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Woman sentenced to prison for celebrity break-in - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has sentenced a woman to four years in prison for breaking into the home of reality television starlet Audrina Patridge.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler sentenced Rachel Lee on Tuesday. The 21-year-old pleaded no contest last month to one count of felony residential burglary for the February 2009 break-in at Patridge's home in the Hollywood Hills.

She is one of the members of the so-called "Bling Ring," who targeted the homes of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and others. Four other defendants are awaiting trial.

Lee was accused of taking more than $25,000 in jewelry, designer luggage, and clothing from Patridge's home. A district attorney's statement says a later hearing will determine how much restitution she will have to pay.

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"Sesame Street" online returns after porn attack - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The YouTube channel for popular children's program "Sesame Street" was brought to viewers by the letters P, O, R and N on Sunday.

According to NextWeb, the "Sesame Street" channel suffered quite the bawdy hack Sunday, with a cyber-intruder removing all of the existing videos, changing the design and replacing the Muppet footage with hardcore pornography.

Somebody come and play, indeed. And just when Elmo and the gang were starting to recover from the Katy Perry sex scandal.

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Kevin Hart concert film passes $7 million at box office - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Stand-up concert film "Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain" continued its extraordinary box-office run this weekend, passing $7 million in revenue since its September 9 release.

The R-rated film, from Codeblack, a distributor of content targeting mostly African-American audiences, debuted explosively on September 9, grossing more than $1.9 million for its opening weekend at only 98 locations.

Playing 188 locations this weekend, its sixth in release, "Laugh at My Pain" grossed $276,000, bringing its domestic total to nearly $7.4 million.

Featuring documentary-style footage of comedian Hart on stage, as well as at home in Philadelphia and goofing a bit in a send-up skit of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," "Laugh at My Pain" was produced for only around $750,000.

It is, by far, the most successful film this year for any release that never went out wider than 300 theaters.

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G20 tells euro zone to fix debt crisis within weeks - Yahoo! News

PARIS (Reuters) - The world's leading economies kept pressure firmly on Europe to sort out its debt crisis on Saturday with the sense of urgency to be reflected in a communique at the end of a G20 finance chiefs' meeting.

The make or break moment in the two-year-old crisis that has spread far beyond starting point Greece could come at a summit of EU leaders on October 23. Germany and France have promised to set out a plan to stop contagion, protect Europe's banks and the wider world economy.

"We have heard from euro zone colleagues the action they are working on but I think they will have left Paris under no misunderstanding that there is a huge amount of pressure on them to deliver a solution to the crisis," British finance minister George Osborne told reporters.

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BlackBerry co-CEOs seek to control the damage - Yahoo! News

TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion has fixed the root cause of a global disruption of BlackBerry services and is still working to clear a backlog of delayed messages, its co-CEOs said on Thursday, hoping to control the damage to RIM four days after the outage began.

The chief executives - Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie - apologized for the system-wide failure that left millions of BlackBerry users without email, instant messaging and browsing and said the company would work to regain their customers trust.

"Our inability to quickly fix this has been frustrating," Lazaridis said, sounding contrite. "We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to minimize risk of this happening again."

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Hungarian police seize weapons from Brad Pitt film - Yahoo! News

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian police have seized a stockpile of weapons that was shipped to the Hungarian capital for the production of a film about zombies starring Brad Pitt, a film crew member said on Tuesday.

Weapons expert Bela Gajdos, who has worked on the filming of zombie movie "World War Z" to ensure the safe handling of the weapons used, told national news agency MTI that each firearm had been converted to restrict its use to blank ammunition.

Gajdos added that the weapons were completely harmless and had already been used on a shoot in London.

World War Z, a big-budget horror film directed by Marc Forster and slated for release in 2012, recently shifted filming to Hungary from Britain.

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Greece activates rescue fund to save Proton Bank - Yahoo! News

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's central bank said on Monday it activated a bank rescue fund to save Proton Bank, effectively nationalizing the small lender that is under investigation for possible violation of the country's money-laundering laws.

It is the first lender to be nationalized under the Financial Stability Fund (FSF), a safety net set up by Greece and its international lenders for banks that need to recapitalize but cannot raise funds in the market.

Analysts said the move had to do with Proton's own business problems and not with the country's severe debt crisis.

"After recommendation by the Bank of Greece, the Finance Ministry proceeded to apply to Proton Bank a new law about the restoration of banks," the Bank of Greece said in a statement.

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Threat averted: Fox renews 'Simpsons' for 2 years - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (AP) — Fans of "The Simpsons" can breathe a "d'oh!" of relief: The animated series was renewed Friday for two more seasons.

A contract dispute with the show's voice cast had threatened to end the series, but Fox announced it will air through seasons 24 and 25.

The animated series about the Simpson family, including dad Homer and his familiar "D'oh!" is TV's longest-running scripted nighttime series.

Negotiations over the future of "The Simpsons," which began its 23rd season last month, spilled out into the public. Twentieth Century Fox Television, which makes the show, said it couldn't continue without cutting costs and targeted the salaries of voice actors Harry Shearer, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria.

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Oscar nominee Diane Cilento dies: report - Yahoo! News

LONDON (Reuters) - Australian actress Diane Cilento, nominated for an Oscar in the 1960s for her role in "Tom Jones" and ex-wife of James Bond star Sean Connery, has died after a long illness, local media reported on Friday. She was 78.

She died at the Cairns Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia late on Thursday, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Cilento was born into a medical family in Mooloolaba, Queensland, in 1933 and went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in the 1950s.

She secured work on stage and in film, and earned a supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Molly in the 1963 picture Tom Jones.

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Iran cinemas threaten to close over financial woe - Yahoo! News

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's cinema owners have threatened to close their movie houses to protest against costs that have soared since energy subsidies were slashed last year, sending a highly visible message of opposition to the government's key economic policy.

Despite restrictions on foreign films, often banned for reasons of morality, movie-going is hugely popular in Iran which has a lively domestic film industry, but the cinemas say rising costs are driving them out of business.

"After the implementation of the (subsidy) plan, the price of electricity, water and gas increased by 10 to 15 times, while the income of the cinemas did not increase," Habib Kavoush, a spokesman for the Cinema Guild told Sharq, a reformist newspaper, on Tuesday.

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