Materials

For 5,000 years or more, bangle bracelets have encircled female arms. They've been found in Vedic Hindu tradition, on Egyptian deities and in Mayan cultures. Once made primarily of metals and semi-precious stones, bangle bracelets are now fashioned from all kinds of materials, including wool, wood, silk, horn, silicone rubber, hemp, aluminum and even fossilized woolly mammoth tusks. Here's a handful of beautiful bangles from some of today's bracelet designers: Cuyo by Tamika Rivera Brooklyn artist Tamika Rivera makes and sews each of her one-of-a-kind bangles from fabrics, colorful yarns and threads.

WASHINGTON -- There is no evidence that Mike Vickers, the Pentagon's undersecretary for intelligence, disclosed classified information when he spoke to the makers of the film "Zero Dark Thirty," the Pentagon's chief spokesman said Tuesday. “There is a pending inspector general investigation on the question of whether Mr. Vickers provided classified information in an interview with the filmmakers of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' ” Pentagon spokesman George Little said. When the Department of Defense reviewed a transcript of Vickers' conversation with the filmmakers after it was requested under the Freedom of Information Act, Little said, none of the material was deemed to be classified.

A Florida man who hacked into email accounts and procured naked images of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and Mila Kunis was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero sentenced Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville after hearing how he intruded into the lives of dozens of celebrities and others and in some cases passed naked images along on the Internet. Chaney, who has maintained he made no money from his actions, had already pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to nine counts of computer hacking and wiretapping for the unauthorized access of email accounts of 50 people in the entertainment industry.

This custom-built Mediterranean is infused with European materials and elements. The estate features ocean to city views and sits in the Palisades Riviera neighborhood near the border of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. Location: 1666 San Onofre Drive, Pacific Palisades 90272 Asking price: $7.79 million Year built: 2004 House size: Three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 5,473 square feet Lot size: 11,699 square feet Features: Interior arches, wrought-iron stair rails, five fireplaces, antique light fixtures, an elevator, a den, a gym, a wine cellar, a service entrance, a swimming pool.

For Zarina Hashmi, an Indian-born American artist who often goes by her first name alone, a sheet of paper is a place as much as it is a thing. In the retrospective exhibition of nearly 45 years of the printmaker's work now at the UCLA Hammer Museum, a black-and-white 2001 woodcut is completely abstract, but it manages to picture a place while also being one. A thick, erratic black line meanders down a sheet of off-white handmade paper from the...

In a welcome follow-up to "Requiem for the Sun, " Blum & Poe's superb survey earlier this year of the art of Japan's Mono-ha movement, the gallery has assembled another, similarly museum-grade survey exploring the work of one of its leading figures, Kishio Suga. With 86 works spanning more than 40 years, it is a substantial undertaking - Suga's first solo exhibition in North America, and the first single-artist show to occupy both floors of the gallery's prodigious space. It feels light and fresh, almost spontaneously generative.

WASHINGTON - Kicking the can down the road on the skyrocketing national debt could hurt young people more than anybody. And now they are organizing to fight back. A new group, the Can Kicks Back, aims to give Americans 18 to 32 years old a voice in the debate over tax hikes and budget cuts that loom next year if Congress and President Obama cannot agree on a deficit-reduction plan. "Young people are struggling in this economy, and our goal is to demonstrate how the growing national debt is impacting that problem," said Ryan Schoenike, a co-founder of the group.

Anna Nikita Doroshina, described as a Russian Martha Stewart, was the inspiration for Moozfly, an online comedy channel that features Spanish-speaking comedians from around the world. That might seem odd - because it is. But almost everything about Moozfly is unorthodox. Its studios are located in a 3,300-square-foot Rancho Palos Verdes home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The executive director, a linguist from Colombia, joined the company after answering a Craigslist ad. And the brains behind the venture is Doroshina's 56-year-old husband, a discouraged land developer who was looking for something new. PHOTOS: Celebrities by the Times Serge Doroshin came up with the concept for a Spanish-language video site because of a boom in Latino media and decided to pursue comedy because, he said, "comedy is always relevant.

Sharp Corp., once a titan among Japanese electronics manufacturers, now isn't sure it'll be able to crawl out of a financial pit made deeper by ruthless competition and relentless losses. Reporting yet another round of dismal earnings, the maker of LCD televisions and other products expressed “material doubt” about its future due to its difficult business circumstances. The Tokyo company nearly doubled its original forecast for full-year losses, saying it now expects to lose 450 billion yen, or $5.6 billion, instead of the 250 billion yen it had predicted earlier.

Parents give us life. In return, if chronology is respected, we watch them die. Out of this human trial, Bill Cain, author of "Equivocation" and "9 Circles," has created an autobiographical drama about the last year of his mother's life. A time of illness, old family grievances, a mountain of love and the challenge of coming to terms. It's not easy to criticize a play like "How to Write a New Book for the Bible," now at South Coast Repertory in a production directed by Kent Nicholson and starring SCR favorite Linda Gehringer as the dying matriarch.