Malaysian police say nothing suspicious among the 227 passengers

BEIJING – A British submarine joined the search Wednesday for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet as Malaysian police said their probe of the 227 passengers found no personal or psychological problems or motivation to hijack or sabotage the aircraft.

Authorities are continuing to investigate the pilot, co-pilot and 10 other crew members for clues as to how and why Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished March 8, police Inspector-General Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar told Bernama, the Malaysian state news agency. Investigators said previously that they believed the jet's disappearance was the result of deliberate action by somebody on board the plane.

Conditions for Wednesday's search for the Boeing 777 in the Indian Ocean were fair, but the quest turned up no evidence of debris, Australian authorities said. Ten planes and nine ships searched an area of about 91,500 square miles more than 900 miles west of Perth, Australia.

The Tireless, a Trafalgar Class submarine that has joined the hunt, has advanced underwater search capabilities, Australian officials said. The British navy vessel Echo, a hydrographic survey ship, also was participating in the search.

An Australian vessel towing a pinger detector that could pick up transmissions from the plane's flight data recorder has apparently not yet arrived in the search area.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was due to visit Perth on Wednesday and Thursday to be briefed by Angus Houston, who is coordinating the Australian-led search. Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines held a closed-door briefing in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, for family members of the missing passengers. Flight 370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared, and the majority of passengers were Chinese nationals.

Houston said investigators were continuing to try to narrow the search area based on their analysis of satellite and other data but the task remained an extremely challenging one.

"We don't have a precise aircraft location for six hours before the aircraft went into the water somewhere," Houston said in a radio interview Wednesday. "So it's a very difficult task for the search coordination centers in Malaysia and also in Australia, [with] no precise data from which to start the search."

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julie.makinen@latimes.com

Twitter: @juliemakLAT

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Kim Kardashian chased away from a selfie? Say it ain't so!

Kim Kardashian gets a little too close to a big baby in Thailand.

By Christie D'Zurilla

April 2, 2014, 8:00 a.m.

Who's afraid of a little elephant? Kim Kardashian, that's who. 

The reality-TV star has been touring Southeast Asia with her family, taping for "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and of course posting pics of their exploits. A couple of shots even have Kim dressing demurely -- shoulders covered, longer skirt, no exploding cleavage -- as she visits a temple.

But it was a baby elephant who got the best of the fame queen Friday in Thailand. She was trying to take a selfie with the critter when it moved toward her, blowing at her hair through its trunk and completely freaking her out. Those pics are not available on Twitter or Instagram, but can be seen in the video above.

Score one for the pachyderm, 'cause it's rare that any Kardashian runs away from a photo op.

Not shying away from the camera was sister Kendall Jenner, who on Monday posted a snap of "just me and my coconut." And that caption was no lie. There's a lot of backside on display in this bikini shot. 

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Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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Suicide blast at Afghan Interior Ministry kills 6 police officers

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Taliban suicide bomber managed to get past a security checkpoint Wednesday and then blew himself up at the entrance to the Afghan Interior Ministry, killing six police officers on the last day of campaigning in this country's closely watched presidential election.

The midafternoon bombing outside one of Kabul's most heavily guarded government installations was the latest of several major attacks that have sown fear in the Afghan capital ahead of Saturday's contest that will determine President Hamid Karzai's successor.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the bomber got through at least one checkpoint on foot and then detonated his explosives near a reception area where police officers and visitors regularly pass in and out of the complex. Four other police officers reportedly were injured.

The Interior Ministry initially said the bomber was wearing a military uniform, but Sediqqi said that information was unconfirmed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack moments after it occurred.

Kabul's normally traffic-clogged streets were subdued at dusk. Uniformed security personnel were stopping cars for inspections, and some residents reported that police were encouraging them to stay at home over the next couple of days, apparently due to concerns about further violence.

Shortly before the Interior Ministry blast, a Taliban spokesman issued a statement warning of more attacks aimed at derailing the election, which the insurgent group has described as a foreign plot.

Afghan officials are pressing ahead, however, and forecasting solid voter turnout based on long lines of people who sought to collect voter registration cards in recent days. Ballots and other election materials have been distributed to all 34 provinces and will arrive at polling centers, sometimes by donkey cart, by Friday evening, officials said.

