Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout funds, is looking to scale back its U.S. retail footprint to just six major metropolitan areas and limit most lending to wealthy customers, according to a published report.

Citi's management is looking to reduce the bank's U.S. consumer lending to mainly credit cards and "jumbo" mortgages, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed people familiar with the situation.

The New York-based bank's executives are expected in October to present plans to the board of directors to pare Citi's retail branch network and concentrate mainly on the New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, the paper said.

Most of Citi's branch locations are located internationally. Citi currently operates about 1,000 U.S. branches, much fewer than the 5,000-plus run by Bank of America Corp. and JP Morgan Chase & Co., which expanded its network with the takeover of Washington Mutual last year. While the moves would be designed to help the bank work "smaller-but-smarter," the paper said some Citi executives are concerned that the U.S. government, which owns a 34 percent stake in Citi, could balk at branch closings.

Citi is looking to sell its 120 branches in Texas and is mulling whether it should continue to maintain a large footprint in cities like Boston and Philadelphia, the paper said. Citi holds few deposits in those locations compared with competitors.

The CEO of National Lampoon Inc. has pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia say CEO Daniel Laikin was part of a plot to artificially inflate the company's stock price by paying people to buy shares. The 47-year-old man, who lives in Indianapolis and Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to conspiracy Wednesday. Prosecutors dropped a count of securities fraud in exchange.

Prosecutors say Laikin and others hoped to push the price of the shares from $2 to $5 to boost its attractiveness in a strategic partnership or acquisition. The shares were trading on the American Stock Exchange at the time but prosecutors say they've since become an over-the-counter penny stock.

Defense lawyer Joseph Poluka did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Court records show Joe Francis has agreed to plead guilty to filing false tax returns and will avoid further jail time.

Records filed Wednesday in Los Angeles show the "Girls Gone Wild" founder will plead guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns and one count of bribing Nevada jail workers in exchange for food.

The plea agreement states Francis will pay $250,000 in restitution and receive credit for jail time served. Francis was indicted by a federal grand jury on tax evasion charges in 2007 and has spent 301 days in jail.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday afternoon. A trial had been scheduled for October.

The agreement calls for any tax liabilities of Francis or his companies from 2002 to 2008 to be handled in civil or administrative arenas.

Crews planned heavy air attacks Thursday at daybreak to halt the spread of a Southern California wildfire that has chewed through more than 25 square miles of bone dry brush, threatening hundreds of homes as well as a multimillion dollar agriculture industry and valuable oil production fields.

Firefighters focused Thursday on the fire's eastern and western flanks just north of Moorpark, about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The fire was 40 percent contained late Wednesday.

Helicopters on Wednesday dumped water on flames moving toward orchards. Ground crews doused burning shrubbery at the edges of avocado and citrus groves. County fire Capt. Ron Oatman said the fire likely burned some trees but could not confirm any orchard damage.

"A lot of the ranchers would rather see their homes burn down than their orchards, because that's their livelihood," he said.

Firefighters were also concerned about five major electrical transmission lines, a 36-inch natural gas pipeline and oil production fields at the top of a ridge, Oatman said.

The Jaycee Dugard kidnapping investigation took a new twist Wednesday when a man claiming to be her father stepped in front of television cameras in L...

Prosecutors have brought more charges against the lawyer-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith.

The district attorney's office filed an amended complaint Wednesday in Los Angeles against Howard K. Stern, who is billed as an aider and abettor of two doctors charged with prescribing drugs that killed the former Playboy model in 2007.

The physicians and Stern pleaded not guilty in May to conspiring to illegally provide her with controlled substances.

The new charges against Stern include accusations he helped obtain prescriptions for opiates by using a false name. The doctors already face those charges.

Search warrant affidavits suggest Stern put his name on the prescriptions for drugs.

The mother of a Northern California woman found alive 18 years after she was kidnapped says people should never stop looking for missing children.

Terry Probyn was reunited with her daughter Jaycee Dugard last month.

Probyn said in a statement Wednesday that she hopes her family's story will focus attention on all missing children. She said her daughter's story proves that "miracles can happen."

