Platinum

A stainless-steel cabinet containing 6,136 handcrafted and painted pills has set a record for the highest price paid at auction for a work by a living artist, an auctioneer said. Damien Hirst's "Lullaby Spring" sold Thursday for $19.1 million, auction house Sotheby's said in a statement. The sale propelled Hirst past previous bestseller Jasper Johns, whose "Figure 4" netted about $17 million last month in New York.

Los Angeles police are looking for a rainbow of clues they hope will lead to not one but six pots of stolen gold, silver and platinum. More than $500,000 in those and other precious metals were recently stolen in transit from Anaheim to a Belgian jewelry manufacturer, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said.

Two airport rental car company employees have been given $75,000 each by the federal government for reporting a $6.22-million stash of cash, gold and platinum they found two years ago. They were praised for their "moral courage." Uncle Sam kept the rest of the cash and abandoned loot, which were believed to have either been used or was meant to be used for an illegal drug deal. The fortune included about $5 million in cash.

These are times for people like Howard Ruff. The stock market is in turmoil. The junk bond market has crashed. And people are uncertain about prospects for the economy, inflation and interest rates. In the worst of all possible worlds for investors, the U.S. economy might fall into stagflation--a period of rising inflation and stagnant economic growth like that of the 1970s.

Minorco SA, making the largest offer ever for a British company, on Monday renewed its hostile bid for Consolidated Gold Fields PLC and sweetened the proposed buyout to $5.7 billion. Consolidated Gold Fields, a British gold mining group, immediately rejected the long-awaited, renewed offer from Minorco, the investment arm of the South African Oppenheimer family's mining empire.

"Days Go By" is the first album since 2008 for the Offspring, and the title's twilight tone makes you wonder what message is being transmitted from the skate park in Huntington Beach. Nostalgia for guitar solos? A lament for long-gone platinum sales? Or maybe just the end of summer school? Dexter Holland, lead singer of the Orange Country pop punk stalwarts, considers the question from the driver's seat of a customized black van with leopard-print upholstery. As he drives toward the Huntington pier he explains that the theme is one of resilience and perseverance - a less-biblical message of "This too shall pass.

"Don't go there," a well-traveled friend said when I mentioned my plans to visit Capri, a sunny island off southern Italy. Why? "You're not going to want to come home," he said. I laughed. My friend, a know-it-all author, loves to give advice. I didn't need it; I already knew I would fall in love with Capri. It's been one of Europe's favorite island getaway for more than 2,000 years, enthralling a cast of characters ranging from Roman emperors to 21st century luminaries and A-listers.

In the wake of the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, many business travelers are asking themselves the same question: What does this mean for me? The only certain answer is change. And change, according to some airline experts, is not welcomed by business travelers who have grown accustomed to their regular airline routes, connecting hubs and frequent flier programs. “What I can see is 900 pitfalls,” said Joe Brancatelli, a business travel expert who writes a regular online column on the subject.

The powerful narcotic popped up on the cultural grid around the turn of the millennium. A Texas producer-remixer named DJ Screw paid homage to its woozy, heavy-lidded high by dramatically slowing down beats and vocals to replicate the drug's sleepwalker euphoria. Among Southern rappers, the chemical mixture - called "sizzurp" on the street - soon became as ubiquitous as gold jewelry. This wasn't some exotic new hallucinogen. In fact, it was usually mixed with fruit soda and sipped from oversized plastic foam cups.