"Maybe some insurgent groups want to sabotage the election, but the people of Afghanistan are keen to participate in deciding the future of their country," Noor Mohammed Noor, spokesman for Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, said in an interview Wednesday.

As Noor spoke, however, security personnel outside his office were busily erecting new concrete barriers along the perimeter of the election commission headquarters, which was attacked last week by insurgents who infiltrated a house a few hundred yards from the gate.

Election officials have announced that about 750 of more than 7,000 polling centers nationwide would not open due to security fears or the inability of Afghan soldiers and police to secure the locations.

The leading presidential candidates -- former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, former Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasoul and 2009 presidential runner-up Abdullah Abdullah -- held their final campaign events Wednesday at locations around Kabul. Under Afghan law, there is to be no more campaigning until polls open Saturday morning.

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shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Twitter: @sbengali

Baktash is a special correspondent.

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Baseball is a big attraction on L.A.'s cultural scene this week

With the Major League Baseball season just underway, it's also batter-up this week for baseball-related cultural events in the L.A. area -- a triple play of sorts including a big museum exhibition, a theatrical production focused on baseball songs, and a program of chamber music interspersed with writer-actor Richard Montoya's reflections on the history of Chavez Ravine before it became the Dodgers' home.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum opens "Baseball! The Exhibition" on Friday, showcasing 800 or more artifacts documenting some of the biggest stars and moments in the game's history, including separate galleries on Dodgers history, on Babe Ruth, and on Reagan's connection to baseball, going back to his start in public life ad-libbing the play-by-play of Chicago Cubs games from a radio studio in Des Moines.

Reagan's radio gig, which included painting word-pictures out of his own imagination while waiting for game developments to come in via wire reports, took him to the Cubs' spring training camp in L.A. in 1937, during which he took the Hollywood screen test that landed him his first acting contract and set him on course toward much bigger things.

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On Thursday, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's Westside Connections series at the Moss Theater in Santa Monica will spotlight 20th century Mexican composers Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chavez, with Montoya interweaving his thoughts about Chavez Ravine's history in the decades before the Dodgers' 1962 arrival. He and his two partners in the theater group Culture Clash documented the politically fraught history in their play "Chavez Ravine" at the Mark Taper Forum in 2003, telling how a Mexican immigrant community was bulldozed to make way for a housing project that never materialized, turning the ravine into vacant land available to lure the Dodgers from Brooklyn years later.

In Beverly Hills, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts debuts a family-oriented music-and-theater piece called "Baseball Swing." Running Friday to Sunday, it's the theatrical equivalent of a spring tryout for a potential major leaguer -- Annenberg Center spokesman Joel Hile said it's a new work, co-produced by the Center, that follows a less elaborate show that had toured previously. There are hopes it will develop into a new touring attraction.

The show takes the audience to a ballgame, where baseball buff Fred Willard is the stadium announcer and narrator, and four other singer-actors belt out a repertoire of baseball-themed hits and obscurities, backed by a nine-piece jazz band.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a partner in the production, providing video and photographic content. The show was first mounted by the Baseball Music Project, a group whose co-founder, Robert Thompson, is the production's conductor and music director. Hall of Fame outfielder Dave Winfield was the announcer in its previous iteration as an orchestral program.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, the Reagan Library and Museum's baseball exhibition figures to be this season's biggest showcase for ball-yard memorabilia outside the Hall's headquarters in Cooperstown, N.Y. Running through Sept. 4, it will occupy 12,000 square feet of exhibition space.

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Most of the pieces come from L.A. collector Gary Cypres, who says he's loaning about 750 objects from his 30,000-square-foot private L.A. museum of sports memorabilia. The Reagan Library will bring out an additional 60 or so pieces from its own collection, including a Dodgers jersey with the uniform No. 1 that manager Tommy Lasorda and his team presented to the president in a White House ceremony after they'd won the 1988 World Series over the heavily-favored Oakland A's, three months before Reagan turned over the presidential reins to George H.W. Bush.

Dodgers fans pining for a repeat of that feat -- the team's last world championship -- also can gaze at the glove First Lady Nancy Reagan wore and the ball she threw to catcher Mike Scioscia in the ceremonial first pitch of the 1988 series at Dodger Stadium. That day that ended with a miraculous ninth inning pinch hit home run by Kirk Gibson to pluck victory not from the jaws of defeat, but from its very esophagus.

