A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes - one of them fatal - in infants. But after months of meetings with Orthodox leaders, city officials have been unable to persuade them to abandon the practice.

The city's intervention has angered many Orthodox leaders, and the issue has left the city struggling to balance its mandate to protect public health with the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.

"This is a very delicate area, so to speak," said Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden.

The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b'peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it.

It became a health issue after a boy in Staten Island and twins in Brooklyn, circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004, contracted Type-1 herpes. Most adults carry the disease, which causes the common cold sore, but it can be life-threatening for infants. One of the twins died.

Since February, the mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, 57, has been under court order not to perform the ritual in New York City while the health department is investigating whether he spread the infection to the infants.

Pressure from Orthodox leaders on the issue led Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and health officials to meet with them on Aug. 11. The mayor's comments on his radio program the next day seemed meant to soothe all parties and not upset a group that can be a formidable voting bloc: "We're going to do a study, and make sure that everybody is safe and at the same time, it is not the government's business to tell people how to practice their religion."

The health department, after the meeting, reiterated that it did not intend to ban or regulate oral suction. But Dr. Frieden has said that the city is taking this approach partly because any broad rule would be virtually unenforceable. Circumcision generally takes place in private homes.

Dr. Frieden said the department regarded herpes transmission via oral suction as "somewhat inevitable to occur as long as this practice continues, if at a very low rate."

The use of suction to stop bleeding dates back centuries and is mentioned in the Talmud. The safety of direct oral contact has been questioned since the 19th century, and many Orthodox and nearly all non-Orthodox Jews have abandoned it. Dr. Frieden said he hoped the rabbis would voluntarily switch to suctioning the blood through a tube, an alternative endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis.

But the most traditionalist groups, including many Hasidic sects in New York, consider oral suction integral to God's covenant with the Jews requiring circumcision, and they have no intention of stopping.

"The Orthodox Jewish community will continue the practice that has been practiced for over 5,000 years," said Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after the meeting with the mayor. "We do not change. And we will not change."

David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization of Orthodox Jews, said that metzitzah b'peh is probably performed more than 2,000 times a year in New York City.

The potential risks of oral suction, however, are not confined to Orthodox communities. Dr. Frieden said in March that the health department had fielded several calls from panicked non-Orthodox parents who had hired Hasidic mohels unaware of what their services entailed.

Defenders of oral suction say there is no proof that it spreads herpes at all. They say that mohels use antiseptic mouthwash before performing oral suction, and that the known incidence of herpes among infants who have undergone it is minuscule. (The city's health department recorded cases in 1988 and 1998, though doctors in New York, as in most states, are not required to report neonatal herpes.)

Dr. Kenneth I. Glassberg, past president of the New York section of the American Urological Association and director of pediatric urology at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, said that while he found oral suction "personally displeasing," he did not recommend that rabbis stop using it.

"If I knew something caused a problem from a medical point of view," said Dr. Glassberg, whose private practice includes many Hasidic families, "I would recommend against it."

But Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a microbiologist and professor of Talmud and medical ethics at Yeshiva University, said that metzitzah b'peh violates Jewish law.

"The rule that's above all rules in the Torah is that you cannot expose or accept a risk to health unless there is true justification for it," said Dr. Tendler, co-author of a 2004 article in the journal Pediatrics that said direct contact posed a serious risk of infection.

"Now there have been several cases of herpes in the metro area," he said. "Whether it can be directly associated with this mohel nobody knows. All we're talking about now is presumptive evidence, and on that alone it would be improper according to Jewish law to do oral suction."

The inconsistent treatment of Rabbi Fischer himself indicates the confusion metzitzah b'peh has sown among health authorities, who typically regulate circumcisions by doctors but not religious practitioners.

In Rockland County, where Rabbi Fischer lives in the Hasidic community of Monsey, he has been barred from performing oral suction. But the state health department retracted a request it had made to Rabbi Fischer to stop the practice. And in New Jersey, where Rabbi Fischer has done some of his 12,000 circumcisions, the health authorities have been silent.

Rabbi Fischer's lawyer, Mark J. Kurzmann, said that absent conclusive proof that the rabbi had spread herpes, he should be allowed to continue the practice. Rabbi Fischer said through Mr. Kurzmann that the twin who died and the Staten Island boy both had herpes-like rashes before they were circumcised and were seen by a pediatrician who approved their circumcision. The health department declined to comment on its investigation.


Sunday, October 10th 1999, 2:11AM

What If? The WorldÂs Foremost

Might Have Been, edited by Robert Cowley (Putnam, $27.95).

Stephen E. Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCullough and James M. McPherson are some of the historians contributing essays to this book of intriguing speculation. ÂWhat If?Â dares to ask, for instance, what would have happened if D-Day failed? Or how would the world have been different if the wind had been with the Spanish Armada?

A story of families cobbled together out of unsettled lives lived out in a small Colorado town. A pregnant teenage girl assigns herself to two elderly brothers. A high school teacher is forced to raise his two boys alone after his wife walks off the job. A moving novel. A very American story.

of Memories, with Tom Carter

ÂSing Me Back HomeÂ brought Haggard up to 1982. This is a before and after memoir. Haggard shares some of his earlier memories, including his teenage delinquency. Later in the book, he brings us bedside seven years ago when he was served bankruptcy papers just after his wife gave birth. Reckless living brought him low, all right, and robbed him of close to a hundred million earned dollars.

Eat, Drink and Be Kinky: A Feast of Wit and Fabulous Recipes for Fans of Kinky Friedman,

by Mike McGovern, with an intro by

Kinky Friedman writes a highly irregular series of mysteries that is sort of autobiographical. Everyone likes it a lot. McGovern is one of the real-life people who shows up in FriedmanÂs fiction. So to confuse matters further, he wrote this book compiling recipes from FriedmanÂs strange life. ÂSaddle Up BurritosÂ and ÂFrankie LasagnaÂ sound promising, donÂt they?

Summary: What If? The WorldÂs Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, edited by Robert Cowley (Putnam, $27.95). Stephen E. Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCullough and James M. McPherson are some of the historians contributing essays to this book of intriguing speculation. ÂWhat If?Â dares to ask, for instance, what would have happened if D-Day failed? Or how would the world have been different if the wind had been with the Spanish Armada? Plainsong by


By DON SINGLETON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, July 26th 2003, 7:04AM

It was love that led Kobe Bryant to give his wife that $4 million rock this week.

And if you think the gift had anything to do with his confession that he had sex with a 19-year-old woman at a Colorado spa, well, maybe you have a suspicious mind.

"It's a gift of love, like all the jewelry he gets her," Rafinity Jewelry co-owner Ann Whatu said in a TV interview last night.

Whatu said the 8-carat purple diamond ring the hoops star presented Vanessa Bryant on Monday was a big gift because it's "big love."

She said the couple visited the Santa Monica, Calif., boutique several times over the past week, occasionally bringing along their 6-month-old baby, Natalia.

She said the Bryants seemed in high spirits and were holding hands and calling one another "baby."

"They're happy and relaxed," Whatu said. "I think they actually like being able to have some time to spend together as a family."

Whatu and her partner, Raffi, said they have known the Bryants for more than three years and this isn't the first time Bryant bought lavish gifts for his wife.

He bought their 16-carat wedding set and a 7.5-carat yellow diamond from Rafinity, Whatu said.

On July 18, Kobe Bryant was charged with felony sexual assault against a woman at an exclusive spa where he was staying when he went to Colorado for knee surgery. If convicted, he faces up to four years to life in prison.

Bryant has admitted having sex with the woman, but said the only thing he is guilty of is adultery. He denied raping the woman.

A judge ruled yesterday that, at Bryant's court hearing on Aug. 6, cameras will be allowed inside the courtroom.

Summary: It was love that led Kobe Bryant to give his wife that $4 million rock this week. And if you think the gift had anything to do with his confession that he had sex with a 19-year-old woman at a Colorado spa, well, maybe you have a suspicious mind. "It's a gift of love, like all the jewelry he gets her,"Rafinity Jewelry co-owner Ann


By JIM DWYER, KEVIN FLYNN and JOE CALDERONE

Saturday, November 18th 1995, 4:00AM

The tobacco firm accused by a former executive of scrapping plans to develop a safer cigaret yesterday said an interview containing the allegations breached his confidentiality agreement with the company.

In a letter to CBS Inc., Brown & Williamson Tobacco said the network improperly persuaded Jeffrey Wigand to reveal information about the company in a censored "60 Minutes" interview.

The tobacco firm made the allegations after the Daily News yesterday identified Wigand as the subject of the "60 Minutes" segment that was dropped from Sunday's broadcast.

The News, which obtained a transcript of the segment, reported that Wigand accused Brown & Williamson of scrapping plans to manufacture a safer cigaret. Wigand also told "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace that Brown & Williamson used a pipe tobacco flavoring that causes cancer in laboratory animals, the transcript showed.

In the interview, the former Brown & Williamson vice president said he believed that company Chief Executive Officer Thomas Sandefur committed perjury by testifying before Congress that cigaret nicotine is not addictive.

Joseph Helewicz, Brown & Williamson's vice president of corporate communications, said the company was outraged by the accusations. He also accused CBS of secretly giving the transcript to The News.

"It is ironic that CBS was properly unwilling to air the interview on '60 Minutes,' knowing full well that it was obtained in violation of Brown & Williamson's rights, and yet has accomplished the same result by a backdoor leak to another news organization," Helewicz said.

In a letter to CBS, Helewicz said the network's "publishing of the interview transcript to" The News "constitutes a further violation of B&W's legal rights, including intentional, knowing and malicious interference with B&W's contractual right and adds significantly to the harm suffered by B&W. . . ."

Helewicz' letter said Brown & Williamson would hold CBS responsible "for any libel contained in the transcript provided to" The News.

He would not answer questions about the substance of Wigand's allegations.

