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...even a decade ago she was unknown and poor, a single mom on welfare who sometimes pretended to browse in maternity stores so she could cadge a free diaper in the changing room. Now, after four Harry Potter books, two movies and an armada of related merchandise, J.K. Rowling has a fortune estimated at $450 million, according to the London Sunday Times rich list, making her $50 million wealthier than the Queen of England. Her personal life has picked up too. She has bought multimillion-dollar houses in London, Edinburgh and the Scottish hills near Perth...
...Parts of the city are experiencing levels of poverty that were previously unknown in Germany. A 1999 report on the East Berlin neighborhood of Hellersdorf estimated that 15% of the population lives below the poverty line - defined as a household income that is 50% or less of the national average. A large number of those are children. Bernd Siggelkow, a pastor in Hellersdorf, says Western politicians made big promises to the residents of East Berlin, but they were not fulfilled. "People here thought, 'Now the West is coming with all its glitter and gold,'" Siggelkow, 39, says...
...really was. Oh, they may know that his name was actually Eric Blair, or that he was English and died pathetically young. But the sheer immensity of his work - 2 million words of fiction, reportage, essays, poems and reviews - and the tantalizing contradictions of his life are today largely unknown to the rising generation. That may soon change. The centenary of Orwell's birth this week - he was born June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India, where his father was an opium agent for the British Raj - has brought a tide of conferences, articles and books...
From the beginning of her moment in the public eye, Nefertiti had a star quality that transcended her epoch. Her swan neck, flawless face and curvaceous figure seem to justify her name, which means "the beautiful one is come." Her parents are unknown, although some scholars believe her father eventually became Tutankhamen's vizier (a sort of prime minister) and then ascended the throne himself. Nefertiti was chosen as principal wife of young Amenhotep IV, who became Pharaoh in about 1350 B.C. At the time of her marriage, she may have been no older than...
...Yang Huaiqing, navy political commissar; over the recent Ming-class No. 361 submarine accident that claimed the lives of all 70 crew members; in Beijing. According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the admirals were fired for "improper command and action" during the accident, the cause of which is still unknown. The dismissals follow the high-profile sackings of top Chinese officials in April over the mishandling of the SARS outbreak on the mainland...