Cypres, who offers private tours of his museum, said this will be the first major show from his collection that will be available to the general public, apart from a few months in 2008-09 when his downtown venue tried to sell tickets in the face of a withering recession.

A 2012 exhibition at L.A.'s Craft and Folk Art Museum, "Baseball: the American Game," featured paintings, posters, carved figures and other paraphernalia from Cypres' collection; they'll be a component of the Reagan Library show, but the new lineup will feature many prized objects of the game itself, including balls, bats and gloves tracing the evolution of baseball gear from the 1860s to modern times.

The show will include a bat hefted by Babe Ruth and a uniform he wore in 1939 as a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform jersey worn by Sandy Koufax, numerous artifacts associated with Jackie Robinson, and the ball Barry Bonds hit to tie Hank Aaron's career home run record at 755 (at least in the eyes of those willing to overlook Bonds' late-career indulgence in performance-enhancing drugs).

The batting record generally considered the most unbreakable of all will be documented with the balls Joe DiMaggio smashed to tie and set a new mark for hitting in consecutive games (games 45 and 46 of a streak that eventually reached 56, eclipsing Willie Keeler's mark of 45 set in the late 1890s).

Also on exhibit, Cypres said, will be the ball Joltin' Joe failed to get past the Cleveland infield in the final at-bat that ended the streak.

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'Fantastic Four' finds villain: Toby Kebbell as Doctor Doom

It looks like "The Fantastic Four" might have found its Victor von Doom.

Actor Toby Kebbell is in negotiations to play villain Doctor Doom in director Josh Trank's reboot of "The Fantastic Four."

Kebbell appears set to join the cast, which includes Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and "Divergent" actor Miles Teller as Johnny Storm (the Human Torch), Sue Storm (the Invisible Woman), Benjamin Grimm (the Thing) and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), respectively.

The English actor has a history in cinematic blockbusters — his résumé includes turns in such large-scale films as "Wrath of the Titans," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" and Oliver Stone's 2004 feature "Alexander."

Toby Kebbell as Agenor in "Wrath of the Titans." (Warner Bros.)

Kebbell also has worked in  more critically well-received films including the Joy Division movie "Control," Steven Spielberg's World War I drama "War Horse" and last year's techno-thriller "The East."

He'll next be seen in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," and he'll also be featured in Duncan Jones' 2016 film, "Warcraft."

In the Marvel comics, Victor von Doom is the orphan son of a witch who sets out to master sorcery and becomes a rival of Reed Richards during their college years. After sustaining facial injuries in an explosion, he flees to Tibet, where he sets himself up as the ruler of an order of monks and begins to wear a custom-made suit of armor, later taking over the nation of Latveria.

"The Fantastic Four" is set for release June 19, 2015; a sequel,  "Fantastic Four 2," already is scheduled for July 14, 2017.

– Gina McIntyre | @LATherocomplex

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Neil Finn strives for new sensations in 'Dizzy Heights'

A lyric from the title track from New Zealand rocker Neil Finn's new solo album, "Dizzy Heights," crystallizes much of what the erstwhile member of Crowded House, Split Enz and the Finn Brothers is up to on his latest work.

"Help me make up a new sound," he sings, and indeed, much of what he's created for "Dizzy Heights" embodies that idea with spacious aural landscapes and often exotic arrangements surrounding lyrics that delve into a multiplicity of emotions.

It's often a far cry from the Beatle-esque pop with which Finn built his reputation as one of the finest songwriters of the 1980s and '90s.

"I wanted to take what I perceived as new angles in the songs, and take them as far as I could, and at the same time take somebody else's perspective who I admire," Finn, 55, said during a recent swing through Los Angeles as part of a short tour in which he previewed several of the new songs. He returns to L.A. on Wednesday with a show at the Orpheum Theatre downtown.

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That "somebody else" is Dave Fridmann, who co-produced the album with Finn. Fridmann, known for producing works by groups such as the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, helped Finn develop the more expansive sonic atmosphere that is a key part of "Dizzy Heights."