CBS spokesman Thomas Goodman declined to comment last night.

"The Daily News does not disclose and will not discuss any of its sources," Editor in Chief Martin Dunn said.

Brown & Williamson's new allegations focused on the same issue that prompted CBS attorneys to shelve the "60 Minutes" interview the confidentiality agreement that barred Wigand from discussing any of the company's internal matters.

CBS lawyers argued that the network could conceivably be accused of interfering with Brown & Williamson's corporate rights by inducing Wigand to violate the agreement.

Wigand, now a high school teacher in Louisville, Ky., could not be reached for comment yesterday. But on Thursday, told that The News had a copy of the censored transcript, Wigand said, "Read it, and do what you like with it. I have no comment."

Summary: The tobacco firm accused by a former executive of scrapping plans to develop a safer cigaret yesterday said an interview containing the allegations breached his confidentiality agreement with the company. In a letter to CBS Inc., Brown & Williamson Tobacco said the network improperly persuaded Jeffrey Wigand to reveal information about the company in a censored "60 Minutes"interview. The tobacco firm made the allegations after the Daily News yesterday identified Wigand as


BY WILLIAM SHERMAN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, October 26th 2003, 1:50AM

How far can you stretch $1,000 in New York City these days?

When it comes to monthly rent, sometimes only 230 square feet, or about one-third the size of a subway car.

That's not far at all for one person, much less a family of four.

Sometimes the space doesn't even include a bathroom in the apartment, or a stove, and the refrigerator may be no larger than a hotel room minibar, according to a survey by the Daily News.

About 300 online listings were reviewed and apartments in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx were visited with that $1,000 maximum per month as the governing factor.

There were no tremendous bargains and no great finds for the new renter, and that included advertised apartments in economically depressed neighborhoods as well.

Rents are holding steady or increasing throughout much of the city for the year through this fall, despite the continuing local recession and citywide unemployment rate of 8.8%.

"On a blended average, rents are down 10% to 15% from their peak in 2000, but it was crazy that year," said Yuval Greenblatt, vice president of Douglas Elliman's rental division.

"Back then, if you said you wanted to spend $1,500 a month, never mind $1,000, a broker would crack up laughing," he said. "Now they're not laughing, but $1,000 won't get you much, maybe a studio or small one-bedroom in an emerging neighborhood."

The market is recovering from the big drop following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the height of the nationwide recession, said Greenblatt and other real estate executives. They expect a pattern of increases next spring if the pace of layoffs in various job sectors continues to slow.

The midyear 2003 rental report by the Corcoran Group, the city's largest private residential brokerage, shows average rents up 4% from last year in a survey of 6,432 rentals in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

At the same time, average rents declined 6% in Brooklyn, according to the survey. Park Slope had the biggest drop in the borough - 9% - because of big decreases in the prices of studios and one-bedrooms. Still, the average monthly rent this year in Park Slope was $1,889, with studios at $1,025 and a three-bedroom apartments at $3,075.

"I've seen drops as big as 35% in rents in Brooklyn Heights at the top end," said broker Eli Ickovic of Corcoran. "An apartment that used to rent for $3,300 to $3,500 today is going for $2,250, and a studio that last year rented for $1,000 is now going for $800."

He cited the tremendous job losses in the wake of 9/11 and massive Wall Street layoffs as the reason.

"We had a lot of people working in the Financial District living in Brooklyn Heights, and when they lost their jobs, they had to leave their apartments," he said.

The highest monthly rents cited in the Corcoran survey were for Manhattan's West Side. The average was $4,150 based on 844 rentals from 59th St. to 96th St., west of Fifth Ave.

Tenants rights advocates say that with the exception of government-subsidized dwellings and rent-controlled or stabilized apartments, the prevailing rental market is crushing various segments of the population.

Single college graduates with entry-level jobs end up crowded together in shared apartments, lower-income families live in neglected tenements and middle- and upper-middle class families leave the city.

"The median income of all renters in the city is $31,000 according to the last census, and if someone is earning that before taxes, how can they afford $1,000 a month for rent?" said Michael McKee, associate director of the New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition, a tenants' rights group.

The law of supply and demand is also affecting rents, McKee said.

"The city has gained 1 million people since 1990 while housing supply has remained static, increasing only slightly," McKee said.

Of the 2.1 million rental units in the city, approximately 66% are subject to some regulation. About 686,000 dwellings are entirely unregulated.

The News' survey generally focused on the free market.

There were two pleasant surprises.

One was a never-occupied, one-bedroom apartment in a gut-renovated building on Manhattan's W. 148th St., a block once notorious for its crack dealers. A two-bedroom apartment in the building goes for $1,100.

The second was a sunny, one-bedroom unit with a view that includes the Empire State Building in Astoria, Queens, at $1,000 a month. It's on the neat, quiet block where George Costanzas' parents live on the television show "Seinfeld."

It was just rented by Laura Colona, 33, a publicist who was paying $1,200 a month plus utilities for a two-bedroom unit in Rockville Centre, L.I. She wanted to move to the city to save the time and $200 a month for her commute, and because she is a single young woman.

"The city is the place to be. I also wanted to pay less rent; $1,000 was my ceiling," Colona said. "I looked for a month, and I saw other places - one where the N train was right out the window - and then I found this place.

"I'm 20 minutes away from my office in midtown, and I'll save $4,000 over the next year," she said.

The News' survey showed that there are some breaks available to new renters.

"Some landlords in new buildings and in some of the older ones as well are offering one month or two months' free rent, and some are paying part of the broker's fee (15% of the first year's rent)," said Michael Moran, manager of rentals for Corcoran.

But that $1,000, which certainly will not land even the smallest studio in a doorman building, means the renter must have an annual income of at least $40,000, brokers said.

Generally, landlords require proof of annual income that is 35 to 45 times the monthly rent. Other documentation required by landlords includes tax returns, employment verification, pay stubs, credit ratings, references and bank accounts.

"For college grads who aren't making enough money, the landlords are requiring a 'guarantor,' and it's usually the parents," Moran said.

"And we're seeing it more because part of the economic story is that college grads are being paid less now than several years ago. The entry-level job that paid $80,000 is now paying $40,000," he said.

"Shares are the big trend," Moran said.

When Christine Murphy, 22, and two of her friends graduated from Columbia University in May, they found a place together.

"We're not poor, but we're not in the upper echelon of renters," said Murphy, who majored in biological anthropology but is working as the assistant to the president of a Manhattan travel agency.

"We looked in Inwood, the upper West Side, Washington Heights and Harlem and finally we found the right place in Park Slope," she said.

Their dwelling has two bedrooms with a library converted to a third bedroom, a "tiny kitchen," a living room, a dining room and a backyard. The three split the rent, $2,500 a month, plus utilities.

Hot and sometimes affordable neighborhoods cited by brokers include Park Slope, Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn; Astoria and Long Island City in Queens, and parts of Washington Heights and Harlem in Manhattan.

"We have every kind of restaurant, nightlife, Bloomingdale's is 10 minutes away by subway, crime has been decreasing steadily - what more could you want?" said George Rivera, of Astor Realty in Astoria.

302 W. 148th St., Harlem. $960.

Large, 900-square-foot, never occupied, just renovated, sunny second-floor one-bedroom walkup. Large closets including walk-in closet in bedroom. Three windows. One bath. All new fixtures and appliances. Cable. Hardwood floors. Entire 10-unit building renovated. Tough but improving neighborhood. Two-bedroom units for $1,100.

128 Montague St., Brooklyn Heights. $950.

Rent-stabilized studio. Private bathroom not in apartment but across the hall in 260-square-foot second-floor walkup.

New wooden floors. No closets. Old stove. Walls and ceiling need work. Small refrigerator. No view. Clean building. Excellent block and neighborhood.

22-05 37th St., Astoria, Queens. $1,000.

One bedroom, fourth-floor 550-square-foot walkup, was vacant for a week and just snapped up. Large kitchen. Sunny. Excellent western views of Empire State Building and Manhattan skyline. Large windows in kitchen. Full-size appliances. One bath. Six windows. One closet. Very clean building. Quiet, excellent block and neighborhood. Heat and hot water included.

906 Summit Ave., Highbridge, the Bronx. $880.

Four-room, 600-square-foot, first-floor apartment. Linoleum floors throughout. One bath. Three small closets. Old appliances in sizable kitchen. Walls and ceilings need work. Metal gates on front windows. Improving neighborhood just west of Yankee Stadium.

Summary: FOR 1G, ALL YOU CAN RENT IS A BIG CLOSET News' apt. hunt finds few treasures How far can you stretch $1,000 in New York City these days? When it comes to monthly rent, sometimes only 230 square feet, or about one-third the size of a subway car. That's not far at all for one person, much less a family of four. Sometimes the space doesn't even include a bathroom in the apartment, or


Saturday, April 5th 2003, 1:11AM

All this talk about the gentrification of the Bowery, with affluent newcomers driving out the homeless and addicted, leaves the Rev. Reggie Stutzman shaking his head. He's seeing more down-and-outers now than ever.

"On the coldest nights," he said this week, standing in the aisle of the newly renovated chapel of the Bowery Mission, "we push the pews against the walls to make room for as many as 125 people, and give them mats to sleep on."

Demand is so brisk, Stutzman said, that a daily lottery is required to decide who gets the extra 20 beds set aside each night for men not enrolled in other mission programs. It also led the mission to allow women to use its free showers for the first time - previously, only men were admitted.

And the mission is serving 600 men and women three meals a day, plus delivering 300 to 400 bags of groceries to Tompkins Square Park and other areas on the lower East Side twice a week.

There are a dozen projects and programs at the Bowery Mission, which dates to the 1870s, all sponsored by a little-known organization called the Christian Herald Association. The outfit has its headquarters on Madison Ave. and its roots on the street whose name is synonymous with broken lives.

