Cohen

LONDON - Has anyone built a better "Mousetrap"? Britons just getting over celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee are now in the throes of another: the 60th anniversary of the world's longest-running play, "The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie, England's "queen of crime" (or, with less royal pretension, "duchess of death"). What began as a BBC radio drama, at a time when postwar Brits carried around ration books and stared agog at television sets, has since become a West End phenomenon that shows no sign of stopping, though critics carp about signs of age. Sunday marks the official birthday, achieved after more than 25,000 performances, 400 actors and two dozen directors.

Comedic actor and film star Sacha Baron Cohen and his wife, actress Isla Fisher, have leased out their Hollywood Hills West investment property for $10,000 a month. The Midcentury-style home, built in 1959 and later renovated, came on the market in March for lease at $9,950 a month or for sale at $2.595 million. The couple own another house nearby that they bought several years ago for $14 million. The single-story house for sale features canyon and mountain views, beamed ceilings, a river rock fireplace, a media room/den, four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and 2,806 square feet of living space.

Sasha Cohen took the ice a few minutes after the other five skaters in her practice group Friday afternoon, and why not? Doesn't the star always come on last? From the moment she finished second in her senior national debut at age 15 a decade ago, with a persona already so outsized it was hard to imagine that a 5-foot-2 frame could accommodate it, Cohen has been the closest thing to a pure diva in figure skating. Yet never before has everyone else in a competition seemed like just a warmup act for Alexandra Pauline Cohen, known by the Russian diminutive of her first name, so well known that the nickname alone identifies her. From 1996 through 2006, Michelle Kwan's commanding presence diminished that of everyone else in the sport.

Has billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen purchased Picasso's "Le Rêve" from billionaire hotel and casino magnate Steve Wynn? A story in the New York Post this week reports that Cohen has bought the coveted painting for $155 million . If true, the sale would be one of the most expensive single art transactions in U.S. history. A spokesman for Cohen declined to comment on the matter. "Le Rêve" is the painting that Wynn famously damaged by accident in 2006 when he punctured the canvas with his elbow.

Germany's Katarina Witt had a simple goal when she decided to return to competitive skating after the five-year absence following her second straight Olympic gold medal in 1988. Witt wanted to get to the 1994 Olympics to show the world her program -- "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" -- to portray the torment of war-torn Sarajevo a decade after the joyous Olympics where she won her first gold. Then the 1994 competition began, and Witt did so well in the short program she found herself in a place that had become unfamiliar.

Memorial services for Dr. Sidney Cohen, a UCLA psychiatry professor known for his pioneering research on the effects of marijuana, cocaine, LSD and other mood-altering drugs, will be held at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute auditorium. Cohen, whose work in the 1950s and '60s led to clinical studies on a wide variety of barbiturates, tranquilizers, amphetamines and hallucinogens, died May 8 of heart failure at Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center. He was 76.

Widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of science history, I. Bernard Cohen brought enthusiasm and wide-ranging curiosity to the subject throughout his long career at Harvard University. As if to validate the Greek philosopher Pythagoras' hypothesis that numbers constitute the true nature of things, Cohen in his new book, "The Triumph of Numbers," which he was finishing at the time of his death at 89 in 2003, explores the history of numbers and describes how counting has come to occupy an enormous place in modern life.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, saying he wanted "to draw a line" against a "frenzy" of sexual misconduct allegations, decided Wednesday to retain Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston as a leading candidate to become the nation's top military commander even though Ralston had an adulterous affair 14 years ago. "We need to come back to a rule of reason instead of a rule of thumb," Cohen said in an interview Wednesday after consulting earlier in the day with President Clinton on the matter.

QUICK TAKES Let the Craigslist scouring begin: After the final wave of tickets to April's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival went on sale this morning, the whole thing is now sold out. As the festival noted in a pithy one-sentence press release and Facebook post today, tickets for both weekends, including all packages at every price point, are gone. Tickets for the festival first went on sale for a weeklong window in June of last year, well before this year's lineup was announced, and it's yet unknown how many tickets were sold in that period.

Re "Lighten War's Toll on Pakistan," Commentary, Nov. 1: Now let me see if I have this straight. According to former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, at a time when our country is entering a recession and America's textile industry is laying off tens of thousands of garment workers, including in New York City, we should lift the tariffs on goods manufactured in the sweatshops of Pakistan, the country that helped create the Taliban, whose citizens are...

