Tom Cruise's latest mission has won a holiday weekend that's shaping up with some silent nights at movie theaters as business continues to lag.

Studio estimates Sunday placed Cruise's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" a solid No. 1 with $26.5 million domestically over its first weekend in full release. The movie raised its total to $59 million since it started a week earlier in huge-screen cinemas and expanded nationwide last Wednesday, and distributor Paramount estimated that revenues will reach $72.7 million by Monday.

Robert De Niro is a father again.

Stan Rosenfield, the 68-year-old actor's spokesman, said De Niro and his 56-year-old wife, Grace Hightower, welcomed a healthy 7-pound, 2-ounce (3.3 kilogram) baby girl named Helen Grace Hightower through a surrogate mother.

Fighting back tears, singer George Michael appeared outside his London home Friday to acknowledge that he had nearly died during his monthlong battle with pneumonia.

He said it had been "touch and go" while he was in the intensive care unit of a Vienna hospital battling an extremely dangerous form of pneumonia but that his representatives had "played it down" to avoid alarming his fans.

Richard Gere is getting a George Eastman Award in upstate New York for his contributions to movies and humanitarian causes.

The star of such films as "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Pretty Woman" will be honored Feb. 16 during a ceremony at Rochester's George Eastman House, the restored home of the founder of photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Co., according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper.

Steven Spielberg's new film "War Horse" is almost deliberately old-fashioned, pitting noble beast against the horrors of war, with sweeping, emotional set pieces -- and dividing critics as Hollywood's awards season looms.

The movie, which got a Golden Globe nomination this month ahead of its Christmas Day release in the United States, is even made on good old celluloid in a snub to the digital revolution.

Etta James' longtime manager says the terminally ill blues singer has been hospitalized after experiencing difficulty breathing.

Lupe De Leon says James' family is with her at a Southern California hospital where she was taken earlier this week.

Anita Ekberg, the curvaceous star of "La Dolce Vita", is hard-up and homeless and has asked for money from the foundation of the cult film's director Federico Fellini, La Stampa reported on Friday.

The 80-year-old Swedish-born actress, famous for frolicking in the Trevi fountain with Marcello Mastroianni in an iconic piece of film history, is in an old people's home near Rome after her house was set on fire in a burglary.

Why do kids believe a chubby guy in a flying sleigh can deliver joy across America? Because their parents do. A whopping 84 percent of grown-ups were once children who trusted in Santa's magic, and lots cling to it still.

Things are changing fast these days, with toddlers wishing for iPads, grade schoolers emailing their Christmas lists and moms wrestling over bargain toys at midnight sales. Despite all the pressures on the rituals of the season, an AP-GfK poll confirms that families are sticking by old St. Nick.

Melanie Amaro has "The X Factor."

The powerful 19-year-old vocalist from Sunrise, Fla., won the Fox talent competition Thursday over soulful 30-year-old singer Josh Krajcik of Wooster, Ohio.

There sure is a lot of cool stuff going on in "Kiss the Air," the latest effort from choreographer Elizabeth Streb. Dancers hang from spinning ladders, twirl in harnesses, splash into pools, crash into each other with yelps, and (gulp) belly-flop to the ground from ledges high enough to make you sick.

But is it dance? An intriguing question, one it's probably not best to spend much time on.