This week, the Bowery Mission chapel, which was installed in 1909, was rededicated after a restoration that took 18 months. A choir of once-homeless men sang "Amazing Grace," local politicians said a few words, and executive director Brian Johansson cut a red ribbon that symbolically reopened the chapel.

"Actually, it was never closed," said Stutzman, whose title, director of operations, puts him in charge of most day-to-day mission business. "We still held [worship] services at 6 a.m., at noon and at 6 p.m."

Stutzman, an ordained interdenominational minister who grew up as a member of the fundamentalist Assemblies of God church, does not conduct the services. They are led by a variety of ministers, whose styles range from meditative silence to hand-waving and shouts.

The restored chapel features a new organ, a gift from the Diebold Foundation, established by the family that manufactures safes; a new sound system; new translations of Scripture on wall placards - the old King James language was replaced by the more contemporary wording of the New International Version - and pulpit and pews polished to their 1909 sheen.

"We even cleaned up the marble around the pulpit," Stutzman said. "That goes back to when President William Taft visited," in 1909, a few months after his election.

Taft was the only White House visitor, but celebrities sometimes volunteer to serve meals or do other chores. TV journalist Diane Sawyer turned up without warning last year.

"She just walked in, all by herself, and said she wanted to help feed people," Stutzman said. "And that's what she did."

The Christian Herald Association is the nonprofit successor to the Christian Herald magazine, which bought the Bowery Mission from its bankrupt Protestant ministry owners in 1894 to prevent it from passing into secular control. At the time, the Christian Herald was an influential international publication, but rival magazines and the rise of television ministries sapped its circulation, and it suspended publication in 1992.

But the association continues to fund and run the mission - at last report, its $10 million-plus annual budget relied on individual donations for about 70 cents of every dollar. Public funding, mostly by the city, accounts for about $1.5 million.

Stutzman, who was born in Minneapolis, moved to New York seven years ago to become youth minister at the Assemblies of God church in the Van Nest section of the Bronx, after seminary studies at the upstate Elim Bible School. He was hired by the Bowery Mission two years ago.

Among other things, Stutzman said, he has learned that prayers are answered in the most unexpected ways.

"Here's an example," he said, waving a hand around the dining room. "One day last month, I got a call from a man. He said a Chinese restaurant his company managed was going out of business, and if we wanted any of the furnishings, come and get them."

The resulting haul was 18 circular tables seating six each, plus 200 padded chairs, silverware, glasses and napkins - all used now at breakfast, lunch and dinner. "The chairs alone would cost us $7,000 if we bought them," Stutzman said.

He didn't know much about the Bowery Mission before he arrived, but now, he said, he is committed to staying as long as he's welcome.

"I've decided that if I'm seriously into ministry," he said, "then this is the place."

Summary: All this talk about the gentrification of the Bowery, with affluent newcomers driving out the homeless and addicted, leaves the Rev. Reggie Stutzman shaking his head. He's seeing more down-and-outers now than ever. "On the coldest nights,"he said this week, standing in the aisle of the newly renovated chapel of the Bowery Mission, "we push the pews against the walls to make room for as many as


Monday, November 12th 2001, 2:24AM

Three weeks ago, I noticed I had reacquired a pain in the neck - real and familiar, a nasty twinge from an old pull years ago. But why now? I hadn't wrenched myself or fallen.

Not physically, that is. But the profound shock and grief of the terrorist attacks struck a wide, deep blow to everyone, especially New Yorkers. With time (as well as the unfolding fears of anthrax), many of us are learning firsthand that the physical side of emotional stress can be as real as clenched, angry muscles.

Since Sept. 11, "I'm seeing 30% to 40% more patients with neck and back pain," says Dr. Robert Gotlin, chief of the orthopedic and sports rehabilitation program at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Many suffer from "overlying stress," Gotlin says, which can create real pain in the absence of the usual suspects - torn muscles, a herniated neck disk or a broken bone. Such patients have "perfectly normal" exams.

Some know it's stress, but others "think they have a major illness that is going to attack them," Gotlin says. Which, under the circumstances, pretty much sums up the general feeling these days, pain or no pain.

Fortunately, there are explanations - and helpful strategies.

Research shows that stressed muscles produce chemicals that cause pain; for example, running pumps lactic acid into the system that makes muscles ache later because acid is acid and tissue doesn't like it.

"Psychological stress can also cause the release of these chemicals," Gotlin says, and they usually irritate an underlying weakness, like that old neck pull I had that is suddenly hurting.

If this is happening to you, don't panic or fear you have an incurable disease: "It is rare to go from no pain to pain, with no identifiable time when you got hurt," Gotlin cautions. "The only change may be this tragedy."

Take the usual first steps: Apply hot or cold compresses and try over-the-counter pain relievers. If the pain doesn't go away in three weeks, see a doctor.

If an exam uncovers no injury or other problem, consider massage therapy, gentle exercise or a chiropractor. Your doctor may have good recommendations. Or consult these sources:

- The American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation,

(312) 464-9700, lists doctors and its Web site (www.aapmr.org) provides resources specifically for survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks.

- The American Massage Therapy Association, at (847) 864-0123 (or www.amtamassage.org), has lists of local licensed massage therapists.

- The New York State Chiropractic Association (www.nysca.com) lists doctors in Districts 1 to 5, which cover the five NYC boroughs.

The NINE ONE ONE archive of resources for New Yorkers dealing with the aftermath of the World Trade Center catastrophe will soon be available at the Daily News Web site: www.nydailynews.com

Summary: NineOneOne A guide to post-9/11 Recovery sources By susan Ferraro hree weeks ago, I noticed I had reacquired a pain in the neck - real and familiar, a nasty twinge from an old pull years ago. But why now? I hadn't wrenched myself or fallen. Not physically, that is. But the profound shock and grief of the terrorist attacks struck a wide, deep blow to everyone, especially New Yorkers. With time (as well as the


NEW YORK | Thu Oct 1, 2009 5:53pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporate bond defaults are falling because more companies are able to refinance with high-yield debt, and that trend should continue, Martin Fridson, chief executive of Fridson Investment Advisors, said on Thursday.

"Defaults are not going up as you keep reading; they're going down," Fridson said, speaking at the Reuters Restructuring Summit in New York. Monthly high-yield bond defaults have dropped steadily from a peak of 44 in March to just 15 in August, and that trend should continue, he said.

Widely reported default rates from rating agencies are still rising because they are 12-month trailing averages, and low-default months from 2008 are dropping out of those calculations, said Fridson.

While many restructuring professionals are calling for a continued wave of business failures, Fridson said that a resurgent high-yield market is easing default pressures by allowing companies to refinance debt.

"Right now we can say that through 2011, the refinancing picture should be very manageable, just given the recent level of high-yield new issuance," he said.

A recovery from last year's financial panic has reopened the financing window in the high-yield bond market, with new issuance surging to $98 billion year to date from $36 billion a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Even so, there has been more demand than supply and there are few signs of that letting up, Fridson said.

"Unless you get a double dip (recession) in the next couple of quarters, the default rate should continue to de-escalate," he said.

Moody's Investors Service has forecast that the U.S. junk bond default rate will fall to 4.1 percent over the next year from 12.2 percent in August. August's rate was up from 4.9 percent at the end of last year.

"Not that companies are going to be showing heroic earnings gains," Fridson said. Economic growth will be muted because of continued weakness of the consumer, he said.

"But thinking about it simplistically, if a high-yield company is covering its interest, it doesn't need the economy to get better; it just needs it not to get worse," he said.

That may be one reason for investors to favor high-yield bonds over stocks for now, Fridson said. If economic growth remains slow because of consumer's reluctance to spend, companies will have a hard time increasing revenues, putting a damper on prospects for stock appreciation.

High-yield bonds, meanwhile, could post total returns of about 10 percent over the next year, he estimated. Already this year, returns have topped 48 percent, beating the full-year record return of 39 percent in 1991, according to Merrill Lynch indexes.

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)


Sir Tim Rice who is transforming the story, set in the Second World War, into a West End musical, tells Mandrake that he will restore the homosexual subtext to its rightful place.

“Obviously, things have moved on in terms of what you can portray over the last 60 years, and the production will reflect that,” says the award-winning lyricist.

The original manuscript of the book featured two passages that did not make it into the published edition due to their homosexual content.

One involves a private confessing to performing a sexual act on a wealthy man in exchange for money and, in another, a military investigation into gay activity is mooted.

These two scenes were restored to the text earlier this year when the e-book was released.

Sir Tim, 67, is hoping that the musical, which will feature a score composed by Stuart Brayson, will hit Theatreland in June.

“It’s all systems go,” he says. “We’ve got the team almost assembled and we are recording the soundtrack next week.”

Summary:
Sir Tim Rice will remain true to the original book in his forthcoming musical
  adaptation of From Here to Eternity and incorporate the homosexual elements
  that were deemed inappropriate for the 1953 film.


The silent movie "The Artist" and the doomsday drama "Take Shelter" led the Spirit Awards honoring independent film on Tuesday with five nominations each, including best picture.

Also in the running for best picture were the cancer tale "50/50"; the action thriller "Drive"; and the family dramas "Beginners" and "The Descendants."

A black-and-white throwback to early Hollywood, "The Artist" also earned a lead-actor nomination for Jean Dujardin as a silent film star whose career crumbles as the sound era takes over in the late 1920s. The film grabbed directing and screenplay nominations for Michel Hazanavicius, along with a cinematography slot for Guillaume Schiffman.

"Take Shelter" star Michael Shannon earned a lead-actor nomination as a family man who comes unhinged amid visions of a coming apocalyptic storm. Co-star Jessica Chastain was nominated for supporting actress, while "Take Shelter" also received nominations for director Jeff Nichols and a prize for emerging producers for Sophia Lin.

Other lead-actor contenders were Ryan Gosling for "Drive," Demian Bichir for the immigrant drama "A Better Life" and Woody Harrelson for the police story "Rampart."

