TORONTO (Reuters) – The Toronto film festival opened on Thursday with action movie “Looper” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but it was “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart who attracted the biggest buzz on the red carpet at the star-studded festival scattered with Oscar hopefuls.

Anticipation was high for one of the world’s premier film festivals that coming off Venice helps mark the beginning of Hollywood’s awards season. Filmmakers see it as crucial launching pad and Toronto has previously propelled such films as “The King’s Speech” to go on to success at the Academy Awards.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Action movie “Looper” with Joseph Gordon-Levitt opens the Toronto film festival on Thursday, but “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart is expected to attract the biggest buzz on the red carpet in a star-studded festival scattered with Oscar hopefuls.

Anticipation was high for one of the world’s premier film festivals that coming off Venice marks the beginning of Hollywood’s awards season. Filmmakers see it as crucial launching pad and Toronto has previously propelled such films as “The King’s Speech” to go on to success at the Academy Awards.

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Journalist Michael Moynihan did
not have to read past the first chapter of writer Jonah Lehrer’s
best-selling book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” to realize the
high-profile writer had fabricated some of its material, namely
quotes from Bob Dylan.

Yet even after Moynihan exposed Lehrer’s misquotations,
causing the 31-year-old Rhodes scholar, neuroscientist,
columnist, and nonfiction writer to resign from a staff position
at The New Yorker magazine and issue an apology this week, he is
still mystified by Lehrer’s reckless behavior.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The cast of the award-winning TV show “Modern Family” sued the comedy’s production company, 20th Century Fox Television, on Tuesday for violating their work contracts under California Law in a move seen as a bid for higher pay.

The shows’ stars, including Sofia Vergara, Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell, were named in the lawsuit filed in state court in Los Angeles in a legal move to void their current contracts.

NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) – Electronic books more than
doubled in popularity in 2011, with ebooks outselling hardcover
books in adult fiction for the first time, according to a survey
released on Wednesday.

Net sales of e-books jumped to 15 percent of the market in
2011 from 6 percent in 2010, according to a report by the
Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study
Group. The groups compiled data provided by nearly 2,000
publishers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In new TV series “Political Animals,” Secretary of State Elaine Barrish Hammond, who has just lost a presidential bid, laments that the country just doesn’t adore her as much as her womanizing husband and former President.

If that sounds like current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, actress Sigourney Weaver, who portrays Elaine, disagrees.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pop star Rihanna has sued her former accountants for mismanaging the singer’s finances, including claiming they earned huge commissions from concert tours that resulted in her losing millions of dollars.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court that surfaced on Thursday, the 24-year-old singer and her tour company, Tourihanna, is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and loss of earnings from accountancy firm Berdon LLP and former employees Michael Mitnick and Peter Gounis.

NEW YORK, June 29 (Reuters) – Savannah Guthrie will replace
Ann Curry as co-host of NBC’s “Today” Show, NBC announced on
Friday, a day after Curry made an emotional early exit from one
of America’s most high-profile television slots.

Guthrie, 40, who previously served as co-host of the morning
program’s third hour, will join Matt Lauer in the main hosting
chairs in a shake-up of the show’s line-up aimed at curbing a
recent decline in ratings, the network said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In an emotional farewell, Ann Curry confirmed on Thursday she was leaving as co-host of NBC’s “Today” show after just a year in the high-profile job and following a recent slump in the ratings of the early morning program.

Choking back tears for several minutes, Curry told viewers at the end of Thursday’s program she would be leaving as co-host of the show and taking up a new role reporting from around the world for NBC.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – On the first day newcomer director Benh Zeitlin began shooting his mythical, apocalyptic low-budget film, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” he had a real life disaster to deal with – the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sense of impending danger only served to heighten the rugged, mystical tension Zeitlin was aiming for in his acclaimed indie film that stars non-actors as a father and daughter facing environmental threats on the impoverished watery fringes of southern Louisiana.