The backstage drama continues around Herbalife (HLF), a company at the center of a high-stakes battle between three billionaires.

Trading on the stock was halted Tuesday as the multi-level marketer announced the resignation of its auditor, KPMG. The accounting firm said the person overseeing its Los Angeles audit office leaked confidential information to a third party who traded on the knowledge, Bloomberg reports. The partner, who wasn't named, has been fired.

The quality of Herbalife's financial audits is not a concern, according to the company. KPMG, however, was forced to withdraw its audit reports for the last three fiscal years because of questions about its independence.

Shares of Herbalife were halted for several hours on the New York Stock Exchange and began trading at about 11:30 a.m. ET.  

Streaming service Aereo is turning into the big bad wolf of the television industry, threatening to blow down the carefully constructed homes of the top broadcasters. 

Now, two of those broadcasters -- News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox and Univision -- are saying they might turn tail and head for the protection of the cable-television industry. 

Aereo is so far only available in New York City. Despite that limited range, the service has both frightened and angered the top broadcasters, which teamed up to sue Aereo on copyright infringement grounds. Unfortunately for the networks, a federal appeals court on April 1 upheld an earlier court ruling in favor of the upstart. 

 

Bad karma, dude. That's what one University of Oregon professor says ticket scalpers are accumulating by scooping up tickets to the Dalai Lama's scheduled appearance at the school next month and selling them online for more than 10 times the original price of $20.

Despite the amazing cynicism involved in trying to make a buck off a religious leader (and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to boot), scalping -- the reselling of legally purchased tickets for often more than their original face value -- is just part of the scenery at most major sporting and entertainment events.

 

Beer is a $250 billion industry in the U.S., but in certain states it's a foamy pillar of the economy.

Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group The Beer Institute explained last month that beer pumped $246.6 billion into the U.S. economy last year through 2,800 breweries, 3,700 distributors and 576,000 bars and stores.

That put $49.1 billion in tax dollars into the nation's accounts and gave the U.S. 1.1 million jobs paying out $31.8 billion in wages and benefits each year, though that figure generously lumps in convenience store, restaurant and stadium workers with brewery and distributor employees.

That's what it takes to slake a national thirst for beer that sucked up 6.4 billion gallons of the stuff in 2011 -- about the same amount of milk consumed in the U.S. that year.

 

For most people, maple syrup evokes thoughts of freshly cooked pancakes and plates laden with waffles. But for a few others, the delicious sap conjures up plans for larceny. 

A crime wave is striking New England maple producers, with thefts of pricey equipment and even sap illegally siphoned from sugar maples.

Driving the rise in maple syrup crime is a jump in syrup prices, making it a new liquid gold. With prices near $40 a gallon, that's more than eight times what maple syrup fetched in 1960, according to data provided by the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association. That makes it pricier than crude oil (which costs about $2.25 per gallon).

On top of that, 2013 is turning out to be a great year for maple sugar producers, with more typical late winter conditions of cold nights and warm days boosting sap flow. 

 

OK, America, here's a quick hypothetical for you: Would you rather have a tennis court filled with gold or a pile of gold the size of a high-rise apartment building?

Depending on the source, one of those options is the actual visual representation of the amount of mined gold that exists on the planet. The other is a steaming pile of fiction fabricated by feeble-minded twits who need to be reminded to breathe.

It's kind of tough to determine who's correct, as folks who have massive stores of gold and aren't publicly accountable nation states usually don't like to advertise. However, as reported by The BBC, the Thompson Reuters (TRI) GFMS just released its annual gold survey and estimated that roughly 171,300 metric tons of mined gold are on the planet, which would measure roughly 314,000 cubic feet.

 

The train wreck that was Ron Johnson's tenure at J.C. Penney (JCP) is over.

Johnson has stepped down from the top spot nearly 18 months after charging in with big plans to overhaul the retailer and its long-established business model.

His predecessor, Myron Ullman, is returning to lead the company. Investors initially applauded the move, sending shares up more than 12% in after-hours trading Monday. Later in the evening, shares fell back to an 8% loss.

Johnson's resignation brings to an end one of the more extraordinary business upheavals in recent memory. He made a name for himself leading the retail efforts of Apple (AAPL) and also held a top management position at Target (TGT). He was envisioned as a savior of sorts, and promised to return Penney to profit and make it a fashionable and exciting place to shop. 

Millions of fans will tune into CBS (CBS) Monday night to see teams from Louisville and the University of Michigan compete to become the next NCAA men's basketball champion. The decades-long tradition, however, may change next year if the Final Four championship moves to cable television.

Time Warner's (TWX) Turner Broadcasting cable networks, which broadcast the early rounds of March Madness, is discussing a deal with CBS in which it would broadcast the more popular later rounds and the national championship next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Talks are underway two years earlier than expected and would be a huge win for Time Warner, especially because the fees Turner charges to cable and satellite providers are expected to rise by double digits over the next three years.