The lead-actress field included Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn." Also nominated were Lauren Ambrose for the single-mom story "Think of Me," Rachael Harris for the road-trip comedy "Natural Selection," Adepero Oduye for the teen drama "Pariah" and Elizabeth Olsen as an escapee from a cult in "Martha Marcy May Marlene."

Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit Awards will be handed out the day before the Academy Awards, at an afternoon ceremony on Feb. 25. The show will air later that night on IFC.

The Spirit Awards nominations are one of the first key honors on the long road to the Oscars, which often are dominated by big Hollywood films but generally include many nominees from the independent film world.

Last season's top winner at the Spirit Awards also was a hit with Academy voters, earning a best-picture nomination there and winning the best-actress Oscar for Natalie Portman.

Notably absent from the Spirit Awards lineup was Academy Award winner George Clooney, considered a strong prospect for a best-actor nomination at the Oscars for "The Descendants." Kirsten Dunst, who won the best-actress prize at May's Cannes Film Festival for the end-of-the-world tale "Melancholia," also was snubbed.

"Like Crazy," the top winner at last January's Sundance Film Festival, was completely overlooked, receiving no nominations.

Spirit Awards nominees were chosen by panels of film professionals. Members of Film Independent, who include filmmakers and movie fans, are eligible to vote on the winners.

Eligible films must have production budgets of no more than $20 million and meet independent-cinema criteria that include uniqueness of vision and original, provocative subject matter.

Summary: 'The Artist' Leads Indie Film Spirit Awards Nods; George Clooney Snubbed


Interim Iraqi authorities routinely torture prisoners, according to a leading human-rights group that has cited dozens of abuse cases.

The US-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday that prisoners have been beaten with cables and hose pipes, and suffered electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals.

Some have been starved of food and water and crammed into standing-room only cells, HRW said.

"The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell," Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division, said.

"The Iraqi interim government is not keeping its promises to honour and respect basic human rights. Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees."

HRW said it interviewed 90 Iraqi prisoners between July and October last year, just after the government of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi assumed power from the US-led forces which ousted Saddam Hussein.

Seventy-two of the 90 said they had been tortured or mistreated.

"Detainees report kicking, slapping and punching, prolonged suspension from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back, electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body ... and being kept blindfolded and/or handcuffed continuously for several days," the group said in a report.

"In several cases, the detainees suffered what may be permanent physical disability."

The report also said Iraq's intelligence service had violated the rights of political opponents.

It highlighted the systematic use of arbitrary arrest, pre-trial detention of up to four months, improper treatment of child detainees and abysmal conditions in pre-trial facilities.

The report follows a scandal over US treatment of prisoners in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison, which erupted last year after the discovery of photographs showing prisoners being tortured and sexually abused.

While the HRW report looked solely at Iraqi institutions and did not address torture of prisoners by US soldiers, it said international police advisers, mostly Americans, had turned a blind eye to Iraqi abuse.

"The Iraqi security forces obviously face tremendous challenges, including an insurgency that has targeted civilians," Whitson said.

"We unequivocally condemn the insurgents' brutality. But international law is unambiguous on this point: No government can justify torture of detainees in the name of security."

Iraq's justice minister did not challenge the findings of the report, saying it would be unrealistic to expect a flawless judicial system in a war-torn country such as Iraq.

The government's record will be tested in a general election on Sunday.

"A new Iraqi government requires more than a change of leadership," Whitson said. "It requires a change of attitude about basic human dignity."


to save the world with

, but putting on the halftime show on Super Bowl Sunday has her even more wound up.

"Oh my god, I'm so nervous. You have no idea," the superstar told Anderson Cooper in an interview to air on

"First of all, it's the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is kind of like the holiest of holy in America," Madonna, 53, said. "I'm going to come in halfway between the church experience and I'm going to have to deliver a sermon that's going to have to be very impactful."

She also put it this way: "I have to put on the greatest show on earth in the middle of the greatest show on earth."

Clearly, the timing of the performance is something that concerns the performer. "I have eight minutes to set it up and seven minutes to take it down," she said. "I have 12 minutes to put on the greatest show on earth. Okay, that's a lot of pressure."

Asked for a hint about what she'll be doing in those 12 minutes, Madonna said, "I'll be singing."

Something tells us it will be a bit more than that! Super Bowl 2012 pits the New York Giants vs. the New England Patriots and airs Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET) on NBC.

Summary: "I have to put on the greatest show on earth in the middle of the greatest show on earth," the singer says


Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Springfield said Tuesday it has reached a deal to buy the retirement plans unit of The Hartford Financial Services Group for $400 million.

When completed this year, the acquisition will more than double the size of MassMutual’s retirement plan business, enabling it to administer plans with more than 3 million participants and $120 billion in assets.

“This acquisition represents an important step for MassMutual and underscores our long-standing commitment to the retirement market,” said Roger Crandall, MassMutual’s chief executive, in a statement.

The Hartford-based company is a prominent provider of small and midsize retirement plans with more than 33,000 plans serving 1.5 million participants and managing $54.9 billion in assets.

MassMutual handles 7,600 plans with 1.6 million participants and $66.2 billion in assets.

The Hartford said the deal is the second of three divestitures to help it sharpen its focus on insurance underwriting.

The company said it will develop a plan over the next year to integrate the operations, but said it was premature to say whether any workers will be laid off or moved.

MassMutual has about 1,200 employees in its retirement unit and the Hartford has 1,300 in its unit in offices in Hartford, Phoenix, and Boston.

Summary: The Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Springfield said Tuesday it has inked a deal to buy The Hartford’s retirement plans unit for $400 million. The deal will more than double the size of MassMutual’s retirement plan business when it is completed later this year, enabling it to administer plans with more than 3 million participants and $120 billion in assets.


MELBOURNE | Sun Sep 6, 2009 6:22am EDT

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A white glove worn by the late singer Michael Jackson sold at auction for A$57,600 ($49,000) in Australia Sunday, nearly twice the price auctioneers expected, the auction house said.

The white bejeweled glove was a trademark of the U.S. singer, and according to auction house Bonhams and Goodman this was the first Jackson glove to go on sale since he died in June at the age of 50.

The glove sold in Melbourne Sunday was worn by Jackson in Sydney in 1996, on the day he married Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two elder children, the auction house said.

After a bidding war between collectors in Australia and the United States, it was bought by Warwick Stone on behalf of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

"There was a huge amount of interest in the week leading up to the sale. We were still pretty surprised by the price," Charlotte Stanes of the auction house told Reuters.

In November 1996 Jackson was in Sydney during the HIStory tour, and attended a premiere in Sydney of the film "Ghosts," in which he starred. Earlier the same day the singer had married Rowe.

At the end of the performance Jackson threw the glove to Bill Hibble, a collector of music and film memorabilia, who has since died. Hibble's mother put the glove up for auction.

Giles Moon, national head of collectables for the auction house, said he was "astounded" by the price it fetched.

Jackson was buried last week in California, two months after his death from a drug overdose. His death has been ruled a homicide and police are investigating several doctors. They have said they will seek criminal charges but so far none has been filed.

Summary: MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A white glove worn by the late singer Michael Jackson sold at auction for A$57,600 ($49,000) in Australia Sunday, nearly twice the price auctioneers expected, the auction house said.The


, the must-attend Southern California travel event of the year, today announced the world-class travel experts, engaging live demonstrations and hands-on activities scheduled for February 23 and 24 at the L.A. Convention Center. The program schedule and tickets are available now at

"Part of the fun of travel is discovering your options and enjoying the planning stage," said Rick Steves, author and host of "Rick Steves' Europe". "At Los Angeles Times Travel Show you have the chance to do exactly that, talk to the experts and get your travel dreams in proper focus, all under one exciting roof."

Steves along with headlining speakers Phil Keoghan (Emmy® Award-winning host of "The Amazing Race," best-selling author), Andrew McCarthy (actor, award-winning travel journalist, author of "The Longest Way Home") and Arthur Frommer (publisher of more than 340 Frommer's travel guides) will be joined by an impressive roster of authorities on a variety of topics designed to equip even the most seasoned jetsetters and backpackers to get the most out of the experience of travel.

Catharine Hamm (LA Times Travel Editor), John DiScala (JohnnyJet.com), Gabe Saglie (Travelzoo) and Brian Kelly (The Points Guy) will reveal their road-tested tips for saving money while Rudy Maxa (The Savvy Traveler) and Julia Dimon ("Word Travels") will regale audiences with tales of their adventures. Food-minded explorers will relish the opportunity to listen in as Jonathan Gold (LA Times Food Critic) swaps secrets about how to discover the best places to eat wherever you go, hear where Josh Gates ("Destination Truth") stops to sip mojitos in between monster hunts, and watch live cooking demos from chefs such as Brian Malarkey ("Top Chef", "The Taste"). For those looking to pick up some practical skills, Joanna Stern (ABC News Technology Editor) and Jen Leo (Web Buzz Columnist) will download the latest in tech, Christopher Reynolds (LA Times Travel Journalist) and Mark Boster (LA Times Photographer) will share photo and video tips, and Marybeth Bond (GutsyTraveler.com) will tackle the ultimate, inescapable task: how to pack a suitcase.

Travel Show is an "all-inclusive" getaway in itself, with activities such as a zip line, rock wall and bubble rollers, a Wildlife Experience animal show and souvenir photos included with admission. Cruise Planners and CP Vacations, American Express Travel Representatives, will be on site ready to create itineraries and book travel, while the U.S. Department of State will be providing passport services. The five-acre show floor will be filled with exhibitors representing destinations near and far -- from Southern California’s hidden gems to the world’s most enchanting locales -- offering information and advice, special pricing and giveaways throughout the weekend.