The Rohauer Library has been legendary among cinephiles for decades. The collection of more than 700 titles, acquired by the late film archivist-producer-distributor Raymond Rohauer, is a treasure trove containing the classic silent comedies of Buster Keaton, the shorts and epics of D.W. Griffith, experimental films from such directors as Man Ray, Rudolph Valentino's final film, Lon Chaney's 1925 version of "The Phantom of the Opera" and even a...

Actor  Sacha Baron Cohen and his wife, actress Isla Fisher, have listed a Hollywood Hills West house at $2.595 million. The Midcentury-style home, built in 1959 and recently renovated, had been leased out at $10,995 a month. The single-story house features canyon and mountain views, beamed ceilings that rise to 22 feet, a river-rock fireplace, a media room/den, four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and 2,806 square feet of living space. The lot, less than a third of an acre, includes a lagoon-style swimming pool, a spa and an outdoor gym. Baron Cohen, 41, is known for his portrayal of offbeat characters in such films as "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (2006)

The human body begins as a single cell that proliferates into a few identical daughter cells which ultimately grow into billions of specialized body cells. Scientists and physicians have long recognized the pattern of this process, called differentiation, but how it works was a mystery. Then in the early 1950s, an Italian developmental biologist transplanted to the United States, Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, provided the first clue. Levi-Montalcini and her colleague, American biochemist Stanley Cohen, identified and ultimately isolated and purified nerve growth factor, a hormone that tells growing nerve cells where to go. The discovery was a seminal development in the understanding of the mechanisms that regulate cell and organ growth and established an entirely new field of biological study.

The Holy or the Broken Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" Alan Light Atria: 272 pp., $25 There's a great scene in Penelope Spheeris' 1992 film "Wayne's World" - find it on YouTube under the title "May i help you riff" - in which an impatient guitar-store employee prevents Wayne from plucking out the opening arpeggios of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. Pointing with great urgency, the guy directs Wayne's attention to a sign hung on the store's wall: "NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN," it reads.

BERKELEY, Calif. - Cheryl Cohen Greene likes to spend weekends close to home with her husband, Bob, a former postal worker. Often, they go hiking in the Berkeley Hills that surround their neighborhood, or watch movies in the living room of their modest duplex. At 68, Greene is trim for her age and says she'd lose 10 pounds if she didn't love food so much. She's a devoted grandmother who frequently visits with her two children and grandchildren. No one would guess that more than 900 people have paid to have sex with her. Greene has worked as a surrogate partner therapist for 40 years.

LONDON - Has anyone built a better "Mousetrap"? Britons just getting over celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee are now in the throes of another: the 60th anniversary of the world's longest-running play, "The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie, England's "queen of crime" (or, with less royal pretension, "duchess of death"). What began as a BBC radio drama, at a time when postwar Brits carried around ration books and stared agog at television sets, has since become a West End phenomenon that shows no sign of stopping, though critics carp about signs of age. Sunday marks the official birthday, achieved after more than 25,000 performances, 400 actors and two dozen directors.

We followed the suggestion in the April 6 Beyer-Rabey column and stayed at the Wrest Point Hotel-Casino in Hobart, Tasmania. Great camaraderie and gemutlichkeit there. Thanks to Jerry Hulse and his roving travel writers for the tip. FERN and DON COHEN San Diego

The North jury made a clear cut pronouncement! No one is above the law! What a dirty halo the supposed hero is wearing! I'm so tired of public officials claiming "I never did anything wrong." MRS. KENNETH COHEN Los Angeles

Were you suspicious? Were you not just a tad nervous about hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen buying the Dodgers? There were certainly reasons to be, even after local extravagantly rich guy Patrick Soon-Shiong joined the Cohen bid. Some were disappointed Cohen was swept aside at the last minute by an aggressive $2.15-billion bid by the Guggenheim Baseball Group, a initially misnamed the “Magic Johnson-led group.” Cohen's hedge...

Leonard Cohen, 78, jogged onto the stage of Nokia Theatre like he'd run in from the parking lot. The singer-poet, wearing a hand-tailored suit, a bolo tie strung around a cleanly pressed shirt and a black fedora, stood before the microphone to begin with “Dance Me to the End of Love” at precisely 8 p.m. Surrounding him was a six-piece band that included not only bass, percussion and keyboards, but a three-man string army that offered texture via...