report on Monday.

Imaging tests may be able to detect the early signs of Alzheimer's disease long before it begins to affect memory, a finding that may lead to earlier, more effective treatments, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

China can become a powerful force to help developing nations fight both climate change and poverty with low-cost exports of wind or solar technologies, the head of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) said.

A Democratic proposal to ban the collection of doctors' prescription records for marketing purposes is unlikely to be included as part of the Senate's overall health reform bill, a Senate staff member said on Monday.

Top U.S. electronics chain Best Buy Co reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, but its shares fell after it said gross margins in the current holiday quarter would be lower than it had expected.

Carbon offset aggregator Camco International expects a carbon structured transaction announced on Tuesday to have a positive impact on 2009 results.

Exxon Mobil Corp's $30 billion takeover of XTO Energy Inc is a major vote of confidence in natural gas and the latest sign that the world's top oil companies are looking to invest more in the cleaner-burning fuel.

Americans may live significantly longer in the future than current U.S. government projections, and that could mean sharply higher costs than anticipated for Medicare and other programs, researchers reported on Monday.

About three-quarters of women with breast cancer report some degree of sexual problems, according to results released at the 32nd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).

ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp, plans to raise up to 24 billion rupees ($515 million) via bonds, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

A consortium drilling for natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast said on Tuesday it signed a non-binding, $1 billion deal to supply Dalia Power Energies Ltd with 200 billion cubic feet of gas over 17 years.

Methamphetamine use and smoking among U.S. teens has dropped significantly in recent years, but declines in marijuana use have stalled, according to an annual government survey released on Monday.

Radiation from CT scans done in 2007 will cause 29,000 cancers and kill nearly 15,000 Americans, researchers said on Monday.

Obesity is becoming more common among poor city dwellers in Africa because of easier access to cheap, high fat, high sugar foods, scientists said on Tuesday.

Microsoft said it was temporarily suspending its MSN China microblogging site, Juku, as it investigates a complaint of plagiarism from a start-up, Plurk.