Los Angeles Times Travel Show is produced in collaboration with MSE Management and IMG Worldwide. Sponsors include Taiwan Tourism Bureau, Air Berlin, South African Tourism and Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Tickets are $8 in advance (use code "LATPR") or $10 at the door. Children aged 16 and below admitted free when accompanied by an adult. For tickets and more information, go to

is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country, with a daily readership of 1.6 million and 2.7 million on Sunday, more than 16 million unique latimes.com visitors monthly and a combined print and online local weekly audience of 4.4 million. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Times has been covering Southern California for more than 131 years.

(LATMG) businesses and affiliates include the

Los Angeles and reach approximately 5.2 million or 39% of all adults in the Southern California marketplace. LATMG also owns and operates

's west coast division and is part of

, one of the country's leading media companies with businesses in publishing, the Internet and broadcasting. Additional information is available at

Barry Smith / Bonnie Winings | SWPR Group | 818.760.7131 |

Hillary Manning | Los Angeles Times | 213.237.2664 |

Summary: Program Schedule Announced with Rudy Maxa, Josh Gates, Jonathan Gold, Julia Dimon, Brian Malarkey and Others Just Added


Nowhere Less Now by Lindsay Seers: 'A briny wave of doubt and confusion.' Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

Last Thursday I had a small adventure, the kind of thrill a big city can often throw up, if only you put in a little forward planning. It wasn't a promising morning: a soft rain was falling, and the sky was old-knicker grey. Nor was my destination exotic: Kilburn High Road, a relentless drag of kebab shops and charity shops. When I arrived at the precise spot, a dilapidated construction known as the Tin Tabernacle, I could find no way inside. But then… salvation! Someone showed me a bell, high above my head, and soon after ringing it, I walked into one of the most marvellous spaces I've seen in a long time. For me, this was love at first sight.

The Tin Tabernacle was built in 1863 by a developer called James Bailey. I say "built", but this is pushing it, really. Unlike Bailey's other projects – he specialised in the terraced houses you can still see in this part of north-west London today – this one came straight from the pages of a catalogue. Made of corrugated iron, it was a flat-pack church of the same ilk as the sweaty "God boxes" that were delivered to distant outposts of the Empire. It cost less than £1,000 and was intended only to be temporary. In the fullness of time, or so Bailey believed, the local Congregationalists would raise enough money to build a chapel all of their own.

In the end, though, this never happened, and the tabernacle lived on. In 1947 it was taken over by the Willesden & St Marylebone Sea Cadets, the charity that remains its custodian; the building is now grade II listed. This applies only to the exterior, which is a pity, for it's the interior that makes the eyes pop. In the 1950s the inside of the tabernacle was transformed by a group of local men so as to resemble the inside of a Royal Navy ship. There are portholes and rigging, a boatswain's store and a wardroom, and a proper bridge, complete with wheel and a full set of engine order telegraphs. Also, smack in the middle of the main deck, is a 1943 anti-aircraft gun.

Not that I knew any of this at first. For the next few weeks the Tin Tabernacle is home to an installation by the artist Lindsay Seers (a commission by Artangel, the remarkable charity which seeks to take art out of the gallery and into the world), and it's part of her design that visitors find out the peculiar nature of the building little by little. In the beginning I saw only the wardroom, with its tiny bar and a sign that urges officers to check they are correctly dressed. This is where you wait before the show begins, and it's adorable.

Seers works in film, constructing complex narratives that are mostly fiction but which have their roots in autobiography. When she started talking to the people at Artangel they took her to the tabernacle on a kind of blind date, and I'm guessing that, like me, she fell hard in love. For her, though, the building has an extra resonance. Seers's great great uncle, George Edwards, who was born in 1866, was a sea cadet who joined the merchant navy and sailed to Zanzibar, where he was involved in British efforts to dismantle the local slave trade. Look at the walls of the tabernacle's wardroom and it's possible you will find a photograph of George. You can't miss him. He has a distinctive appearance. His eyes were different colours.

Seers's film, Nowhere Less Now, is shown on two screens, one flat and round, the other spherical. In the flickering gloom you think, of course, of lenses, of George's eyes. But these screens also put you in mind of human eggs (his condition, heterochromia, was genetic), and of portholes. The narrative is multilayered, and stable as quicksand. It looks back to George's life onboard HMS Dragon, but also forward to a future in which photographs have been banned (those lucky enough to be in possession of a photograph must gaze on it in secret, gathering with others in a temporary structure not unlike the tabernacle). Seers also travels to Zanzibar, where George eventually drowned, and to Dar es Salaam, where she finds another church of corrugated iron. Unanswered questions hang heavy in the air. What compelled George's wife, Georgina, to wear a dress of such strange, Masonic design? (Seers films herself in something similar, with macabre results.) What happened to Seers's stepsister, who went missing as a child? And was it her uncle who carved his name on a huge baobab tree on Cemetery Island, or some other sailor called George?

After 20 minutes the film ends. Too soon. As the lights come up, you're still puzzling things out (a feeling that will last for days, and probably for ever). It takes a moment, then, to notice what the dark previously concealed: that Seers has made her own additions to the folk-art interior of the tabernacle, and that you're sitting in what appears to be the upturned hull of a ship. Knock its sides with a knuckle and you will hear the stark clank of metal. The disorientation doesn't end here. Afterwards, free to explore, I wandered into a tiny side chapel. It has a medieval altar and a lectern whose base is – wait for it – a cloven hoof. The effect was uncanny. Outside, the traffic rumbled; Kilburn could not be more landlocked if it tried. But in the strange quiet of the Tin Tabernacle I was lost at sea, overwhelmed by a briny wave of doubt and confusion.

Summary: The transformation of a quirky London chapel into the setting for an unsettling film about a sailor's life has magical results, writes Rachel Cooke


It represents “a giant leap into the future,” in the words of George Osborne, “using cutting edge British technology” to “keep several paces ahead of the criminals” and “help to boost public confidence”. A new robot police force, you say? Well no, actually, he was talking about a new pound coin.

Unveiled with a momentous perspective rendering, which depicts the coin as a monumental disk hovering into view like some unearthly mothership, the new pound was hailed as “the most secure circulating coin in the world to date.” The mint estimates that around 3% of current pound coins are fake, amounting to around 45m in circulation, and hopes this new, more complex design will put an end to counterfeiting.

Based on the form of the old threepenny bit, the 12-sided shape will no doubt foil any forgers who don’t have a file to hand. And the two different coloured metals will make it a bit tricky to copy. But there’s more. This super-coin possesses what the Royal Mint gnomically refers to as “Integrated Secure Identification Systems”, or iSIS, to give it that lofty ring of Apple-Mac-meets-classical-mythology.

The product of £2m of research and development over the last three years, iSIS comprises “three tiers of covert banknote-strength security,” says the Mint, “which can be authenticated via high-speed automated detection units to industry-leading levels, including retail and vending equipment.”

So what exactly is it?

“It is not a surface coating,” they tell me. “And it is microscopically small”.

It apparently involves the application of an existing security technology that has been proven over decades in banknotes, but this is the first time it has been successfully embedded into coins. The Mint says these special iSIS coins “do not merely rely upon the metal composition to give a response to a sensor,” but instead it is “the presence of the iSIS material” that makes them virtually impossible to forge. It is “overt, covert and forensic,” they say. AKA: “We’re not telling.”

So what can we read into the design itself? The reverse side will be subject to a public competition, like the 2008 redesign of all UK coinage, which was won by 26-year old Matthew Dent with a brilliant shield design, shared across the six coins like a jigsaw puzzle. The design famously forgot to include the numeral value of each coin, rendering the pieces “totally unworkable as actual coins” in the eyes of some critics – though we seem to have managed okay since.

As for the new pound coin, its 12-sided shape has been declared “distinctly British”, being based on a coin that disappeared after decimalisation in the early 1970s, and it embodies a certain nostalgia for the days before contactless credit cards and the slippery world of the Bitcoin.

“It shows that people still like the tangible,” says Ben Alsop, curator of the Citi Money Gallery at the British Museum. “There is an affection for the threepenny bit among those who can remember it, and it’s one of the most geometrically complex coins ever minted. As our gallery explains, the moment coinage is issued into society, it takes on whole new meanings, from a communicational tool, to religious and devotional functions, it’s not just used in an economic sense. I think the new design marries well with traditional coinage – and it shows coins are here to stay.”

So, pound coin as cultural saviour, national nostalgia booster and high security weapon against crime. A nice distraction from the realities of the budget then.

Summary: It’s been hailed as ‘the most secure circulating coin in the world to date’, but what else can we read into the design of the new pound coin?


Does the world really need another production of “Into the Woods’’ just now?

In the abstract, probably not. But when a theater troupe gets so many things right, as Lyric Stage Company does with its version of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, the answer has to be yes.

It’s clear from the Lyric’s captivating production that this musical is a passion project for director Spiro Veloudos. The disenchanted forest of his “Into the Woods’’ is thick with pathos, dread, and disillusion, but it’s also shot through with humor and life and wayward romance — all elements that Veloudos balances adroitly.

His 17-member cast is generally first-rate, and notably diverse, too, which has been a strength at the Lyric all season. Particular standouts are Aimee Doherty as the Witch, Lisa Yuen as the Baker’s Wife, Erica Spyres as Cinderella, John Ambrosino as the Baker, Maritza Bostic as Little Red Ridinghood, Maurice Emmanuel Parent as both Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf, and Sam Simahk as Rapunzel’s Prince. All of these performers seize, and largely fulfill, the comic and dramatic possibilities of their characters.

The seven-member orchestra, with music director Catherine Stornetta on the keyboard, is lively without overwhelming the singers. Elisabetta Polito’s costumes are wonderfully detailed, an eye-catching array of garments with a steampunk flavor. David Towlun’s set is stark, simple, and effective: bare trees, imposing castle, hollowed-out trunk. Lighting designer Scott Clyve skillfully augments shifts in tone and mood.

