San Francisco - The economy is in the doldrums, and shoppers everywhere are cutting back on spending. Yet in stores and web outlets selling video games, times have rarely been better.

Thanks to the spread of video games to older demographics, to the mature product cycle of all three leading game consoles, and to the incredible popularity of the sector-changing Nintendo Wii, the video game industry is bucking the recession.

Los Angeles  - The influential Los Angeles Film Critics Association on Tuesday named the animated movie WALL-E as the best film of the year, the first time the it has honoured an animated feature with its top award.

Runner up for best picture was Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel, The Dark Knight. Danny Boyle was given the best-director award for Slumdog Millionaire, with the runner-up going to David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Brussels  - Climate change, the financial crisis and the European Union's woes over the stalled Lisbon Treaty are set to top the agenda Thursday when EU leaders meet for what has been billed as the most important summit in years.

"This will be perhaps the most crucial European (summit) in recent years ... a real test for Europe," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said ahead of the Brussels meeting.

The most explosive question at the two-day summit is likely to be over a series of proposals which the commission - the EU's executive - agreed to in January to force the bloc to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Washington/Los Angeles  - Rescuers on Tuesday found the body of a child in the charred remains of a San Diego home and the F/A-18 fighter jet that crashed into it, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said.

Spokesman Maurice Luque said that the Medical Examiner's Office was confirming the identity as the baby missing since Monday's fiery disaster, which killed four people on the ground, all members of one family.

Washington  - US lawmakers were making progress Tuesday toward a 15-billion-dollar bail-out for the US car industry, but some conservative legislators were still balking at the idea of the federal government rescuing a failing industry.

The package being considered is less than half the money that General Motors Corp, Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co have sought from Congress. It contains a series of tough conditions including the creation of a White House "car czar" to oversee their restructuring.