IBT Staff Reporter

Ministers strived to break a deadlock in global climate talks on Tuesday, three days before world leaders are meant to agree a new U.N. pact aimed at averting dangerous climate change.

Rock singer Courtney Love lost legal control of her daughter with late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain after a court gave temporary guardianship of the 17 year-old to Cobain's mother and sister, court papers showed on Monday.

The Obama administration will announce plans later on Tuesday to acquire an Illinois prison and to send a limited number of detainees there from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. official said.

DLF Assets, owned by the founders of India's top real estate firm DLF (DLF.BO), is reviving plans for a Singapore listing of its real estate investment trust, encouraged by the global equities rally, three sources said.

Robert Downey Jr. adds punch to the role of Sherlock Holmes in an action-packed movie that breaks with what its makers called stuffy screen interpretations of the fictional English detective.

Everything we've done in Istanbul has been interesting, but getting scrubbed down and massaged with soap by a couple of good looking male tellaks tonight definitely tops

A car bomb near the home of a Pakistani provincial government minister killed 20 people on Tuesday, a police official said, in another sign authorities are struggling against Taliban militants bent on grabbing power.

Repayment of a $4.1 billion bond issued by Dubai developer Nakheel was set to complete on Tuesday, when other Islamic bond issuers reassured investors in replies to a soundness and health check by Nasdaq Dubai.

If Congress does not pass a healthcare bill soon, the opportunity to reform the U.S. healthcare system will be lost for a generation, Vice President Joe Biden warned Tuesday.

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.