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The children’s books are ostensibly the handiwork of Snicket, though somehow, his author photos inevitably fail to show his face. At readings and personal appearances, Snicket is “represented”-ahem-by Daniel Handler, 30, a native San Franciscan who under his own name has authored two comic novels for adults, “The Basic Eight” (1999), about a group of teenage murderers, and “Watch Your Mouth” (2000), which concerns incest. But his writings as Snicket have far outsold his more mature works-and have attracted a vast, cult-like readership....

Few Americans have spoken out as forcefully against the Nazis and their legacy as Ernestine Schlant Bradley, Ph.D., a leading scholar on European literature and a professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. But Bradley the private person has spent most of her adult life trying to sort through the complicated emotions about her family and her native land. She wonders, still, how her parents could not have known what was happening to the Jews....

Shweki is a Palestinian baker who lives in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. A predominantly Muslim suburb around half a mile south of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall and the walled Old City, Silwan has roughly 50,000 residents and feels more like a village than a city with its olive-tree lined dirt and gravel roads and hills stacked with small brick houses. Its necropolis is believed to be one of Israel’s most ancient cemeteries, and the City of David, believed to be the urban center of ancient Jerusalem, is located in Silwan’s Wadi Hilweh neighborhood....

If prison doesn’t kill him, it will certainly put a crimp in his practice. Since his first assisted suicide in an old Volkswagen van in 1990, Kevorkian had turned Michigan into a mecca for the terminally ill: by his own count, he sent more than 130 sick patients to their graves. Six times prosecutors had failed to make charges against him stick. But his Sept. 17 injection of Youk proved different: armed with a videotape of the death (aired in November on CBS’s “60 Minutes”), prosecutors dropped the traditional assisted-suicide charge, opting for straight murder....

Sreesanth bore the brunt of public ire and overnight, he turned from a charismatic hero to a diabolical villain. When the entire nation fumed and burnt him in effigy, calls for his ban became widespread. The investigation led by the then Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar came up with video evidence linking the accused trio to the bookies involved but those so called “evidence” were just circumstantial and the clouds of dubiousness began to circle around....

Just as Vidal’s Myron Breckinridge, fond husband and loyal Republican, is periodically taken over by his transsexual alter ego, Myra, so the author of such historical novels as “Burr” periodically gives way to the slash-and-burn satirist. (The last outbreak was the 1983 “Duluth,” a poststructuralist sendup of ‘Dallas.’) “Live from Golgotha” reassures us that Vidal still hasn’t gone respectable: Christians and Jews, p.c. gays and uptight straights will all find plenty to offend them....

Last week Melnikas was being questioned by U.S. Customs officials on suspicion of smuggling stolen goods, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. He is not speaking to the press, but his lawyer, James E. Phillips of Columbus, says the charge is “inconsistent with his career and his reputation” and adds that Melnikas is “totally bewildered.” If so, he’s not the only one....

England’s stubborn draw against Spain last year and their surprise victory against the Samba boys at Wembley earlier this year, has seen them rise upto 7th in the clichéd FIFA rankings. But still their trip to Rio to face the WC 2014 hosts at home was touted as a plausible embarrassment for the Three Lions. Though some dazzling shots by Chamberlain and Rooney earned Hodgson’s men a 2-2 draw, the entire game on the whole clearly exposed the age old tactics that the rigid Hodgson still followed....

A classic that, on rereading, disappointed: Alan Paton’s “Cry, The Beloved Country.” Still a great book, but it has not aged well. A Certified Important Book that you haven’t read: “A Brief History of Time,” by Stephen Hawking. I tried; I really tried.

First, the ethnic element. There is no concept about which Americans are more inconsistent, hypocritical, ambivalent, confused and just plain miserable than that one. Often it is used as a way of making a racial designation without seeming to. “Ethnic,” for example, is often (and unaccountably) employed to mean black. “Ethnic” is also commonly used to describe certain white, mostly Eastern Europe-extracted American minorities; they are called “ethnics,” and the term here usually has an unfair negative connotation....

The news comes out of an interview from Gamesindustry.biz shortly before the beginning of Gamescom 2016, where the media outlet took a moment to speak with the Executive Vice President of EA Studios Patrick Soderlund. BioWare - one of many companies under EA’s umbrella - and its games were among the subjects discussed. Talk of a new IP was inevitable, but Soderlund was happy to oblige. From what Soderland says, it appears the title is almost presentable....

Players typically want to be rewarded for going out of their way to collect various collectibles within the GTA series. Having a specific amount of good collectibles (usually 10) rewards players with useful items every time. This incentivizes players to fully explore the game world. Unfortunately, not all collectibles are created equal. Even if they’re required for 100% completion of the game, some of them are just a waste of the player’s time....

Sterling will return to the England team for their final Euro 2020 qualifier at Kosovo on Sunday, having sat out the midweek win over Montenegro following a confrontation with team-mate Joe Gomez. The Manchester City winger scored one and created three more as Kosovo were beaten 5-3 at St Mary’s Stadium earlier in the campaign. Challandes is not enthused by the prospect of Sterling returning with a point to prove this weekend, yet he insists his side will not resort to rough tactics....

The new Allante, which went on sale last week even as it was winning admiring glances from teenage future orthodontists at the New York Auto Show, is probably the most advanced production car built in the United States. This is a boast that until a few years ago would have sounded a trifle hollow, like “the best-designed car in the Soviet bloc’–but no longer, or so General Motors devoutly hopes....

The facts are at once grotesque and gripping. In an apartment building in one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods, two lawyers were raising fighting dogs more accustomed to chain-link fences than stylish entry gates. Frightened neighbors bought pepper spray and mailmen braced for trouble. Then, late last week, the two 100-pound dogs broke loose from their female owner, bounded down the hallway and killed a 33-year-old college lacrosse coach in her doorway....

While 1950s America fell in love with private automobiles, communist China embraced trains. Mao Zedong’s rail journeys were combination mini-Politburo meetings and clandestine love fests–replete with electronic bugging devices designed to eavesdrop on both sorts of encounters. In the years since, China’s state-run rail system has never been eager to improve service or lower prices. Many city dwellers choose air travel instead. Since 1993, for example, the Beijing-Shanghai train route has seen its market share of passenger traffic fall by nearly half....

Others like her may not be so fortunate. The reason has little to do with medicine but rather with a nasty corporate fight. On one side is CellPro Inc., a small Seattle biotech company that has given some 5,000 desperately ill patients like Tully a second chance at life. On the other is Baxter International, a giant pharmaceutical company that has accused its tiny rival of infringing on one of its patents....