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In Hollywood's biggest-ever box-office weekend, "Avatar" held the top spot while earning only slightly less during its second week of release. According to studio estimates Sunday, James Cameron's 3-D epic earned $75 million for 20th Century Fox, only a 3 percent drop from its opening weekend total of $77.4 million. "Sherlock Holmes" followed close behind with $65.4 million, including a record Christmas Day debut of $24.9 million. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" took in $50.2 million.

Warner Bros.' period action pic "Sherlock Holmes" raked in $24.9 million yesterday, notching the best Christmas day opening ever at the domestic box office. Undeterred by the onslaught of another tentpole in the marketplace, Fox’s "Avatar" dipped 12%, taking $23.5 million off 3,456.

Eastern Long Island and parts of Virginia got two feet of snow, and records were set in Washington and Baltimore.

The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN has set new records for colliding beams of particles this week, and is now shutting down for a couple of months to prepare for even higher energy work, the research center said on Friday.

Even Peyton Manning's inconsistency couldn't derail history for the Indianapolis Colts. Or preserve the NFL records of New England and San Francisco. Manning was sensational, throwing three TD passes in the first 23 minutes, then mediocre, getting picked off three times in the Colts' 28-16 victory over Denver for their 22nd consecutive regular-season win.

Film boxoffices were poised on Wednesday to eclipse 2007's record $9.68 billion in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales with Hollywood eyeing more than $10 billion this year as audiences flocked to theaters during the recession.

A storm dumped ice, snow and rain from Nebraska to Illinois, and Wisconsin and Iowa experienced record snowfalls.

A&E's new original series "Steven Seagal Lawman" premiered Wednesday with two back-to-back episodes and a record-breaking 3.5 million total viewers and 2.0 million viewers in adults 18-49.

In the contest, she finished second. But on the charts, she's number one. According to the Official Charts Company, which tracks music sales in Britain, the more than 410,000 copies of "I Dreamed a Dream" sold since its release Nov. 23 make it the fastest selling album so far this year, and are the largest first-week sales for a debut album in U.K. chart history.

Studio execs should give plenty of thanks to female moviegoers: "Twilight: New Moon" and "The Blind Side" led the best-ever Thanksgiving weekend at the box office by drawing women and families into theaters, while male-centric newcomers "Old Dogs" and "Ninja Assassin" only earned so-so numbers.