Dugard was 11 when police say Phillip and Nancy Garrido kidnapped her, then allegedly held her captive. Police say the couple raped Dugard, now 29, and Phillip Garrido fathered her two children. They have pleaded not guilty.

Probyn has been in seclusion with Dugard and Dugard's daughters since their reunification Aug. 27. She says they are doing very well under the circumstances.

The federal government is considering raising fees on applications for immigration-related services to help offset a shortage in revenue.

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters Wednesday in Los Angeles the agency is considering cutting costs or raising fees in the next two years to alleviate the problem.

Agency officials have blamed the revenue shortfall on an overall drop in immigration-related applications being filed amid an economic slump.

The decline also comes after the agency increased its fees in 2007. The cost of applying for citizenship, including a fingerprinting fee, is now $675, up from $400.

Mayorkas would not say how much the fees might be raised or which services might be affected.

The mother of a Northern California woman found alive 18 years after she was kidnapped says people should never stop looking for missing children.

Terry Probyn was reunited with her daughter Jaycee Dugard last month.

Probyn said in a statement Wednesday that she hopes her family's story will focus attention on all missing children. She said her daughter's story proves that "miracles can happen."

Dugard was 11 when police say Phillip and Nancy Garrido kidnapped her, then allegedly held her captive. Police say the couple raped Dugard, now 29, and Phillip Garrido fathered her two children. They have pleaded not guilty.

Probyn has been in seclusion with Dugard and Dugard's daughters since their reunification Aug. 27. She says they are doing very well under the circumstances.

Could the New Jersey Nets become the Nyets?

The basketball team once known as the New Jersey Americans is a step closer to being owned by Russia's richest man, Mikhail Prokhorov, who on Wednesday said he has a deal to buy 80 percent of the NBA team and nearly half of a project to build a new arena in Brooklyn.

The proposed blockbuster deal would give the Nets' current principal owner, Bruce Ratner, the needed cash to move forward with the centerpiece of his Atlantic Yards development, which includes plans for retail and residential projects.

It would make Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire and former amateur basketball player, the NBA's first non-North American owner.

It would mean the Nets really do seem headed to Brooklyn, a New York City borough without a major pro sports franchise since baseball's Dodgers decamped for Los Angeles in 1957.

An 8,500-acre wildfire continues to churn through rugged hills and mountains of Southern California's Ventura County, but some areas are experiencing a lull in winds.

Firefighters guarded ranch and agricultural properties on the active west flank of the fire Wednesday morning. None appeared in imminent danger.

Firefighters expect winds to pick up again and consider 1,000 homes and 20 commercial buildings threatened.

A DC-10 jumbo jet converted into an air tanker has returned to the blaze and dropped an enormous load of fire retardant on vegetation.

The fire erupted Tuesday between the cities of Fillmore and Moorpark as hot, dry and gusty Santa Ana winds pushed through Southern California.

Sure they've been compared to "The Cosby Show," but this real life family has its own share of everyday struggles, especially since they live under th...

ASSOCIATED PRESSHeidi Klum, left, is joined by husband Seal as she arrives at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Katherine Jackson's attorney says a judge's ruling that she can challenge the administrators of her son's estate could result...

For nearly 20 years, Sheryl Lee Ralph has been singing for her loved ones who have died of HIV/AIDS and this year she continues her mission in raising...

The Station wildfire near Los Angeles has killed two firefighters and reduced more than 160,000 acres of California forest to ash since it bega...

By GENE DAVIS, DENVER DAILY NEWS If there's ever been an event that The Dude would abide by, it's the Lebowski Fest that's rolling into gear t...

LOS ANGELES—Nipseyan scholars were jubilant Monday following the announcement that the Russell estate had consented to publish the last......

LOS ANGELES—The Brothers Karamazov will also include 12 separate intermissions, in which portions of the latest John Grisham-inspired film will ...

The biannual Barneys Warehouse Sale, long a revered shopfest on the New York and Los Angeles sales calendars, is moving on to greener pastures this...