IBT Staff Reporter

For those who don't recall, Jeff Dunham is a comic whose Christmas 2008 special earned Comedy Central record ratings -- a full 6.6 million viewers. Those are numbers Jay Leno would drool over these days, but for most of the country, Dunham is a complete unknown.

EBay Inc on Wednesday forecast fourth-quarter profit and revenue at the low end of analysts' estimates, disappointing investors' hopes of a substantial turnaround at its main marketplaces division during the crucial holiday season.

Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci and Wren Arthur, the trio behind Olive Prods., have set up their first TV projects: a drama at HBO starring Tucci and an animated comedy at TBS to be voiced by Tucci and Buscemi.

Pretty Little Liars, a drama based on Alloy Entertainment's series of young-adult novels by Sara Shepard, is nearing a deal with ABC Family.

A New York law firm is the subject of a new reality series, Legal Ease.

A 50 year-old Russian coal miner suffering from lung disease is seeking a buyer for his prized possession, a signed photograph of sultry Brigitte Bardot, to pay for an operation, a popular tabloid reported on Wednesday.

The music game genre experienced a much-needed lift in September on the backs of new releases The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5.

British rock band Def Leppard has canceled the third leg of its North American tour due to unspecified personal matters, the group said on its website.

Cecilia Bartoli could have followed the path of least resistance. When the Italian mezzo-soprano burst onto the opera scene in the early '90s with a standard repertoire of Rossini and Mozart, she looked like she could establish a career as a traditional classical artist.

U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday, hurt by a late sell-off in financial shares after an influential bank analyst recommended selling Wells Fargo shares and a wider-than-expected loss from Boeing disappointed investors.

Residents of Japanese town defended their annual dolphin hunt on Wednesday as a U.S. documentary showing the event premiered at a Tokyo film festival to a sell-out audience.

Employers and employees have dramatically different opinions of why workers remain in their jobs, says research released on Tuesday showing U.S. companies may struggle to retain employees in an improved job market.

Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier is in negotiations to direct the English-language romantic comedy Which Brings Me to You.

Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis purports to be an evenhanded investigation into the case of a Holocaust survivor who, by negotiating with Adolf Eichmann, saved many fellow Jews but apparently let many more perish. This compelling but lopsided documentary is best viewed by reading between the lines.

Michigan again had the highest unemployment rate of all U.S. states in September at 15.3 percent, followed by Nevada and Rhode Island, which set records, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.

Pretty people suit up in skimpy swimsuits under the crystal blue waters of the Bahamas in India's most expensive ($21 million) film to date. Although Blue has been promoted aggressively for months, this year's big Diwali holiday release is up against an urban love story and an eagerly awaited big-name comedy that will likely leave Blue's revenues high and dry.

The current recession has been called a mancession because men have lost more jobs than women have, yet some experts contend women are suffering more: The tight money environment is causing them to give up everything from sleep to children as they worry about finances and scale back their lifestyles and family plans.

A lawyer for Roman Polanski denied on Wednesday that the film director, now in Swiss custody, may opt to face justice in the United States, where he is wanted on a 1977 sex charge, to avoid lengthy extradition procedures.

Bahraini real estate developers are eying investments in the country's low-income housing market to ride out a dearth of demand for high-end residences, executives said.

MTV, which made its name as the home of the music video three decades ago, will launch a drive into scripted original programs on Friday that executives hope will mark a new era for the youth-oriented cable channel.

Enterprise, a U.S. nonprofit group, said on Wednesday it hopes to raise $4 billion over the next five years to make housing for low-income people more energy efficient.

The Obama administration is open to the idea of a short-term extension of the housing tax credit but wants to see it remain focused on first-time home buyers, senior White House aide Lawrence Summers said on Wednesday.

Kanye West is not dead, exposing a hoax by a fraudulent web site that claimed to be Fox News. Amber Rose, West's girlfriend, denied the rumors which said he died in a bizarre car crash in Los Angeles.

Morgan Stanley's riskier trading operations have stolen the thunder from its growing brokerage -- at least for now.

U.S. economic conditions stabilized or improved modestly in most parts of the country, according to a Federal Reserve report on Wednesday that suggested the economy was slowly clawing out of a recession.

Amy Winehouse has completely changed and according to her father she is a completely different person from what she was a year ago with her father describing her as Fantastic, fantastic - which also includes her recent breast implants, PEOPLE reported.

U.S. stocks turned lower heading toward the close on Wednesday as a drag from Boeing Co and Wal-Mart Stores Inc offset gains in the natural resources sector and reassuring profits in banking and technology.

U.S. auto sales are projected to rise nearly one-fifth to 11.8 million units in 2010, influential industry tracking firm CSM Worldwide said on Wednesday, citing signs that the worst of the economic downturn had passed.

The founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia said on Wednesday he had entered into a partnership with computer company Hewlett Packard that will allow users to create and print magazines.