There is more to the Chinese Zodiac than a hippety hop into year 4708 for people born under the sign of rabbit.Rabbit babies are private, introverted and withdrawn. Or quietly charismatic, thoughtful and calm? It is hard to generalize a destiny using a centuries-old system based on natural elements, marked by fixed colors and assigned a dozen animals as they correspond to the hour, date, month an

HONG KONG (AP) ― Jiang Wen’s latest film has earned rare box-office success in the sensitive genre of Chinese political satire, but theories are flying that it accomplishes much more: eluding strict censorship to criticize China’s current government.Set in the chaotic years after the collapse of imperial rule, “Let the Bullets Fly” tells the story of a Robin Hood-like bandit who kidnaps a con man

Salsa and cha-cha build endurance, and the tango improves muscle control and posture.Any doubts about the transformative abilities of ballroom dance should be quashed after watching one season of “Dancing With the Stars” and seeing celebrities going from flabby to fit in a matter of weeks.Sure, they’re rehearsing five to six hours a day, week after week. But the spins, turns, lifts, kicks and fast

SAN JOSE, California ― Until Amy met the man of her dreams, and the two of them had publicly sanctified their love ― going into escrow together on a house ― it never occurred to her that the greatest danger to their happiness would turn out to be one of her best friends.Amy had developed a warm ― but completely platonic ― friendship with another man, and that caused a “huge blowout about whether o

PHILADELPHIA ― Following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D.-Ariz., Saturday in Tucson, many people asked: Did the violence of U.S. political rhetoric have anything to do with this? Did a gunman try to kill Giffords because there is so much toxic language, such hate in our political discourse? And if our discourse is toxic, what should change in the way we talk, the way we disagree?No one

LOS ANGELES ― There’s good news, more good news and some nebulous news for anyone interested in the nation’s musical heritage in Monday’s announcement that Universal Music Group is donating a cache of some 200,000 vintage master recordings to the Library of Congress for preservation and digitizing.They include Bing Crosby’s original recording of “White Christmas” and thousands more by Louis Armstr

LOS ANGELES ― “Moon Over Manifest,” Clare Vanderpool’s story of a girl in Depression-era Kansas who investigates a hidden past, was awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal on Monday as the American Library Association presented its top honors to books for children and young adults at a ceremony in San Diego. The book, for 9-to-12-year-olds, is the debut from Kansas-based author Vanderpool.The top aw

LAS VEGAS ― At the International Consumer Electronics Show, the massive annual expo in Las Vegas devoted to the hard sell of high tech, it’s just assumed that the next big thing is always better than what came before. That’s why director Oliver Stone managed to sound lonely in a crowded room Saturday when he suggested that, for cinema, the future just doesn’t look so bright.“Watching my children a

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) ― Hundreds of Elvis Presley fans, including Chilean miner Edison Pena, gathered at Graceland to sing “Happy Birthday” on the late rock ‘n’ roll icon’s 76th birthday.Pena, the guest of honor at Elvis’ birthday party, cut into a 1.2-meter-high cake fashioned to look like stacked television sets as fans cheered both the singer and the miner outside Elvis’ longtime Memphis home

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico ― While the rest of Mexico is in turmoil, the good times keep on rollin’ at Cabo San Lucas.Landing at the tourist destination at the very southern tip of Baja California, it seems like you’re in a parallel world. Here’s an Applebee’s, a downtown mall, a Home Depot and pristine beaches as far as you can see.With only 4 percent unemployment, Cabo is safe compared to much of th

NEW YORK (AP) ― New York City hosted a record number of visitors in 2010, a sign that the Big Apple’s tourism industry is bouncing back after a decline the previous year when travelers everywhere tightened their budgets amid the recession.Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 48.7 million people visited New York last year, surpassing the city’s 2008 record of 47 million.The increase shows the city’s travel

 GREENVILLE, Illinois ― Throughout their 170 years in Southern Illinois, the Marcoot family has adapted.The original settler, Martin Markut, was a schoolteacher before he made the arduous journey from Switzerland to the heartland of America. Over the years, Martin’s descendants changed the spelling of their name, mechanized, industrialized, moved from the Highland area to Greenville, downsized and

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― As Michael Jackson’s lifeless body lay on a bed in his palatial mansion, a bodyguard obeyed a frantic doctor’s instructions to bag up medicine bottles and intravenous bags and shield the Jackson children from seeing their father ― all before being told to call emergency services, court testimony revealed Wednesday.Alberto Alvarez said he was the first security guard to reach Jac

LOS ANGELES ― Maybe 2011 is the year a clean start means returning to Grandma’s scrubbing ways and getting down on hands knees with simple baking soda and vinegar. Or maybe it means staring down that supermarket aisle of cleaning products and making better choices about the dizzying selection of powders and liquids that claim not only to clean but also to be healthy for people and the planet. Sust

CHICAGO ― Collectors and auctioneers are getting flush off the lavatories of the rich and famous, which isn’t just a play on words. It’s also a chance to make a bunch of money by selling somebody else’s toilet.If recent months have taught us anything, it’s that dead celebrities’ stuff can hold great value. Among the memorabilia sold since June: John Lennon’s toilet ($15,000) and Marilyn Monroe’s c

LOS ANGELES ― Few events straddle the glitz and grit of world cinema quite like the Palm Springs International Film Festival. That’s thanks to the affair’s wildly divergent aims ― to be the U.S.’ definitive, highbrow showcase for international movies, and the Coachella Valley’s starry, hard-partying answer to the Golden Globes.Both objectives will be served at the 22nd annual festival, which opens

SEATTLE ― You can’t escape the song.“Like a G6” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is still riding high at No. 14. The song is by the Far East Movement, reportedly the first Asian-American group to reach the No. 1 spot.“We don’t feel like we deserve (to top) any type of list,” said Kevin Nishimura, aka Kev Nish. “So many people have come before us and broken down the door. We are just honored

MOSCOW (AFP) -- A ponytailed worker taps on a laptop and rosy-cheeked children sport baseball caps in a rare exhibition of contemporary North Korean art that is now on display at a trendy Moscow gallery.The exhibition, titled “Water Still Flows Under Ice,” addresses themes such as World Cup football, new technology and Western fashion. It is running at Winzavod, a brick-walled former factory that

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) ― Mark Twain wrote that “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.” A new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” will try to find out if that holds true by replacing a word considered a racial slur with the word “slave” in an effort not to offend readers.Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with Ne

INCHEON (Yonhap) ― The Incheon Metropolitan Government will send a team of experts to Russia to catalog Korean historic relics scattered across the Eurasian country and work toward having them exhibited in their home country, city officials said Wednesday.The move follows an agreement Incheon Mayor Song Young-gil signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during his visit to South Korea in Nove