A deconstruction and mash-up of classic fairy tales that unfolds in a series of overlapping narratives, “Into the Woods’’ occupies a unique place in the Sondheim canon, having achieved more mainstream popularity than is the norm for this challenging composer — and even becoming a staple of high-school drama clubs. A movie version, starring Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, is slated for release later this year. Two years ago the Public Theater staged an outdoor production at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, starring Donna Murphy as the Witch and Amy Adams as the Baker’s Wife, trapped beneath a wig that looked like a dead possum.

The Lyric’s “Into the Woods’’ is funnier than that production, especially in Act 1, before the casualties start to mount. Act 2 is when the bill comes due, existentially speaking, and the mood turns more somber.

The Witch has laid a curse on the Baker’s family line, dooming him and his wife to childlessness — a curse she will only undo if they bring her a cow “as white as milk,’’ a cape “as red as blood,’’ hair “as yellow as corn,’’ and a slipper “as pure as gold.’’ Their quest for those items supplies the pretext for encounters with sundry fairy tale characters, the action framed by a Narrator played by Will McGarrahan in an orange bow tie.

Lapine’s book is helter-skelter and a bit thin, its useful warnings about the perils of the mob mentality notwithstanding. As for Sondheim’s score for “Into the Woods,’’ I personally would not rank it in his career top five.

But there’s no gainsaying the fact that some of his most beautiful, clever, and heart-piercing songs can be heard here. While loss — of illusions, of loved ones — is central to this musical, there are a few lyrics that rank among the most movingly affirmative Sondheim has ever written, especially in “No One Is Alone,’’ performed with a shiver-down-your-spine delicacy by Spyres, who is joined by Ambrosino, Bostic, and Gregory Balla, as Jack. The sentiment of that title phrase, repeated often in the song, stands in striking contrast with a line from “Sorry-Grateful,’’ Sondheim’s cold-eyed dissection of marriage in 1970’s “Company’’: “You hold her thinking/ ‘I’m not alone’/You’re still alone.’’

Doherty, who adds another to her growing list of strong musical performances that includes the Lyric’s “On the Town’’ and Wheelock Family Theatre’s “Hairspray,’’ delivers a wrenching rendition of “Stay With Me,’’ the Witch’s plea/warning to Rapunzel (Amanda Spinella), whom the Witch has raised as a daughter. Doherty also conjures a foreboding aura in “Last Midnight.’’

Parent summons the necessary creepiness during “Hello, Little Girl,’’ a sort-of duet between the Wolf and Bostic’s Red. He is also quite amusing as the vain and self-absorbed Prince in “Agony,’’ a duet with Simahk, and in “Any Moment,’’ a duet with Yuen. Bostic, a graduating senior at Salem State University who is a treat to watch from start to finish, does a fine job with “I Know Things Now,’’ a rueful coming-of-age tune.

Yuen is simply excellent as the Baker’s Wife. She and Ambrosino nail their duet, “It Takes Two,’’ and she brings a wistful poignancy to her big solo number, “Moments in the Woods.’’ Throughout the show, even amid the lighter moments, Yuen conveys the Baker’s Wife’s restlessness — something that nearly all of the characters feel.

The Lyric plans to open next season with another Sondheim show, “Sweeney Todd,’’ his masterwork, with Veloudos again at the helm. Based on “Into the Woods,’’ that’s a double piece of good news.

Summary: It’s clear from the Lyric Stage Company’s captivating production of “Into the Woods” that this Stephen Sondheim-James Lapin musical is a passion project for director Spiro Veloudos.


Bachelorette Andi Dorfman’s dad has played a prominent role (if not roadblock) in her journey to love. So if he could crash a Bachelorette event — Andi’s People blog said he made a “surprise” flight to LA to suss out the guys at the first rose ceremony, which producers criminally edited out — then I figured that it was appropriate for my dad to crash my weekly, cheap white wine fueled Bachelorette watch and impart his words of wisdom:

Please date someone with a real job My dad didn’t enter this week’s episode with high expectations. “This is a high powered DA and she got rid of the ER doctor and the lawyer in the first round?” he asked. “Is it just me or are some of these guys doofuses?” In Andi’s defense, the doctor used a pickup line that was almost as awkward as his haircut. In my dad’s defense, she kept a guy who says he’s a “Pantsapreneur” for a living and a professional hairstylist (pictured) who appears to be on the verge of a mullet.

When on dates, it’s good to have actual conversations Eric Hill tragically died last month in a paragliding accident — and watching his one-on-one date with Andi was heartbreaking. The explorer, whose goal was to visit every country in the world, was curious, kind, and eloquent. While most suitors only initially have amorphous conversations about love-everlasting and how great it is that their grandparents still hold hands, Hill engaged in a deep and socially relevant conversation about the Syrian uprising. Conversations about current affairs are almost unheard of on the show. Dad’s conclusion: “You won’t get any snarky quotes about this guy from me.”

If I ever make guys put on a strip show for me on a first date — even if it’s for charity — I’m grounded “This is a way to make a perfectly nice man look like an asshole.” And a perfectly gross man look like even more of an asshole.

“Don’t kiss anyone until you’ve had a coherent conversation with him first” Former professional baseball player Josh assured Andi that he wasn’t your stereotypical former pro-athlete. Unfortunately, he never clarified what he actually was — apart from reassuringly telling her he hasn’t had a girlfriend in five years (umm, was it because you were only hooking up with and then ghosting ladies?) We have no idea what Josh’s second conversation with Andi was about, as it mostly involved rapid fire, unblinking, breathless ramblings that made us wonder if he was a) really nervous or b) if producers were giving out more than just booze behind the scenes.

Never discount a man with a bow tie. Bow ties were worn both by the clearly planted old man who spontaneously told Andi that he and his wife still love each other after 100 years of marriage, and Chris, the Iowa farmer who’s so sweet he says “darnit” to swear:

While dad warns Chris might be “a little too smooth, I want to check his farmer bona fides,” he approves of his accessorizing. “That’s how we did it in the 70′s”:

Summary: "At this point, the only dating advice I have is don't"


A $1.1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center could begin within the next 18 months after the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a bill Wednesday authorizing funding for the massive project.

The 130-19 vote was a major milestone for the proposal, which has received support from Governor Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray. It would increase the size of the convention center by 60 percent, an expansion that the convention authority says is needed to attract the nation’s largest meetings and trade shows.

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority also said Wednesday that several top hotel companies have joined a separate competition to build a 1,000-room headquarters hotel next to the South Boston facility. Among the companies to submit letters of interest were Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, MGM Resorts, Omni, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

The new hotel and expansion of exhibit space would put Boston among the top convention destinations in the United States, according to James Rooney, executive director of the Convention Center Authority. He said the expansion, expected to be completed in 2019, would create thousands of jobs.

“This creates real economic activity,” he said. “Our economy is grounded in knowledge-based industries, and the ability to host events and thought leaders from major international corporations in Boston is something a world-class city needs to be able to do.”

Critics of the planned expansion argue that Boston is adding to a nationwide glut of convention space that has left cities building ever-larger facilities to fight for business in the volatile meetings industry.

“What we’re looking at here is spending a whole lot of money to tread water,” said Charles Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. “I think what’s behind this is more the fear of losing market share than any realistic hope of capturing a larger share of a shrinking market.”

The debate about the expansion has carried on for months, though few fervent skeptics have emerged in the Legislature. The bill still needs formal approval from the governor and the state Senate.

The Senate is expected to vote by the end of the legislative session on July 31, and Murray recently signaled strong support.

The project to expand the convention center, which state officials say will require no new taxes, will be funded from existing fees on hotel rooms, taxis, and other tourism business in Boston and Cambridge. Those fees would be used to pay interest on bonds financing the expansion plan.

While the plans do not require an increase in those fees, critics complain the project would take money away from other priorities by extending the length of time the state will need to pay off debt for the facility.

Under the expansion proposal, the state could be making debt payments on the facility until 2060. Chieppo has said the project will cost the state an additional $5 billion during that extended period.

Rooney has said that expansion plans for the South Boston hall, which opened in 2004, were always contemplated. Regardless, he said, taxes that go into the convention center fund will be needed to operate the facility decades into the future.

Construction of the hotel and a 1.3-million-square-foot addition to the convention hall would contribute to a burst of development on the South Boston Waterfront, which has been re-branded as the city’s Innovation District. Several towering residential and office buildings are rising across the neighborhood, which has also attracted several new restaurants and stores.

The new exhibit space, ballrooms, and meeting rooms would be built to the south of the existing hall, on parking lots along D and Cypher streets.

The Convention Center Authority has estimated that the expansion will generate an additional $184 million a year in economic activity through spending on restaurants, hotel rooms, and other tourism and entertainment activities.

Rooney said the additional exhibit area will allow the facility to attract larger trade shows that now bypass the facility because of the limited space. He has also pushed for construction of more hotel rooms around the facility because event attendees are now forced to stay at accommodations across the city.

Currently, there are 1,700 rooms within walking distance of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, compared with 8,000 or more in New Orleans and other cities that compete with Boston. Another 500 hotel rooms are under construction across from the facility.

The headquarters hotel is planned for land owned by the Massachusetts Port Authority, known as the Core Block site, across the street from the convention center near the intersection of D and Summer streets. As many as 200 more rooms would be added across from the facility on Summer Street.

Rooney has said that project will probably require government assistance, though the amount has not yet been determined. Few hotels of that size have been built in the United States without some public funding. Hotel developers have been unwilling to accept the risk of building such large facilities without government backing.

Large hotel companies have signed up with an array of developers to bid for the right to build the headquarters hotel. Among the developers involved are The Davis Cos., Extell Development Corp., Rida Development Corp., The Fallon Co., and the Drew Co.

The pool of bidders will be winnowed in the coming months by the Convention Center Authority, with the goal of selecting a developer by the end of the year.

The hotel would open with the expanded convention hall in 2019.

