Sisters

Hollywood has been fertile ground for brothers. It has accommodated the Warner brothers, the Marx brothers, the Coen brothers, the Farrelly brothers, the Hughes brothers, the Wayans brothers. So where are all the sisters? "There's so many brothers!" exclaims Jennifer Todd, who partnered with her older sister Suzanne for 13 years to produce blockbuster movies as Team Todd. She is probably thinking of the Weitz brothers, the Wachowski brothers, the Wilson brothers. "It's endless!"

The Williams sisters have seldom spent such a miserable day together. Venus Williams botched routine shots all the way through a 7-6 (2), 6-4 loss to Flavia Pennetta on Thursday, the first major upset at the Cincinnati Open. She made 38 unforced errors, repeatedly dumping balls into the net or well beyond the baseline. Playing on the same court a few hours later, Serena Williams topped her sister in confounding mistakes. She had 44 unforced errors during a 7-5, 6-4 loss to Sybille Bammer , who reached the quarterfinals of a tournament for only the third time this year.

All the best stories are told in the kitchen - even the darkest ones. Think of Hélène Cixous' “Oy!,” now at the Actors' Gang, as the rise and fall of the Third Reich as told by your eccentric aunts, who happen to be whipping up liver pâté and a little gossip. Octogenarian sisters Selma (Mary Eileen O'Donnell) and Jenny (Jeanette Horn) have just returned from their hometown in Germany, where they were asked to speak about the Nazi era. Cooking up some nosh, they admit to each other that they didn't exactly tell the whole truth in public.

Detectives are searching for two Sylmar sisters who allegedly ran an illegal cosmetic fillers business that led to the death of a patient who received a silicone injection in her buttocks. Guadalupe Viveros, 53, and Alejandra Viveros, 50, may have fled the country after Mayra Lissette Contreras, 22, of Pacoima died July 23 after receiving the injection, police said. The cause of death has not been determined, pending toxicology testing, according to Los Angeles County coroner's officials.

Having a sibling with a history of developing blood clots in the leg and pelvis may boost the likelihood of developing the condition. A study released today in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn. looked at how family relationships may factor into the risk of having venous thromboembolism, the development of blood clots in the veins. Swedish researchers looked at 45,362 cases of people ages 10 to 69 who were hospitalized for the condition. People ages 10 to 19 who had a brother or sister with the clotting disorder were at almost five times greater risk for the disorder than those who didn't have a sibling with the condition.

Pity the poor boy--in the United States at least--wedged in the midst of a bevy of sisters. When he's little, he'll certainly be dressed and made up like a doll. He will doubtless spend time cooling his heels at the bathroom door. He'll likely pine for the attention of his sisters' girlfriends. But a new study confirms what many such boys learned long ago: that as a sexual prospect, the kid brother is chopped liver. If he's a rat, at least. "Does family play a role in shaping the adult phenotype?"

An identical twin whose plot to kill her sister made headlines around the world proclaimed her innocence and then sobbed uncontrollably Friday as a judge sentenced her to 26 years to life in prison. Despite an emotional, last-minute plea for leniency, Jeen "Gina" Han, whom police had dubbed "the evil twin," received the maximum sentence in a bizarre case that many have likened to a television movie of the week. Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C.

When two performers work together in ways transcending the usual definitions of stage rapport, the results can be quietly magical. So it is with Adriana Sevan and Jill Remez, playing off each other in the Nilo Cruz reverie "Two Sisters and a Piano," now at South Coast Repertory. In every sense of the word, the performances are lovely. And a lot more than merely that.

I was appalled at your article on Sister Joan Chittister ("The Nuns Who Defied Vatican's Order to Be Silent," Aug. 5). Not so much at its subject--the Catholic Church has always had dissidents and always will--but at the shameless lack of objectivity and blatant manipulation of the reader. There are long rhapsodies about the sisters' simple Benedictine lifestyle, but the opposition gets two small paragraphs and a short quote that do not adequately explain its position. The article says the sisters "lovingly disagree" [with a Vatican decree against Chittister attending a conference to promote women's ordination]

In a bizarre case that has already attracted the attention of national TV shows, a twin faces charges that she conspired to kill her sister and assume her identity. The case involves Jeen and Sunny Han, who were "the evil twin and good twin," said Irvine Police Lt. Tom Hume. Jeen Han, 22, faces arraignment Friday in Orange County Municipal Court on an Jeen Han array of charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, robbery and false imprisonment.