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“The Voice” makes its return next week - surely pleasing non-“American Idol” viewers, or those who really feel like they're slacking by only watching one singing competition series per week - and we're here to prep you! After a change to the format last season, the upcoming fourth cycle brings with it another modification: two new judges.  R&B singer Usher and Latin superstar Shakira assume the roles of Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera, who are sitting out this season to focus on other projects.

BEIJING - Frugality, transparency and fairness are among the buzzwords for China's newly installed leadership. In the final meeting Sunday of a 12-day legislative session that concluded a once-in-a-decade power transition, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang hammered at similar messages. Speaking at a news conference that closed the National People's Congress, Li called for a moratorium on new government offices and guesthouses along with a reduction in government payrolls and official cars.

The L.A. duo The Milk Carton Kids have the interesting distinction of being just as famous for their live banter as for their music. It's no accident that Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan's act has risen in the ranks of Largo's folk-comedy crossover: part Smothers Brothers cheeky repartee, part Conchords -ian self-awareness about singer-songwriterdom, the time between their songs at shows can be just as compelling as the music.   But the music is even better. On their debut  album "The Ash & Clay" for Anti- , the duo makes four sounds - two voices, two acoustic guitars - sound as big as a prairie.

Jim Carrey walked the red carpet at "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" premiere Monday night wearing shiny silver boots, gold Elvis-style sunglasses and a white jacket. Hordes of screaming fans along Hollywood Boulevard in front of TCL Chinese Theater made his progress slow. At one point a group of fans yelled in unison, "We love you Jim Carrey!" "I love you too, collective ego," he responded with his trademark mischievous grin. PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times It was a fitting response at the premiere of a film in which Carrey plays a relentlessly egotistical Svengali of magic named Steve Gray.

Comedies starring Paul Rudd and Julianne Moore, a new drama from Neil LaBute and documentaries about personalities such as Richard Pryor, Gore Vidal and Elaine Stritch will be some of the films world-premiering in the Tribeca Film Festival's Spotlight section. Festival organizers announced Wednesday that among the notable scripted tales will be Craig Zisk's “The English Teacher,” in which Moore stars as an educator whose life is shaken by a former prized pupil, and Phil Morrison's "Almost Christmas," an odd-couple comedy about two bumbling French-Canadians played by Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti (and evokes for this reporter the possibility of a Kevin Kline-esque set of fake French accents)

Perhaps the best way to describe "The Gospel According to the Other Mary" by John Adams is to borrow a phrase from the composer's frequent collaborator Peter Sellars, who wrote the libretto for the piece and is directing a newly staged production premiering Thursday at Walt Disney Concert Hall before traveling with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on its upcoming tour to Europe and New York. "It's not something you would see at the Crystal Cathedral," Sellars said during an interview following a recent rehearsal.

BEIJING -- With three humble bows to the audience, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao exited the public stage in an anticlimactic end to his ten-year reign. In his final work report at the opening of the National People's Congress, nary a word was spoken about political reform, which Wen had championed in earlier speeches. Instead, he read a 100-minute statement that was dull even by the standards of the country's soporific political theater. Both Wen and Hu Jintao, the president, will step down by the end of the 12-day session to make way for a new leadership headed by Xi Jinping, already secretary of the Communist Party, and incoming premier Li Keqiang.

And on the seventh day, History created humongous ratings. The cable network got its prayers answered by retelling two epics Sunday. First, its 10-part, Mark Burnett-produced miniseries "The Bible" premiered to 13.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen. That made it the No. 1 entertainment telecast of the year on cable TV. Then, at 10 p.m., the network followed up with the initial installment of "The Vikings," its first scripted series, which slapped horned helmets on 6.2 million viewers.

Carlo Cudicini has been in Southern California less than six weeks, but he's already mastered the freeways, learned to tailgate in his rented Dodge Avenger and developed a taste for the menu at In-N-Out. "The burger was excellent," he confesses. The Galaxy would love to see his adjustment to life in Major League Soccer go just as smoothly. Because when the team kicks off its MLS schedule Sunday at the Home Depot Center, Cudicini will most likely be the man standing in goal, making him the third goalkeeper to start the opener in as many seasons.

John Livermore, an exploration geologist whose discovery of minuscule but highly valuable particles of "invisible gold" in Nevada in the early 1960s set off a modern-day gold rush in the state, has died. He was 94. Livermore died Feb. 7 at his Reno home of cancer, said Andy Wallace, his longtime business partner. "He was probably the most successful exploration geologist in the last half of the 20th century," said Wallace, chief executive of Cordex, the company Livermore founded in 1970 for mine exploration.