• 4/11: Expansion plan for convention center meets skeptics

• 1/15: Event planners hear cities pitch venues

• 10/03: State asked to OK bigger convention center

Summary: The Massachusetts House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a $1.1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center designed to make it one of the top five convention destinations in the United States.


Brooklyn is a big place. Lots of bad things go on there. Bad things generate a lot of cash. “All that money has to go somewhere,” as Tom Hardy says in a voice-over at the beginning of “The Drop.” The premise of the movie, which crime novelist Dennis Lehane adapted from his short story “Animal Rescue,” is that there are “drop bars” — bars where various illegal enterprises will bring in large sums of cash each week for the mob to collect.

Bars, being mostly cash operations where shady individuals have been known to congregate, are ideal locations for this service. To make things difficult for anyone who might think of grabbing all that cash, the drop-bar location constantly shifts.

(Before going any further, some slight geographical explanation is in order.“Brooklyn”? Lehane is very much a Boston novelist, as “Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone,” and “Shutter Island” famously attest. And both “Animal Rescue” and his novel “The Drop,” which Lehane adapted from his screenplay, are set in Dorchester. But the movie isn’t. Well, you know how Hollywood is.)

Back to drop bars. Cousin Marv’s is one. Marv (the late James Gandolfini) is the proprietor. He used to be the owner, until he ran afoul of the Chechen mafia. Now he works for them, something that still rankles. His chief bartender is Bob, and Marv really is Bob’s cousin.

As played by Tom Hardy, Bob is at once stolid and kind and a bit dull. Or is he? One of the things that makes Hardy’s performance the best thing in “The Drop” is his ability to suggest ever so slightly that there’s more going on with Bob than you might at first think. The man is definitely a bit of a puzzle. He goes to 8 o’clock Mass every morning — yet never takes Communion. He lives alone and seems to have no friends — yet when he encounters an abandoned puppy, he takes him in. Bob’s a tough guy who’s a softie — or maybe the other way around. That sounds like the worst sort of pulp cliche. Hardy turns it into a flesh-and-blood character. (Speaking of blood, it’s not seen that often in “The Drop.” When it is, though, watch out — or look away.) Hardy makes Bob’s contradictions — all right, his implausibilities — thoroughly believable.

Not that it needed demonstrating, but Hardy once again shows what quiet force and phenomenal range he has. He’s like a young Liam Neeson with Michael Fassbender chops. Inside that blocking-back body is the soul of an orchid breeder, mass murderer, or certified public accountant. You name it, Hardy can do it. The same man who was an MI6 agent in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011) was a Virginia bootlegger in “Lawless” and, of course, Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises” (both 2012). And that’s not counting Hardy’s tour de force earlier this year in “Locke,” where he’s onscreen for every moment as the world’s most justifiably distracted driver. The prospect of Hardy playing Mad Max (the remake is set for 2015 release) is exciting indeed.

Hardy’s in good company in “The Drop.” In his last feature film role, Gandolfini acquits himself well; he makes Marv’s resentment and self-disgust feel as real, and sizable, as the man’s gut. Noomi Rapace is Bob’s sort-of love interest. She’s largely wasted in the part — not that it’s much of a part — but there are flashes where you can see why Rapace took over “Prometheus” (2012) and made for such a memorable Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. But it’s Hardy’s movie.

That’s good, because whenever he’s off-screen the film’s shortcomings become apparent. Although Michaël R. Roskam’s direction is capable enough, it’s untextured and anonymous. The storytelling can get sluggish, which is not a good thing in a movie with an increasingly complicated plot. It includes multiple double crosses, at least two shameless coincidences, and a crucially misattributed homicide. There are aspirations to larger things and deeper emotions — or perhaps that should be Larger Things and Deeper Emotions — like Marv’s kitchen-sink-drama relationship with his sister (the gifted Ann Dowd), the bits with the puppy, and Bob’s churchgoing. They’re devices at best (the puppy), distractions at worst. “The Drop” wants to be more than just a taut, terse thriller — not that there’s anything “just” about achieving such a thing. They’re as rare, and valuable, as first-rate drama. Hardy’s presence insures that “The Drop” is something more, but only intermittently. Even he can do only so much.

Summary: Tom Hardy offers a stellar performance in the Dennis Lehane crime drama “The Drop.”


Last week, the 63-year-old queen of performance art Marina Abramović, dressed in a flowing dark-blue dress, and looking extremely pale, sat down at a small table in the towering atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She will be there, motionless and silent, every day during museum opening hours for the next three months. This is the duration of her retrospective, The Artist Is Present – the first career survey Moma has ever given to a performance artist – which is taking place concurrently up on the sixth floor. In the atrium, Abramović is making the title of her exhibition literal. And members of the public can share in her presence by sitting in the empty chair opposite her and engaging in silent eye contact for as long as they want, or as long as they can.

"I have to be like a mountain," the artist told me a couple of days before going into her "big silence" for the performance. She will go home every evening when the museum closes, but, in order to sustain her meditative state, she will not speak until 31 May. "The atrium is such a restless place, full of people passing through. The acoustics are terrible – it's too big, too noisy. It's like a tornado. I try to play the stillness in the middle."

While I was talking to her, Abramović was anything but still. Her habitual anxiety and jovial hyperactivity – so different to the formidable power and placidity she has demonstrated in 40 years of extreme acts of endurance – were in overdrive. "People don't realise it is pure hell sitting so long," she said in her thick Serbian accent, while fidgeting. Cramps will set in after an hour or so. Her bum will begin to hurt. But she will ride out the pain. "The concept of failure never enters my mind," she insists. To insure against it, a masseuse, a nutritionist and a personal trainer will visit her apartment before and after each day's work.

My meeting with the artist was the first time I had seen her in a year, in which time I had finished writing her biography. Her verdict on the book, now that it's finally out (after three years of intensive interviews and research, and four years before that spent working as her assistant, a position I quit in order to start writing) was this: "I will never let anyone write my biography again." We both laughed, even though she was deadly serious. I began dreading the inevitable moment when I would sit opposite her at the table a few days later.

But Abramović's conclusion was also validating: the book was always meant to be both intimate and critical, and it was not written at her behest, or subject to her approval. However, it did rely on her total co-operation. I came to think that the process of writing the book was like her 1974 performance Rhythm 0, in which she stood totally passive for six hours while members of the public were allowed to do whatever they wanted to her. Chains, feathers, a Polaroid camera, olive oil, razor blades, an axe, a rose, a bullet and a gun were among the objects set out on a table nearby. She surrendered control of her biography to me without knowing what the result would be; she simply had to trust that I would not put the gun to her neck, as someone did in Rhythm 0.

Before queueing to sit opposite Abramović on the opening night of the performance, I checked out the retrospective. It's a cacophonous, mercifully unpious treatment of her often ultra-serious work. It opens with videos, photographs and objects relating to her first performances in the early 1970s. In these, the svelte and self-conscious young artist performed acts such as stabbing knives repeatedly in the gaps between her splayed fingers, often missing and stabbing her hand instead (Rhythm 10, 1973); lying down in the (empty) middle of a burning five-pointed star, symbolic not only of the occult but of communism in her native Yugoslavia (Rhythm 5, 1974); and, in 1976, brushing her hair with increasing violence while repeating the mantra: "Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful." Abramović, always obsessed with her physical appearance, was probably not being that ironic.

Why did she do such things? I later came to think of them as the artist's revenge against the givenness of life. Growing up under dictator Jospi Broz Tito and the domestic regime of a militaristic mother, body art was a way for Abramović to create rules even more extreme than the ones she found herself subjected to. In that way she could demonstrate a different kind of freedom. Her performances were also irrepressible expressions of her natural theatrical bent, and her craving for attention and devotion. It's impossible to disentangle the narcissism from the public service in her work; the diva from the high priestess.

At Moma, most of Abramović's work (which includes live performance pieces as well as documentation) is taken from her 1976–1988 collaboration in love and art with the German artist Ulay, here remade by a troupe of devoted young artists. A couple stare and point at each other without moving (a remake of 1977's Point of Contact), another motionless couple sit back-to-back with their hair braided together (Relation in Time, 1977), and another two stand and face each other naked in a doorway (Imponderabilia, 1977). You can pass between them, but Moma has neutered the confrontation of the original by placing the performers so far apart that you barely brush against them.

But there's a bigger problem than Moma's institutional prudishness: these re-performances cannot invoke the conditions – the audacity, trauma and charisma – of the original pieces. Abramović's work is inseparable from her and Ulay's history and magnetism. The pieces seen here seem to sap the originals of their unpredictability and strangeness.

The Ulay phase of the retrospective includes photos of Nightsea Crossing, which is Abramović's inspiration for this three-month-long sitting. In the 1980s, she and Ulay sat opposite each other, locked in eye contact and without moving, for a total of 90 (non-consecutive) days in museums around the world. If, in the first part of her career, she was masochistically confronting herself, and in the middle part she was confronting Ulay; since 1988, she has been directly confronting the public, though with an emphasis on physical presence rather than pain. The House With Ocean View (2002) is another prototype of her new performance in the atrium: the artist lived for 12 days without eating or speaking on three raised platforms in a gallery; her only nourishment was sustained eye contact with members of the audience.

So there is an irresistible force of historic logic behind what's going on in the atrium. And history revisited Abramović on the opening night, as a parade of fellow performance artists sat with her: Tehching Hsieh (the undisputed king of endurance, legendary for his one-year performances in the 1980s), the Austrian feminist (and friend of Marina's) Valie Export, and Joan Jonas, perhaps the only artist of Abramović's generation to continue with performance art after the 1970s.

In between each of these sitters, Abramović looked down and closed her eyes, resetting her gaze and gathering energy. When she looked up again, sitting opposite her was none other than Ulay. A rapturous silence descended on the atrium. Abramović immediately dissolved into tears, and for the first few seconds had trouble meeting Ulay's calm gaze. She turned from superhero to little girl – smiling meekly; painfully vulnerable. When they did finally lock eyes, tears streaked down Abramović's cheeks; after a few minutes, she violated the conditions of her own performance and reached across the table to take his hands. It was a moving reconciliation scene – as Abramović, of course, was well aware.

