NEW YORK (AP) ― Christmas is getting a makeover ― Lady Gaga style: The singer and her team are going to reinterpret Santa’s workshop and put it on display at Barneys. She’ll get an entire floor and take over the coveted windows starting in mid-November at the retailer’s flagship Madison Avenue

NEW YORK (AP) ― “It’s shocking, I know,” says Gloria Steinem, allowing herself a wry grin.And for once, the author, activist and feminist icon isn’t talking about a case of gender inequity at home or a human rights violation across the globe. This time, she’s talking about her age.Steinem is 77, and

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Moviegoers may want to take two bites of the same apple next year: A pair of live-action adventure flicks based on the Snow White fairy tale will come out in theaters just months apart.As it stands, the first, still-unnamed Snow White movie is scheduled for release March 16. That

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) ― Elvis Presley fans love an anniversary.Every year, thousands of Elvis devotees flock to Memphis to remember the singer’s death on Aug. 16, 1977. The main event of “Elvis Week” is the solemn candlelight vigil at Graceland, his longtime home, at midnight Tuesday.This year, fa

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ― A sexy dose of jazz and the refined strains of Western opera and traditional Xhosa song drive a new opera about South Africa’s former president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela.The range of musical styles in “Mandela Trilogy” reflects South Africa’s mix of cultures, the pro

NEW YORK (AP) ― On a “King Lear” day, the torture starts early in the morning for Greg Hicks.Even before the actor opens his eyes in his hotel room, the lines of Shakespeare’s great play come coursing through his brain like some dastardly internal alarm clock, more fiendish than any real one. And th

NEW DELHI (AP) ― A star-filled Bollywood film on India’s caste system churned up passionate debate as it opened Friday, with angry lower caste groups trying to torpedo its release, saying it reinforces social prejudices against them.The furor makes clear that caste ― the millennia-old Hindu custom t

MACHU PICCHU, Peru ― At the top of the mountain, where an attendant will take your $46 ticket, foot traffic is steady and cellphone reception is excellent.At the bottom of the same mountain, the town teems with pizzerias, tourists chatter in half a dozen languages and a school band director is herdi

LONDON (AFP) ― British independent music labels said Wednesday they had suffered a “disaster” after rioters torched a Sony-owned distribution center in London and destroyed their entire CD stocks.The blaze late Monday ripped through the huge 20,000 sq meter warehouse in the north London district of

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ― A movie analysis shows depictions of explicit and graphic suicides tripled from 1950 to 2006.An analysis by Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center of 855 top box office films also says there’s no difference between PG-13- and R-rated films in the most explicit portrayals o

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined other influential figures in Seoul on Wednesday for the opening of photo exhibition aimed at rallying support for the United Nations’ development goals.Hosted by Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s key wire service, the show features more than 80 award-winning

For the past six years, Korean and American university students have gathered at Ewha Womens University to participate in the Harvard Summer School in Seoul program. This summer, the program offered for the first time “Cinema Seoul: Documenting Korea Through Film,” a course that presented students w

Lee Ho-lim, like all the other Templestay participants at Myogaksa in the last weekend of July, stood before the staff and the other visitors to introduce himself. Describing how he chose the English nickname of “Tiger Woods,” he explained that “Ho” is the first syllable for the big cat’s Korean nam

PHOENIX (AP) ― From the sandhill crane to the red-faced warbler, rock stars of the birding world have spawned a tourism industry in Arizona that draws bird-watchers from around the world.“It’s one of the two or three best places in the United States to look for birds,” said David Pashley of the Amer

Say what? A Sauvignon Blanc from Burgundy? Under $15?I was skeptical. But when I tasted the 2009 Saint-Bris from Domaine Bersan, I understood why Saint-Bris is the only appellation in Burgundy where the required grape is Sauvignon Blanc. Crisp and bone dry, Bersan’s Saint-Bris has an enticing minera

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney said Thursday he will contact authorities about the “horrendous violation of privacy” over the British press’ alleged hacking of his phone, the Los Angeles Times reported.The British singer and musician made a video statement to the Television Critics Ass

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Four Chilean miners visited the Museum of Natural History in the U.S. capital on Wednesday to open an exhibit about their daring rescue from deep inside a copper and gold mine a year ago.Mario Sepulveda, Jorge Galleguillos, Jose Henriquez and Carlos Barrios were among the 33 miner

PHILADELPHIA ― It took more than a week for doctors and nurses to get Pierre Trombert’s congestive heart failure under control and send him home from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.But the trickier part, in some ways, was making sure he didn’t come back.Enter Joanne Heil, professional nudge.Sh

HONOLULU (AP) ― Humans aren’t being true to themselves and are cutting back on their own chances for survival by failing to take care of other life and the planet, the U.S. poet laureate said Tuesday.W.S. Merwin told scientists and others working to protect Hawaii’s natural resources at a meeting in