It's Sunday morning in Hollywood, and the experts have declared the winners and losers of the weekend box office, for which the celebrity contenders were Jim Carrey in Disney's A Christmas Carol, George Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats and Cameron Diaz in The Box. Headline in The Wrap: "$31M Lump of Coal for 'Christmas Carol'." And from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood: "Happy Holidays? Not for Stars: Carrey, Clooney, & Cameron Open Soft This Weekend." Meanwhile, Variety ...

Portugal booked themselves a place in the European playoffs for next year's World Cup finals after a comfortable 4-0 Group One victory over Malta. Goals from Nani, Simao Sabrosa, Miguel Veloso and Edinho made it a comfortable evening for Carlos Queiroz's side in Guimaraes. Manchester United midfielder Nani calmed any Portuguese nerves by scoring after 13 minutes. Veloso played the ball in from the left and Nani, just outside the 18-yard box, was quick to get his left-footed shot ...

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most powerful platforms in the world. Winners get immediate global attention and the chance to meet and influence leaders and governments everywhere. Think of it as a megaphone through which worthy, but very often obscure, activists or politicians or environmentalists can shout their message to a gathered crowd. That's just one of the reasons the Nobel Committee's decision to award this year's Peace Prize to Barack Obama is such a ...

News that U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize has been as polarizing as his embattled healthcare reform plans. Minutes after the news broke, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook were flooded with comments. Half of the trending topics on microblogging site Twitter were about the prize and the U.S. President. Opinion was largely divided on Twitter between those who think Obama is a worthy recipient -- and those who question ...

President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead ...

A controversial Colombian senator who has obtained the release of 16 hostages held by Marxist guerrillas is the leading candidate to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced Friday, said an independent research institute in Norway. Sen. Piedad Cordoba is the most likely recipient among three leading contenders, said the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute. The others the institute named are Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Islamic faith at Jordan University, and Afghan ...