The Salzburg Festival, one of the world's top classical music events, was in disarray Monday after the conductor of one of the centerpiece performances for the next three years withdrew in a huff.

Franz Welser-Moest said that he would not perform Mozart's opera "Cosi fan tutte" after discovering in the 2013 program that it was due to be performed five times in 10 days, including once starting at 11:00 am.

Luke Bryan didn't want the American Country Awards to end.

He cleaned up during the fan-voted show, winning everything he was nominated for, including artist and album of the year. His smash hit "I Don't Want This Night To End" was named single and music video of the year.

A holiday tradition in this upstate New York resort town has a peppermint twist: pig-shaped hard candies are sold with little metal hammers to smash them at Christmas.

The peppermint pigs, which can weigh up to a pound, are considered good luck charms by some. Family members will take turns whacking the piggy tokens of holiday cheer into little candy shards.

The boyfriend of late Grammy-winning British singer Amy Winehouse allegedly raped a female friend while she was asleep, a British court heard Monday.

Reg Traviss, 35, a film director who was dating Winehouse when she died of alcohol poisoning at her London home in July last year, faces two counts of rape at Southwark Crown Court in London.

On the closing of the 19th European Film Festival, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst, awarded on Sunday the Lebanese Students Best Short Films Prize to Un Grand Film by Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya and Derrière-moi les oliviers by Pascale Abou Jamra, a press release said on Monday.

Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya is a graduate of l'Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts. The jury has praised the humor and the well-knitted plot of “Un Grand Film” as well as the performance of its leading actor. Jean will be invited to the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in Germany in 2013.

Comedian Katt Williams has been arrested in northern California on a felony warrant related to a police chase.

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/UNq5QW ) that Williams was arrested Friday night in Dunnigan, about 25 miles north of Sacramento, by Yolo County deputies.

The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" snagged the top spot at the North American box office this weekend, beating animation adventure "Rise of the Guardians," estimates showed Sunday.

"Skyfall," the 23rd episode of the spy thriller series, now starring Daniel Craig as 007, took in $11 million in its fifth weekend in theaters, said industry tracker Exhibitor Relations.

A small plane carrying Mexican-American star singer Jenni Rivera crashed in northern Mexico on Sunday, leaving no survivors and sparking an outpouring of grief among fans and fellow celebrities.

The wreckage of the Lear Jet, which was carrying six other people, was found by farmers in the state of Nuevo Leon hours after it had taken off from Monterrey on its way to Toluca, in the center of Mexico, authorities said.

Two Australian radio presenters who made a hoax call to the hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife Catherine were taken off the air Saturday after the nurse who took the call was found dead in a suspected suicide.

Jacintha Saldanha answered the phone when presenters from Sydney's 2Day FM called pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II and William's father Prince Charles, before passing it onto a colleague who divulged details of Kate's condition.

The Rolling Stones will join a star-studded lineup at a December 12 concert to benefit victims of megastorm Sandy, organizers said Friday.

Proceeds from the concert, which falls on the date 12/12/12, will be donated to a foundation for those impacted by the late October storm that plowed into the U.S. northeast, including the hard-hit states of New York and New Jersey.