Forget the worst global economic crisis in 75 years, the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai, the continuing genocide in Darfur or the Russian invasion of Georgia. As far as the users of the Yahoo! search engine were concerned, 2008 was still Britney Spears' year.

Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf has been cast in "The Associate," a new big-screen legal thriller based on John Grisham's forthcoming novel, Variety.com said.