LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Not so long ago, Cristian Gheorghiu roamed the streets of Los Angeles at all hours, black marker in his pocket, hunting for walls and street signs where he could scrawl his graffiti moniker, “Smear.’’These days, the Romanian-born Gheorghiu is working in his garage, splashed in paint and surrounded by canvases, paint cans, markers and odds and ends he uses to fashion abstract mix

Performance April 4, 2011

CHICAGO (AP) ― After being heckled and booed in Detroit, Charlie Sheen made some changes to his road show Sunday night ― and this time, it ended with a standing ovation.Sheen used a talk show-style format at his Chicago show, with a master of ceremonies asking the actor questions. The interviewer, who didn’t identify himself, kept Sheen on track and gave the actor a chance to make some snarky comm

Performance April 4, 2011

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) ― Just feet from a methadone clinic at a grimy crossroads in Portland, transit officials and police are hoping a touch of class will chase off vagrants, vandals and ne’er-do-wells that loiter near a busy transit stop.Since November, the regional transit department has approved the playing of classical music in an effort to ward off the kind of crimes that happen when people j

Performance April 4, 2011

Rugby stars visit to promote the sport ahead of New Zealand World CupIt seems like ages ago that the world’s attention was focused on the destructive effects of a 6.3-magnitude earthquake that caused widespread damage and multiple fatalities in Christchurch.In Korea, the Kiwi Chamber and Australian Chamber of Commerce will host a Rugby Charity Dinner at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on April 13 with proce

Foreign Affairs April 3, 2011

People who love raw milk cheeses and those who make them say what sets the cheeses apart is the distinctive flavors and the way they can change from season to season.Whether the taste is tangy, sweet, grassy or creamy, aficionados say, it’s almost always memorable.The flavor develops through a required 60-day aging process designed to kill harmful bacteria. Now, that process faces possible reregul

Food April 1, 2011

MOSCOW (AP) ― The American Ballet Theatre has returned to Moscow for the first time since the 1960s and the first time since the defection of Mikhail Baryshnikov, who left Russia’s famed Bolshoi Theatre to bring his luminous star power to the U.S. ballet company.ABT opened a three-night run Tuesday on the new stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, whose company was touring Canada when Baryshnikov defected

Performance March 31, 2011

LAS VEGAS (AP) ― Johnny Depp’s tour guide on his “Pirates of the Caribbean” voyages is plotting the course for a fifth installment even before the fourth movie sails into theaters.Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says he has a screenplay in the works for a fifth “Pirates” tale after May’s “Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides” comes out.Based on the Disney theme-park ride, the original three “Pira

Film March 31, 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― A website that sold Beatles songs online for 25 cents apiece before they became legally available has agreed to pay record companies nearly $1 million to settle a federal lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker signed off on the settlement between BlueBeat.com and music companies EMI Group PLC, Capitol Records and Virgin Records America on Friday. The judge ruled in

Performance March 29, 2011

CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) ― Before becoming a bride eight times over, Elizabeth Taylor was a 17-year-old starlet scribbling letters to her first fiance, charting on pale pink stationery his progression from her one-and-only to the one who got away.“I’ve never known this kind of love before ― it’s so perfect and complete ― and mature,” Taylor wrote to William Pawley on May 6, 1949. “I’ve never lo

People March 29, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― If the music to the Season 9, Episode 5 installment of Fox’s animated sitcom “Family Guy” had a relaxed feel, maybe it was because of the 104-degree mineral water.Glenn Morrissette helped orchestrate the score after a leisurely soak last October in the natural hot springs in the tiny northwestern Wyoming town of Thermopolis.Morrissette did his work from his recording studio on wheels

Performance March 28, 2011