Kim Kardashian tops Yahoo! searches

Plus: Led Zeppelin honoured by Obama; The Wanted's Max George defends Lindsay Lohan; veteran Star Wars producer leaves Lucasfilm; Olly Murs tops UK charts.

Kim Kardashian's divorce saga with Kris Humphries and high-profile relationship with Kanye West helped keep her at the top of Yahoo! searches. Mohammed Al Shaikh / AFP

Kim Kardashian was the most-searched person on Yahoo! this year. Vera Chan, Yahoo!'s web trend analyst, said Kardashian's "notoriety has kept her at the top", citing her continuing divorce saga with Kris Humphries and her high-profile relationship with Kanye West. Kate Upton, Kate Middleton, Whitney Houston, Lindsay Lohan and Jennifer Lopez all featured in the most-searched list. On Yahoo!'s separate list of top-searched obsessions, pop culture dominated this year, with The Hunger Games, the reality star Honey Boo Boo, Fifty Shades of Grey, One Direction, Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe and Psy's Gangnam Style featuring in the top 10. - Reuters

Obama honours Led Zeppelin, Letterman

Led Zeppelin led this year's recipients of the Kennedy Center Honours, America's highest award for influential figures in the arts. Stars from Hollywood joined the US president Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday to salute the honorees, who also included David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman, the Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and the ballerina Natalia Makarova. Obama drew laughs when he thanked the members of Led Zeppelin for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of "hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around". On the red carpet, Letterman said he was thrilled by the recognition. "It supersedes everything," he said. Stars who paid tribute to the honorees included Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman. - AP

The Wanted's Max George defends Lindsay Lohan

Max George, a member of the boy band The Wanted, has come to the defence of Lindsay Lohan after her arrest on Friday in a New York nightclub brawl. The band were hanging out with Lohan when a clubgoer, Tiffany Mitchell, alleged that the actress hit her. "We were just out and there was a bit of trouble with someone in the club," George said in an interview with 102.7 KIIS FM. "But it got blown out of proportion to be honest." George also quashed rumours that Lohan got jealous when she saw him talking to Mitchell: "I didn't instigate anything. It was nothing to do with me." In an interview with TMZ, Lohan denied hitting Mitchell and said she got angry because Mitchell was trying to steal her purse. - IANS

Veteran Star Wars producer leaves Lucasfilm

After George Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney, Rick McCallum, who produced the three Star Wars prequels and the re-releases of the originals, is parting ways with Lucasfilm to pursue independent film production. In a statement on www.starwars.com, he assured fans he was leaving the franchise in good hands. "There's only one person in the world who could do this, and that's Kathleen Kennedy," he said, referring to the Hollywood producer taking the helm of a planned sequel trilogy. Meanwhile in an interview with Access Hollywood, Lucas was asked about the extent of his duties as a consultant on the next Star Wars film. Lucas replied: "Basically I'm not - I don't really have much to do." - The National staff

Olly Murs single tops UK music charts

The singer Olly Murs's single Troublemaker, featuring the rapper Flo Rida, retained the No 1 spot in Britain's pop charts for a second week in a row. The former contestant on The X Factor UK also nabbed the top spot in the album charts with Right Place Right Time, leaving One Direction in second place. - Reuters