
It has been Taylor Swift's year, and Wednesday was her night as she became the youngest person and the first solo female act in a decade to win the Country Music Association's entertainer of the year award.
Swift won all four awards for which she was nominated, making history on a historic night that included Darius Rucker's win as new artist.
"I'll never forget this moment because in this moment everything that I have ever wanted has just happened to me," Swift said through tears as she accepted the association's highest honor during ceremonies at Nashville's Sommet Center.
The 19-year-old crossover sensation beat the biggest names in country and snapped Kenny Chesney's stranglehold on the category: He won three straight and four of the past five. She also ended Carrie Underwood's three-year dominance in the female vocalist category.
Rucker was also a fan favorite, running into the crowd during his performance of "Alright." The Hootie and the Blowfish frontman, who has sold 1 million copies of his first country album, "Learn to Live," became the second African-American to win a major individual CMA.
He joins Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971-72.
A painting by pop artist Andy Warhol, "200 One Dollar Bills," brought $43.8 million at auction, more than three times its highest presale estimate of $12 million.
The piece, one of Warhol's first silk-screen paintings, sold at Sotheby's on Wednesday evening. The auction house did not reveal the names of the buyer and seller, the Associated Press reports.
Bidding for the seminal work was spirited and fast. Auctioneer Tobias Meyer opened bidding at $6 million, which was immediately doubled. Five more people in the room jumped in, competing until a phone bidder was declared the winner.
The current record for a Warhol is $71.7 million for "Green Car Crash, sold at Christie's in 2007.
Executed in 1962, the painting was once owned by taxi tycoon Robert C. Scull, who purchased it directly from Warhol's dealer. The current owner bought it in 1986 for $385,000.
Other Warhol paintings also drew strong prices.
His 1965 "Self-Portrait," which the artist gave to Cathy Naso, a receptionist who worked at his Factory, sold for $6.1 million. It had been estimated to sell for $1 million to $1.5 million.
An untitled 1962 Warhol drawing of a roll of dollar bills belonging to New York collector Leonard Newman sold for $4.2 million, above its $2.5 million to $3.5 million presale estimate.
The founder of "Girls Gone Wild" is set to return before a Florida Panhandle federal judge who witnessed a tearful, nose-blowing apology from the young multimillionaire in 2007.
Joe Francis is due in Judge Richard Smoak's court on next Friday for a hearing involving four women who say Francis' company filmed them when they were underage. Francis' attorneys want the case thrown out and the women's attorneys want him to pay.
In 2007, Francis sobbed and asked to be freed from a Panama City jail. Smoak jailed him for contempt of court after Francis yelled at attorneys during settlement negotiations in another case.
The "Girls Gone Wild" video series features women exposing themselves on camera.
Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt have tied the knot.
The 42-year-old "Office Space" star and 35-year-old "Rachel Getting Married" actress married Nov. 2 in San Francisco, according to Livingston's spokeswoman, Carri McClure.
Livingston and DeWitt starred together as crisis negotiation partners in Fox's short-lived drama "Standoff." Livingston also appeared in "The Time Traveler's Wife" and the ABC series "Defying Gravity" earlier this year.
Mackenzie Carpenter's video program, "Omnivore," is available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.