China has criticized Christie's auction of two Qing dynasty bronzes looted by invading French and British forces in 1860, saying the sale would hurt the auction house. The items were included in a huge three-day auction of art and furnishings that belonged to the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. The sale, which ended on Wednesday, raised more than €370 million ($470 million). The bronze sculptures, a rat's head and a rabbit's head, were sold for €14 million ...

The three mothers hail from the same province in China, but they'd never met until a reckless driver in central Ohio killed their only children. Two years later, the women wade through a cultural morass, struggling with American laws and language as they work to recoup the tens of thousands of dollars they borrowed to educate, and bury, their children. They've also lost their pride and possibly their future. In China, a family's future often rides on the education of ...

On a winter evening in early 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to win an Oscar, a best supporting actress honor for her performance as Mammy, the servant in "Gone With the Wind." She accepted her award at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove, a nightclub in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel, where she was seated in the segregated section at the rear of the room. Though her win was played as a sign of progress for ...

A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep. But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported. The spurned mistress died and the other passengers were injured, the reports said. Police initially thought the car had plummeted off a mountain road in eastern China on December 6 ...

The day after thanksgiving, my TiVo died. Because it doubles as my cable box, this meant that for the week it took to get a replacement, my TV was dead as well. This would be a tragic circumstance for most Americans. But for a TV critic, it was a blow to my livelihood. I was like a cotton farmer after a weevil infestation. I was cut off from the main pipeline of American media life. Or I would have ...

Britain's Prince Harry has been sent on course on equality and diversity after a series of high profile racial gaffes have damaged the young royal's reputation, it was reported Thursday. Harry, an officer in the British Army, was formally disciplined by superiors after videos surfaced showing him using offensive language -- referring to a fellow soldier as a "Paki" and another as looking "like a raghead." Now, according to the Daily Mirror newspaper, the 24-year-old has been ordered to attend ...

In today's carefully stage-managed Washington, the last thing anyone expects from members of Congress is candor or spontaneity. So perhaps it's not all that surprising that Representative Pete Hoekstra unwittingly triggered a maelstrom of criticism last weekend when he Twittered about his trip to Iraq. "Just landed in Baghdad," the Michigan Republican typed on his BlackBerry, alerting the nearly 3,000 people who have signed up to follow him on the social-networking service of the trip that he and five others, ...

Israelis braved pouring rain and strong winds Tuesday to cast ballots in an election that will pick not just the next prime minister but create a new balance of power and lay the groundwork for the next stage of the nation's future. If the polls hold true, the right-wing Likud Party may come out ahead, allowing former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to once again take the reins of the country. But Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's ruling Kadima Party is ...