Monique

"Everything is up on the screen." That's Mo'Nique, explaining why she hasn't decamped to Hollywood to woo those who hold her Oscar dreams, whatever they might be, in their hands. How audacious of her. How refreshing. Though the award gods have been thundering in anger for weeks now, she has won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and on Tuesday picked up an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her performance in "Precious" despite her unwillingness to wade into the fray.

The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, affectionately known as the nerd prom, attracted a bevy of stars to Washington, D.C., on Saturday night, including Nicole Kidman, Sofia Vergara, Hayden Panettiere, Jessica Pare, Katy Perry and Olivia Munn. But when it came to fashion, all eyes were on Michelle Obama, as they always are. The first lady chose a stunning black chiffon, fitted and draped, goddess-like gown with a high neckline in delicate Chantilly lace and jet black beads by Los Angeles designer Monique Lhuillier . The dress struck the right note between glamour and fun, which is just what the evening called for. Lhuillier said in an email that it is the first time she has dressed the first lady, and that "it was a dream come true.

It was as if the prodigal daughter had returned home. As soon as Monique walked through the door, Alice Harris' eyes bulged and her arms opened. She didn't ask about Monique's drug problem. It didn't matter that Monique's clothes were tattered and her hair was unkempt--at least she was alive. "Where you been, girl? I've been waiting on you," Harris said, gently wiping dirt off Monique's face and sliding her fingers through the woman's matted hair.

The Emmys red carpet was once considered the minor leagues, with big-name designers saving their most prized couture creations for film stars to wear at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. But no more. This year's Emmy Awards saw TV stars wearing major fashion - even if it didn't always work. Julianne Moore wore a vivid yellow, long-sleeve, knitted cashmere top and silk ball skirt from Raf Simons' first couture collection for Christian Dior, shown in Paris in July. An insidery fashion choice to be sure, and a modern take on dressing up. But the color and silhouette didn't particularly flatter her. The under-the-sea theme has been big on the spring runways.

A Pennsylvania woman is accused of fatally stabbing her husband-to-be just hours before they were scheduled to be married. Na Cola Darcel Franklin, 31, is facing homicide charges in the death of her husband-to-be, Billy Rafael Brewster, 36, in the apartment they shared in Whitehall Township, according to the Whitehall Township Police Department. But, according to the Morning Call newspaper, Franklin did not realize her fiance was dead when she came before a judge that same day. The newspaper reported that Franklin stood mute, and seemingly stunned, when a judge told her she was being charged with a single count of homicide.

It's a small swath of Los Angeles, near the city's heart, that hasn't received much attention from the mayoral candidates. But a Times analysis shows that a 2.8-square-mile, Mid-Wilshire neighborhood has had an unmatched record of picking mayors in both primary and runoff elections since 2001. And interviews suggest it could again be a bellwether of the concerns, apathy and ambivalence voters take to the polls Tuesday as they choose the city's new chief executive. Both Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti have supporters here, though most voters approached on a recent day voiced the sort of indifference that could keep turnout near record lows.

Malibu Barbie never had it so good. A Paul Smith rug, curtains sewn from Missoni fabric, LED sconces strung with Swarovski crystals, even a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona daybed cluttered with Rodeo Drive shopping bags - all small enough to fit in your pocket. These are but a few of the over-the-top luxuries decorating 10 couture play pads created for the 2013 Designer Dollhouse Showcase. The Los Angeles firm Richard Manion Architecture has constructed scale-model dream houses - Italianate, brownstone, beach house contemporary and other styles - that will be auctioned April 17 to benefit the UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute , part of Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA.

A teenage girl was found guilty Tuesday of helping two men kill popular young actor Merlin Santana, making a clean sweep for prosecutors, who earlier won convictions against her two codefendants. Monique King lied to her two accomplices by saying the actor had made sexual advances toward her; she also helped them get away after they shot Santana, said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler.

Under apartheid, homelands were created to isolate and repress blacks. Here in the crackling heat of the high bush, where jackals and antelope roam wildflower-carpeted mountains, some South Africans are dreaming of another kind of homeland: for white people. Not just any white people, but conservative white Afrikaners who feel displaced by black majority rule and say their Bible abhors the racial mixing that is a feature of the new South Africa.

WASHINGTON - The CIA on Tuesday disclosed the names of 15 of its operatives killed in the line of duty over the last 30 years, the result of a new effort to honor fallen officers whose sacrifices had long gone unrecognized by all but a few. Fourteen of the dead already had a star inscribed in their memory on the CIA's wall of honor in the lobby of the old headquarters building on the agency's Langley, Va., campus. But their names had been withheld. In a closed agency ceremony Monday their names were added to the Book of Honor, which accompanies the stars.