There's also a more pronounced R&B-soul feel to many of the songs, something Finn says he's been increasingly interested in exploring. Combined with lush string arrangements by Victoria Kelly, with whom Finn first collaborated on "Song of the Lonely Mountain" from Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," Finn even sees a loose connection to an unexpected musician he's long admired.

"Another reason for the strings is that I love that sort of Barry White 'Love Serenade' sound," Finn said while sipping a soft drink in the restaurant at his West Hollywood hotel. Wearing a comfortable brown tweed jacket over blue knit polo shirt, Finn cautioned, "I'm not drawing too many parallels because it's nothing like that. But I do love those records with that sort of atmosphere."

He said that sound began to emerge with "Impressions," the first track he started working on for the new album that features his wife, Sharon, and two of their children, Liam and Elroy.

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"That seemed to have a very different atmosphere, kind of a slow R&B thing going on, which I've always had lurking as an undercurrent," he said. "Even if you go back to [Crowded House's 1987 breakthrough hit,] 'Don't Dream It's Over,' I remember at the time, that song got played on some of the urban stations, which was really surprising to me — in hindsight, maybe not so much, because it's got an underpinning of soul."

"Divebomber" is one of several tracks in which Finn takes his light sandpaper voice into the vocal stratosphere, eliciting memories of Barry Gibb's work with the Bee Gees.

"I don't mind that [comparison]," he said with a smile. "I liked the Bee Gees when I was a kid. Actually, there is a bit of falsetto, which causes consternation among some of the fans — there are a few people who just don't like me singing falsetto, and complain quite loudly about it, strangely — which makes the perverse side of me do it more," he added with a laugh.

In an era in which any band with two or three hits seems to be able to carve out a living on the reunion circuit, Finn would have plenty of opportunities to cash in. For now, though, Finn says those outfits are "all parked in the garage. With Crowded House, I'm not sure — at some point there'll be a good reason to do it. At the moment, it's in a pretty good place and I'm really happy about the fact we made it into a living entity again, it felt like the right thing to do ... we had some great shows." (The reunited Crowded House played the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in 2007.)

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As for the whole cottage industry of reunion tours, Finn said, "There are two ways of looking at it. First, there's nothing wrong with people doing it. The fact of the matter is a lot of people didn't make any money the first time round. So good luck to them — why not?

"On the other hand, I'm kind of glad the Beatles never came back. I can see that side of it as well," he said. "There's something about preserving that golden moment in time."

Closer to home, however, Finn is looking for every opportunity to connect with his own musical muse.

"I'd like to go and play every single day for a year: somewhere, sometime, somehow — mostly solo, but I might incorporate a few other people — where I make it my mission to learn every song I've ever written … then just turn up in lovely little venues and just be able to do anything," Finn said. "I figure that would be a very good exercise, just to keep my brain healthy.

"I find I'm becoming more fixated on spending all my time making music these days," he said, "maybe because there's a finite amount of time and it seems like there's so much to do."

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Twitter: @RandyLewis2

-------------------------

Neil Finn and Midlake

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway, Los Angeles

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

Cost: $52.15 to $66.15

Info: http://www.Ticketmaster.com and (877) 677-4386 

 

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FBI probes high-frequency trading firms for abuse of information

Federal agents are investigating whether high-frequency trading firms break U.S. laws by acting on nonpublic information to gain an edge over competitors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's inquiry stems from a multiyear crackdown on insider trading, which has led to at least 79 convictions of hedge-fund traders and others. Agents are examining, for example, whether traders abuse information to act ahead of orders by institutional investors, according to an FBI spokesman. Even trades based on computer algorithms could amount to wire fraud, securities fraud or insider trading.

The FBI joins a roster of authorities examining high-frequency trading, in which firms typically use super-fast computers to post and cancel orders at rates measured in thousandths or even millionths of a second to capture price discrepancies. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened a broad investigation into whether U.S. stock exchanges and alternative venues give such traders improper advantages.

Regulators have focused for years on whether high-speed trading hurts market stability. More recent law enforcement investigations are shifting the focus to unfair practices and possible criminal activity.

Critics including some investors and regulators have said such trading, which captured the spotlight in the May 2010 flash crash that shook U.S. equities, serves little purpose, may distort the market and may leave individual shareholders at a disadvantage.

