Sportsmen and sportswomen are skilled entertainers, and there's nothing wrong with that; they bring us joy, and by their derring-do fashion a time machine that takes us back to times when we were younger and more innocent and lived for play, not work. But every so often a sports personality comes along who does more than entertain, and the Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros, who has died, aged just 54, after a long battle with cancer, was one of ...

The days grow short. A cold wind stirs the fallen leaves, and some mornings the vineyards are daubed with frost. Yet all across France, life has begun anew: the 2007 harvest is in. And what a harvest it has been. At least 727 new novels, up from 683 for last autumn's literary rentre. Hundreds of new music albums and dozens of new films. Blockbuster art exhibitions at all the big museums. Fresh programs of concerts, operas and plays in the ...

Before I started writing this column on why paychecks are likely to keep shrinking even if unemployment starts to inch down, I consulted Google to see if the term Marxism was trending upward. It was and has been ever since the end of December, the conclusion of a year in which workers' share of the U.S. economic pie shrank to the smallest piece ever: 54.4% of GDP, down from about 60% in the 1970s. No wonder Marx is back ...

Viki Stevenson stands behind the counter, passing fashion judgment. She's wearing a gauzy black Viktor & Rolf blouse and skinny Diesel jeans as she sorts through a pile of clothes in the shop where she works in Brooklyn, N.Y. After rejecting a high-waisted, sequined pink skirt, she snaps up four G-Star narrow-cut cotton T shirts. "You gotta know your brands," she says, as she tosses the keepers into a metal bin. Stevenson isn't a buyer at an exclusive boutique. She's ...

Three dresses dominate the entrance to the new Gianni Versace show at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. From a design standpoint, the dresses are barely notable: each is a simple column embellished with beading or gold studs or safety pins. The dresses have pride of place not because of their significance as fashion, but because of the celebrity of those who wore them — Elizabeth Hurley, Princess Diana and Naomi Campbell. To underscore that point, giant portraits of Hurley in ...

Fashion house Gianni Versace will cut 25 percent of its global workforce by the middle of next year as part of cost-saving measures, a spokeswoman told CNN on Wednesday.Charles Ramsey, a member of the Richmond school board, said the school district bears some responsibility for the attack. School administrators and police apparently weren't watching the area as they should have, Ramsey said. The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the ...

All that glitters may not be gold, but for Colombia's narco-molls the most important thing is that it glitters. Beauty queens, fashion models, actresses or regular girls made good are lovers of drug capos and above all lovers of the finest luxuries cocaine money can buy. Few are prepared to speak publicly and even less to appear on camera. Those who date mob bosses don't want to blow their cover. That could expose their boyfriends to arrest and themselves to ...

Australian Open organizers have granted a wildcard to former world number one Justine Henin to play in the opening grand slam of 2010. The 27-year-old Henin announced last month that she was returning to competitive tennis, shortly after fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters capped her own comeback by triumphing in the U.S. Open. Henin will be relying on wild cards or enter qualifying to get places in the main draw of WTA Tour events until she can improve her ranking. ...

Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn't in New York or London; it's in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in ...

To offset carbon dioxide, a Japanese airline is asking its passengers to go to the toilet before boarding. The unusual request by All Nippon Airways (ANA) is part of its "e-Flight" promotional program to reduce the amount of carbon expelled on 38 domestic routes and its twice daily international flights to Singapore. "Asking passengers to go to the toilet (before boarding) is just a small part of the program," said spokeswoman Megumi Tezuka, which includes using recycled paper cups and ...