Brangelina files suit ...

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have begun legal action against a British tabloid that reported the celebrity couple was going to split, a lawyer confirmed Monday.

Keith Schillings, of Londonbased Schillings lawyers, said the News of The World had made “false and intrusive allegations” when it reported Jan. 24 that Pitt and

Jolie had agreed to separate. “The News of the World has failed to meet our clients’ reasonable demands for a retraction of and apology for these false and intrusive allegations which have now been widely republished by mainstream news outlets. We have advised them to bring proceedings which they have now done,” Schillings said.

He also said Sorrell Trope, a high profile divorce lawyer in Los Angeles, has denied claims he had been in contact with the couple, as had been reported.

“I have had no contact from ... Angelina Jolie and/or Brad Pitt,” Trope wrote, according to a letter sent to the couple’s lawyers. “I have never met ... your clients or had any involvement with either of them.”

Hayley Barlow, spokeswoman for the News of The World, declined to comment.

Together at last ...

Charlie Sheen and his wife were reunited Monday after a judge modified a restraining order and allowed them to work out their differences following a Christmas Day domestic violence dispute in which the actor allegedly pinned his spouse on a bed with a knife to her throat.

The couple hugged in court, and Brooke Mueller Sheen’s attorney, Yale Galanter, said they planned to fly out of Aspen together.

Charlie Sheen is accused of holding a knife to his wife’s throat and threatening to kill her on Dec. 25 at his Aspen home. Prosecutors charged TV’s “Two and a Half Men” star with felony menacing and misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and criminal mischief. Sheen did not enter a plea Monday and is due back in court March 15.

Sex tape security ...

A North Carolina judge wants a security officer to accompany a former John Edwards aide as he goes to retrieve a sex tape of the two-time presidential candidate.

Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones said in an order released Monday that the Orange County sheriff has appointed a security firm to help recover the video and other items. Former Edwards loyalist Andrew Young has said he has the original tape and copies stored in an Atlanta safety deposit box.

“Mr. Young shall take the Officer with him into the vault to obtain the lock box,” the order reads.

Jones declared last week that Young was in contempt for not immediately turning over the tape when deputies initially went to retrieve it from him. Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter, has sued Young for invasion of privacy and sought the return of what she deemed a “very private and personal” video.