NEW YORK -- The L.A.-based designer, who has made wedding gowns for a who's who of Hollywood, including Reese Witherspoon and Carrie Underwood, showed her spring-summer 2013 collection during New York Fashion Week on Sunday. Monique Lhuillier also gave guests a sneak preview of her first shoe collection, which launches for spring and includes elegant black cage booties. The inspiration: Life of the sea -- birds, rainbow-colored fish, sunlight on water and the luminescence of glowing waves.

Dressing for the holidays is part of the season's fun. But forget the images you see in fashion magazines and on feel-good television commercials. In Southern California, the weather seldom requires swaddling in a plaid cashmere scarf, chunky fleece-lined boots, nubby cable sweater and peacoat. And we try to be savvy enough to just say no to a tacky Christmas sweater (unless we mean to wear it in an ultra-cool, ironic way). So how in this land of seasonless dressing does one add holiday cheer when the weather outside is far from frightful?

In "The Writing Life," Annie Dillard advises would-be writers to find their bone, the thing that drives them to write, and to work as closely to that bone as possible. Dillard also instructs writers — with another corporeal metaphor — to work as closely along the nerve as possible. Vietnamese American writer Monique Truong's bone is the outsider's plight, and her pen is a scalpel, laying perfect words down along that nerve until even the happiest reader understands what it means to forever stand apart from your family and the larger society you inhabit.

Bond in tight spot Not surprisingly, the producers of the James Bond franchise have put the brakes on developing and producing the next installment of the 007 spy series because of the ongoing drama plaguing the franchise's home studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development of ‘Bond 23' indefinitely," producers...

Fresh off wins at the Golden Globe, SAG and Academy awards, talk show host and comedian extraordinaire Mo'Nique is bringing her spring show to Los Angeles. This bold, brassy stand-up show is perhaps the exact opposite of her role in "Precious." She will be joined by cast members from her BET show, including Rodney Perry and Tone-X. Nokia Theatre, 777 Chick Hearn Court. 8 p.m. Fri. $39.50 - $69.50. (213) 763-6030. www.nokiatheaterlalive.com.

For Mo'Nique, "Precious" was the perfect storm -- right role, right director, right year. With deep roots in comedy, she shocked with a scalding vision of Mary, the Harlem welfare mother so horrifyingly twisted, so fueled by rage that it's a wonder anything she touched survived. Mo'Nique chewed the character up and spit her out, raw and ugly, never seeking redemption. It was a performance so emotionally wrenching that it left most who watched it weak and shaken. The Oscar she earned Sunday night was just the latest recognition of the risk she took disappearing so convincingly inside Mary's dark soul, becoming someone else, something else.

On Tuesday, the Dutch celebrated the coronation of a new king and queen of the Netherlands, King Willem-Alexander and his wife, Queen Maxima. With her fashion choices for the events in Amsterdam leading up to the coronation, which included the signing of the abdication of Willem's mother, Queen Beatrix, earlier in the day, and a state dinner on Monday night, the statuesque blond royal Maxima, 41, proved what many in Europe already know: She is...

The WNBA season was barely three weeks old, and already two of the league's biggest stars were out because of injuries. Sparks forward Candace Parker, the 2008 league most valuable player, had torn the meniscus in her right knee. Seattle Storm center Lauren Jackson, the reigning MVP, required surgery on her left hip. Parker won't be back for another month or so, and Jackson will be out even longer. Tough luck? No, more like the continuation of a trend. Players, coaches and trainers say injuries consistently plague the league, and they believe they know why: an off-season that really isn't one. Nearly three-quarters of the league's players also compete abroad, supplementing their relatively modest WNBA incomes with what typically are much larger payments from foreign teams that also might pick up their living expenses and shower them with gifts.

Monday night brings the nonevent -- "anti-event," one might even say -- of TV's winter season, the return of Jay Leno to "The Tonight Show," marking an end to the Late Night War of 2010. (Casualties: one.) That fracas focused attention not only on the two main combatants but on the rest of the relatively small, essentially homogenous group of men who make up broadcast television's late-night comedy-'n'-chat front line: Past Jay and, formerly, Conan, there are only Dave, Craig, Jimmy, Jimmy and Carson, kind of, holding down the desk or filling the comfy chair for the original big three networks.

Brides-to-be who want ideas for that dream wedding might check out A Soolip Wedding on Sunday). The annual event bills itself as "a celebration of inspiration" that draws together "a well-edited collection of L.A.'s unique and most distinctive bridal resources." This year's edition will feature a Monique Lhuillier bridal fashion show along with mini-facials by Kate Somerville aestheticians and tips from hairstylist Yuki Sharoni. Other experts, such as Grace and BLD restaurants' chef Neal Fraser, will talk about how to make a wedding perfect, from flowers to cake and everything in between.