Spend a few hours with Hollywood producer Jennifer Klein, and you might want to pop a Valium. Or slip her one. From the moment she rises at 7 a.m. in the Sunset Boulevard home she shares with her husband, she's a fidgety, demanding, chattering whirling dervish of a task juggler. Right now Klein, 41, whose credits include Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, has 15 film and TV projects in development--all of them requiring constant nudging and nurture. Her strategy for managing ...

In 1997, the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City announced that Yoshio Taniguchi had won a 10-entrant competition against world-famous architects like Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas to design the museum's $425 million overhaul. Around the world, art lovers and architecture mavens alike responded with a loud, bemused, "Who?" So unknown was the 67-year-old architect outside his native Japan that one confused well-wisher congratulated Terence Riley, MOMA's chief curator of architecture and design, on selecting "Tony Gucci," ...

Deep in the Chiquitana tropical dry forest in southeast Bolivia, Noine Picanerai stands on a dirt road that cuts through lush woods. The 50,000-acre plot looks like a protected reserve. But, notes Picanerai, a woodsman in his 70s, "My people live off selling these trees." Indeed, despite the forest's pristine appearance, it's a logging concession run by an indigenous Ayoreo community. The project, along with dozens of similar forest management programs across the Amazon region north of ...

These days, fanfare and trumpets typically accompany architects when they begin new projects in China — and with good reason. In recent years, China, along with a smattering of other regions including the Middle East and Russia, has become a global architectural frontier, with star architects like Rem Koolhaas, Paul Andreu and Norman Foster all leaving their mark on the nation's rapidly expanding cities. But when Zaha Hadid's new opera house in Guangzhou opened in early March, ...

Even for a country known for completing massive infrastructure projects with frightening speed, China's nuclear-power-plant building spree boggles the mind. China has 13 reactors in operation now and is currently building another 27 — nearly half of the total under construction worldwide. Fifty more are planned and another 110 are in the proposal stage. No other country has a strategy even remotely close in scale. Yet not even China was immune to the crisis that unfolded ...

Sunday's presidential run-off in Haiti had been billed as the most important in the country's history. It came 14 months after the earthquake that devastated the capital Port-au-Prince, with international donors hesitating to fund crucial construction projects under the lame duck presidency of Ren Prval. The long run-up has had its share of drama: the return of two former rulers of the country, archenemies Franois "Baby Doc" Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide; a cholera outbreak; the disqualification of ...

China's long simmering battle against corruption has come to a boil, this time in Chongqing, the largest megalopolis in the world. A massive crackdown has implicated millionaires, gangsters, and even police officers. Known as "dahei" (combat triads), the campaign has put the spotlight on organized crime and how it has infested local bureaucracy and businesses through bribery, extortion, blackmail and violence. Criminal trials are underway following months of police investigation. Details of murky cases are trickling out. Among those ...

A post-mortem examination will be carried out this week on the body of singer Stephen Gately, who died Saturday while vacationing on the Spanish island of Majorca. Gately, a member of the Irish band Boyzone, was on the island with his partner, Andrew Cowles, the band's Web site said. Relatives of the 33-year-old singer and actor insisted his death was a "tragic accident" and that no foul play was involved, Britain's Press Association reported Monday. Spanish police said there ...

President Obama, in an effort to stimulate the economy and support critical research, will announce $5 billion in grants when he visits the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, according to an administration official. The money, which comes from Recovery Act funds, is aimed at supporting "12,000 critical research projects -- and tens of thousands of jobs associated with them, ranging from teachers and lab technicians to database managers and scientists," the official wrote in an e-mail. Obama, who will ...

British Airways announced earlier this week that it would give all staff the option of taking one month of unpaid leave. While that could mean a financial headache for some employees, others will see it as a chance to further their career. These days, many see a career break or sabbatical as a chance to beef up their resume with new skills and hands-on experience, and the economic downturn is providing an opportunity to do just that. Mike ...