Yang She

Before the criminal fraud case involving the French bank Credit Lyonnais was finally settled for $771 million, the fractious negotiations between French officials and U.S. prosecutors often came close to falling apart. But Debra Yang, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles who has made corporate fraud one of her top priorities, would not be deterred.

They posed with a Bart Simpson look-alike, mugged in front of a real Van Gogh, snapped up Coach bags and gawked at the scantily clad women in the city of stars they had heard so much about. The 240 Chinese tourists who landed in Los Angeles this week also made history as the first leisure tour group allowed to visit the United States since a new U.S.-China agreement allowing such travel was signed in December.

The Chinese Communist Party sent a pointed message to Christian Bale recently: You will not work in this town again. The movie star's attempt to visit a prominent Chinese dissident under house arrest ended in a televised scuffle with plainclothes police and a chiding from authorities in December. "If he wants to create news, I don't think that would be welcome in China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said of Bale, who had been in Beijing for the opening of his film "The Flowers of War. " The Bale dust-up was the latest collision between Hollywood heavyweights and autocratic China.

When Terry Louise Fisher was graduated from UCLA Law School in 1971, she had no intention of being trapped in a law office "with those hermetically sealed windows." Now she spends her days in just such offices on the set of NBC's electric new series "L.A. Law," which she co-created with Steven Bochco. They also co-wrote the pilot and have worked with additional writers on subsequent scripts. It appears that Fisher and Bochco may be in business together for a long time. Even though the 10 p.m.

For musicians who can harness the seemingly divergent energies of preservation and innovation, the crossroads where cultural traditions and personal inspiration meet has proved particularly fertile in the waning years of this century. Few composers have been more active in this area than Minoru Miki, who has written prolifically in every genre from film scores to opera, including a large body of original music for traditional Japanese instruments.

Occasionally designers produce work that changes the way we see. This is the case with Nancy Goslee Power. In the 27 years since she arrived from New York, she has rewritten the rule about what may constitute a frontyard, first enclosing it, then excavating it for good measure. She has used aloe, agave, lavender and olive trees so dramatically that the blue-gray western plant palette now belongs to this Easterner.

Less than two weeks before the Beijing Olympics, a potential scandal involving at least two of China's most high-profile sports is threatening to tarnish those Games. According to documents obtained by The Times, two Chinese gymnasts appear to be younger than once listed by the Chinese federation while a diver appeared to have her age changed to be eligible for last year's world championships, though she would be eligible for the Olympics.

Of course, it is what you know. But entertaining Barbra Streisand at your bridal shower doesn't hurt either. By now, Dawn Steel's shower is virtually the stuff of Hollywood legend. The bash for the then-Columbia honcho, hosted a decade ago by agent Rosalie Swedlin, was attended by all manner of industry muscle, from the ultra-fit Cher to future UA chief Lindsay Doran.