As a steady stream of people sat down opposite Abramović, it became clear that she was trying to engage with them all on a personal level, mirroring their posture and the varying intensity of their gaze. She was being anything but a mountain – and her frailty made an already difficult performance even more exhausting. But the apparent nightmare of the piece is an illusion: what could be better than three months of sustained eye contact with a public hungry for connection? What more fundamental human activity could there be?

After 90 minutes of queueing on the opening night, it was finally my turn to sit opposite the artist. I was immediately stunned. Not by the strength of her gaze, but the weakness of it. She offered a Mona Lisa half-smile and started to cry, but somehow this served to strengthen my gaze; I had to be the mountain. After about 10 minutes, I started to relish our unspoken dialogue. Then, suddenly and involuntarily, my head dropped. It was as if Abramović had sent me a laser beam, and the moment was over.

Summary: Now 63, the grande dame of 1970s performance art is spending three months in silent vigil at at Moma alongside a retrospective of her work. James Westcott sits down to see if he can hold her gaze


Alex Duncan was an experienced thrillseeker who had been into extreme sports since he was 19. (Supplied, Facebook)

An Australian man killed during a wingsuit jump in the Swiss Alps was a thrillseeker who had been involved in extreme sports for most of his adult life.

Alex Duncan, 26, died on Tuesday after crashing into a mountainside in the rugged region of Valais, according to local police.

The Manly, NSW-born man and another jumper leapt from the summit of the 2243m Croix de Fer peak, which is a well-known jump point for wingsuit divers.

Duncan began skydiving when he was 19, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported, and had reportedly travelled across Europe to BASE-jump and wingsuit flyer.

In a video recently posted to YouTube, Duncan was philosophical about the dangers of his chosen sport.

"You have to have a mix of a little bit crazy and a little bit brave, but you have to be sensible too,” he wrote in the post, which was uploaded last month.

Australian wingsuit flyer Alex Duncan. (Supplied, Facebook)

”There's definitely a danger involved and it can be very high risk.”

Swiss police believe Duncan, who had worked for Perth oil and gas company Vertech, went off track immediately after his jump and smashed into a rock face about 300m down the mountain.

Rescuers pronounced him dead at the scene.

In another YouTube post, uploaded in March, Duncan conducts a series of practice jumps in New Zealand.

”So stoked with this suit! New Zealand has some pretty epic terrain to be explored,” he posted.

Duncan’s death has left the relatively small extreme spot community in shock, with the World Wingsuit League posting a tribute to the Australian online.

”We are sorry to learn about the tragic death of wingsuit pilot Alex Duncan,” it said.

”Just recently, Alex had entered the international wingsuit scene by publishing videos featuring his hard-core proximity flying. Today he is gone.”

The Swiss Alps are a magnet for wingsuit divers, who wear special jumpsuits that add surface area to the body, enabling them to glide like a bird, before opening a parachute like a regular skydiver.

Some 20 people are killed each year taking part in the extreme sport.

New Zealander Dan Vicary, 33, died in the Swiss Alps earlier this year, as did base-jumper Alan McCandlish, also from NZ, in 2012.

British wingsuit diver and stuntman Mark Sutton - best known for parachuting into the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony dressed as James Bond - died in August 2013 when he crashed into a Swiss mountain ridge after jumping from a helicopter.

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Villa Jeanneret-Perret (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1912) German Reformkultur meets Mediterranean classicism in this Swiss villa.

Atelier Ozenfant(Paris, 1924) Minimal house and studio for painter, mentor and friend Amédée Ozenfant, lit by large north window and glazed saw-tooth roof.

Villa La Roche-Jeanneret (Paris, 1925) Gallery house for Swiss banker and collector; "architectural promenade" within a sleek white exterior. Adjoining villa for the architect's brother.

Houses at Weissenhof (Stuttgart, 1927) Experiments in low-cost housing for Deutsche Werkbund exhibition; typical piloti and horizontal strip windows.

Villa Savoye (Poissy, 1931) Seminal villa and a perfect expression of Le Corbusier's fivepoint programme. The embodiment of international style.

Unité d'Habitation (Marseille, 1952) The ultimate machine for living in. A large apartment block showcasing Le Corbusier's utopian aspirations for mass housing.

Maisons Jaoul (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1955) Final break with earlier "maisons blanches": Le Corbusier reinvents himself in brick, concrete and stone.

High Court (Chandigarh, 1955) Cornerstone of new Punjabi capital with Le Corbusier masterplan; high-minded courthouse with massive concrete "parasol" roof, and 18-metre coloured entrance pillars.

Couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette (Eveux, 1960) Corbusian geometry applied to Cistercian tradition.

National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo, 1959) Mature form of Le Corbusier's archetypal museum; galleries on single floor supported by forest of piloti.

Philips Pavilion (Brussels, 1958, now destroyed) Startling tent-like structure housing early multimedia collaboration with protege Iannis Xenakis and avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse.

Carpenter Visual Arts Centre (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963) Only major Le Corbusier building in the US; once described as "two pianos mating".

Summary: From Villa Jeanneret-Perret to Carpenter Visual Arts Centre.


UK Prime Minister David Cameron compares Vladmir Putin’s regime to the threat posed by Hitler. German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggests the Russian autocrat has lost touch with reality. And this week Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared his intention to “shirt front” the Russian autocrat at next month’s G-20 over the murder of 298 passengers aboard a Malaysian airliner.

Putin is a nuclear-armed 21st century czar who has managed to tie the West’s leaders in knots. What is it that really drives this botox-shooting man who prefers to bear his naked chest while (you name it) horse-back riding, fishing, strolling? What does he ultimately want? Fortune Most Powerful Women International chair Nina Easton took those questions to two top Russia experts: CSIS director of the Europe Program Heather Conley and CSIS director of the Human Rights Initiative Sarah Mendelson. Not surprisingly when it comes to men and abuse of power, both women said the answers have something to do with a past humiliation.

Check out this week’s episode of the iTunes podcast “Smart Women, Smart Power,” brought to you by Fortune and the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Summary: Fortune MPW International chair Nina Easton's latest installment in her 'Smart Women, Smart Power' podcast series with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


Oscar Pistorius has arrived at Pretoria's Kgosi Mampuru prison, where he will begin a maximum five-year sentence for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"He is already accommodated at Kgosi Mampuru," correctional services spokesman Manelisi Wolela said.

The South African Paralympian star sprinter has been sentenced to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend, in the climax of his sensational trial.

The 27-year-old was led straight down to the cells after the sentence was read out on Tuesday by Judge Thokozile Masipa in a final court hearing watched around the world.

"Count one, culpable homicide: the sentence imposed is five years," Masipa told Pistorius.

The double amputee known as the Blade Runner for his speed on his prosthetic legs, killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year.

He was also sentenced to three years, suspended for five years, for accidentally firing a pistol under a table at a restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013.

Pistorius stood stock-still in the dock as he was sentenced in the Pretoria courtroom, veins bulging in his forehead and his jaw muscles clenched.

Lawyers said, however, that Pistorius will probably not serve the full term for the offence of culpable homicide, equivalent to manslaughter, and perhaps as little as 10 months.

Pistorius had testified that he shot Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, four times through a locked bathroom door at his upmarket Pretoria home after he mistakenly believed she was an intruder.

Prosecutors had argued that he murdered her in a fit of rage after an argument.

As the court adjourned, Pistorius turned to look at the public gallery, then briefly took the hands of his family members before being led by police down stairs from the dock to the cells.

Steenkamp's family welcomed the sentence, the climax of a trial that began in March in the South African capital, but was repeatedly adjourned.

Steenkamp's ailing father Barry said he was "very glad" the trial was over and a lawyer for the family said the sentence was "welcome".

The Steenkamps' lawyer, Dup de Bruyn, said the sentence will likely be served as two years in prison and three years under house arrest.

Pistorius' uncle on Tuesday said the sprinter's family accepted the court's judgment.

The final moments of freedom for Oscar Pistorius. (AAP)

"The court has now handed down judgment and sentence, and we accept the judgment," said Arnold Pistorius in a statement outside court.

"Oscar will embrace this opportunity to pay back to society.

"This has been an incredibly hard and painful process for everyone involved, the Steenkamp family, our family and Oscar," he said.

"We are all emotionally drained," he said.

"The case that was set down for three weeks originally has been dragged out for seven months."

A member of Pistorius' legal team, Roxanne Adams said he would likely serve a "sixth" of the five-year term - 10 months - before being transferred to house arrest.

Neither side indicated immediately whether they would appeal against either the September verdict or Tuesday's sentence.

State prosecution spokesman Nathi Mncube said they had been disappointed with the conviction for culpable homicide rather than murder.

But he added: "We have not made up our minds whether we are going to appeal or not."

Adams said the defence had "no comment" on whether or not it will appeal.

Masipa said she wanted to find a balance between retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation, dismissing defence claims that the disabled athlete would face particular suffering in prison.

"It would be a sad day for this country if an impression were to be created that there was one law for the poor and disadvantaged and another for the rich and famous," said Masipa.

She also weighed the ability of Pistorius to cope with incarceration given his physical disability.

"Yes, the accused is vulnerable, but he also has excellent coping skills," she said.

The gold medal-winning athlete made history by becoming the first double amputee Paralympian to compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, inspiring millions with his story.

Discussing the gravity of Pistorius's crime, the judge said he had been guilty of "gross negligence".

"Using a lethal weapon, a loaded firearm, the accused fired not one, but four shots into the door," said Masipa.

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Summary: Oscar Pistorius's brother and sister have vowed to stand by the South African athlete ahead of his sentencing for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.