Schneiderman is examining the sale of products and services that offer faster access to data and richer information on trades than what's typically available to the public. Wall Street banks and rapid-fire trading firms pay thousands of dollars a month for these services from firms including Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc.'s New York Stock Exchange.

Robert Madden, a spokesman for Nasdaq, and Eric Ryan at the NYSE, declined to comment on the FBI's inquiry. Jim Margolin, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, declined to comment when asked if the office was looking at high-frequency trading.

The FBI began focusing on high-frequency traders last year, before Schneiderman disclosed his inquiry this month. Market regulators have asked for years whether new restrictions on rapid-fire trading were needed.

Daniel Hawke, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's market-abuse unit, said in 2012 that the agency was examining practices such as co-location and rebates that exchanges pay to spur transactions. Last year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a review of speed trading and sought industry input.

Federal prosecutors have scored dozens of insider trading convictions in recent years, including several linked to SAC Capital Advisors, the hedge-fund firm run by Steven A. Cohen that is changing its name to Point72.

SAC agreed in November to pay a record $1.8 billion and plead guilty to securities fraud to settle allegations of insider trading. As part of the settlement, Cohen agreed to close SAC's investment advisory business.

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Mike Judge dives gleefully into the tech world with 'Silicon Valley'

There was a time when Mike Judge feared that he'd missed the Google bus to the tech boom.

The writer-director, best known for creating MTV's "Beavis and Butthead," first thought of a TV series about the digital world in 1999. At the time, he was in talks for an online animation show to be hosted by one of the numerous new websites looking to provide original programming, but less than a year later the bubble had burst and the notion of a satirical series about a new California gold rush in the world of tech (as well as his animated series) evaporated.

Fast forward a little more than a decade, with the 51-year-old executive producer and writer poised on Sunday to launch "Silicon Valley," a half-hour, live-action HBO series that lampoons the land of goofy apps, nerd millionaires and the cult worship of tech titans.

"I started out thinking, 'Are we doing this too late?'" Judge said on a recent afternoon in his rather spartan writers' room at the Culver Studios. 

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A look at the recent headlines of excess and eccentricity rolling out of Northern California seem only to confirm Judge's instinct that the tech culture is ready for mockery. Longtime San Francisco residents are incensed by Google's private bus system, Facebook continues to gobble up small companies for billions of dollars, and venture capitalist Tom Perkins compared the treatment of the richest one percent to that of Jews in Nazi Germany.

"I think this time is even crazier than the first tech bubble," said Judge, who was also behind the 1999 comedy film classic "Office Space." "Now is an even better time to do it."

The series, which is already collecting early positive reviews, follows the struggles of a small group of programmers as they found a start-up company called Pied Piper in a business landscape where even doctors have an idea for the next billion-dollar app. Thomas Middleditch stars as a panic-attack prone, low-level programmer at tech giant Hooli (think Google) who stumbles onto a compression program that can deliver massive amounts of information online without quality loss. A bidding war among tech giants ensues.

Suddenly, Middleditch and his low-level programmer friends, played by Martin Starr, Josh Brener and stand-up comedians T.J. Miller and Kumail Nanjiani, are scrambling to found and sustain a start-up company. 

"One moment where [the series] clicked for me came when we visited an incubator and they brought out a group of guys to pitch us," said Judge, a former software engineer. "They pitched their whole thing, it's making the world a better place, etc. Then it came out they got the whole thing funded for $100,000. Five guys in a two-bedroom apartment. You have this much time before you burn through the money. That's the first season." 

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Comparisons to HBO's "Entourage," about the Hollywood adventures of a wealthy movie star and his friends abound, and the parallels aren't lost on Judge.

"In Hollywood, you sell a script, you become a movie star and suddenly you're driving fancy cars, buying nice houses, going to fancy parties," he said. "[In Silicon Valley] it's just 'How do we have fun? I don't know.' It's all these introverts. It's not the kind of people who used to become rich 80 years ago."

Alec Berg, an executive producer for "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" who will help Judge guide the series after the pilot, sees the dude-heavy, big-money tech world as even more pretentious than Hollywood.

"I don't think most people in Hollywood hide behind the mask of 'I'm doing this to make the world a better place,'" Berg says. "To watch people in tech garner billions of dollars and deny that it's about the money at all, there's a disconnect."

With the creative freedom afforded by a premium cable channel, Judge and Berg promise the show isn't going to hew to standard sitcom conventions. Since the characters are completely shaped by the future of their company, from pipe dream to reality, that's where the show will live entirely in the first season. Don't expect any vacations, these guys are all about work. 

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However, for the task of making code interesting to watch, Judge and Berg recruited Jonathan Dotan, a digital entrepreneur and investor, as their tech consultant. Dotan got the writers into business incubators, helped solicit input on their fictional product from real venture capitalists and even helped facilitate cameo appearances from Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and influential tech journalist Kara Swisher.

"We have tried incredibly hard to get all that stuff right," Berg said.

Along with the laughs, the show runners hope viewers can also become better educated on the finer points of such software development mainstays as Scrum. For those who have never coded a day in their lives, Scrum is a process of managing a software project that, among other things, encourages programmers to interact physically with face-to-face communication.

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Stocks head higher for a third day

New signs of life in the U.S. manufacturing sector sent buyers back to the stock market Tuesday. Ford rose after reporting higher sales for March and Intuitive Surgical jumped after regulators approved the company's latest robotic surgery device. 

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,879 as of 11:20 a.m. Eastern. Eight of the ten sectors in the index rose, led by consumer discretionary stocks. The S&P 500 was slightly above its record close set on March 7. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 55 points, or 0.3 percent, to 16,513. The Nasdaq composite rose 49 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,247. 

AUTO SALES: Ford rose 47 cents, or 3 percent, after reporting a bump up in sales last month. Ford's U.S. sales chief John Felice says demand picked up in the middle of March, and the company's top-selling F-Series truck sales gained 5 percent. 

ECONOMY WATCH: The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index rose to 53.7 in March, up from 53.2 in February, as the nation's factories continued to rev up following the severe winter storms earlier this year. Separately, the Commerce Department said construction spending rose by 0.1 percent in February, after falling by 0.2 percent in January. That number was in line with investors' expectations. 

DOCTOR ROBOTO: Medical device maker Intuitive Surgical jumped $38.06, or 9 percent, to $476.00 after the Food and Drug Administration approved the newest version of the company's surgical robotic system. The robot is designed to do minimally-evasive surgeries that would otherwise require a doctor to open up a patient's body. 

MORE LIFE IN BIOTECH: The biotechnology sector, which got hammered earlier this month, rose sharply for a second day. Gilead Sciences was up 3 percent and Amgen was up 2 percent. The S&P 500 Biotechnology index was up 2.5 percent. 

OTHER MARKETS: Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.76 percent from 2.72 percent late Monday. The price of crude oil slipped 34 cents to $101.24 a barrel. Gold was little changed at $1,284 an ounce. 

 

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TV ratings: 'How I Met Your Mother' ends with series high

"How I Met Your Mother" went out with a ratings bang Monday night. 

The CBS sitcom that for nine years followed a man's long search for a wife ended with its highest ratings ever, averaging more than 12.9 million viewers, according to early numbers from Nielsen. 

Among key 18- to 49-year-old viewers, for whom advertisers pay a premium, the final episode drew a rating of 5.3, also a series best. (A ratings point in 18-49 equals about 1.3 million viewers.)

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The hourlong farewell episode was easily the highest-rated show of the night in the 18-49 category and was second in overall viewership to ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," which averaged 13.7 million total viewers.

The comedy has delivered strong numbers for CBS over its nine seasons and has spawned an upcoming spinoff called "How I Met Your Dad" starring Greta Gerwig. 

CBS used the much-anticipated closer to launch the new "Friends With Better Lives," which pulled in about 8 million viewers and a rating of 2.7 in 18-49. "Mom" and "Intelligence" were both up week-to-week.

On NBC, "The Voice" fell 8% from a week ago to a 3.4, while "The Blacklist" was flat at 2.8. On average, NBC was the night's highest-rated network. 

Fox's "Bones" rose 7% to 1.5 and "The Following" was flat at 1.4. 

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ryan.faughnder@latimes.com

Twitter: @rfaughnder

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