Twenty years after his death, Rudolf Nureyev's legacy still lights up the world of ballet as brilliantly as the flamboyant performances which once illuminated the greatest stages.

"As long as they are putting on my ballets, I will live on," Brigitte Lefevre, dance director of the Paris Opera, recalls Nureyev saying in the years before the ravages of AIDS finally claimed him, aged 54, on January 6, 1993.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday granted fast-track citizenship to France's Gerard Depardieu after the movie star complained about his Socialist government's proposed 75 percent tax on the rich.

The decision appears to give Depardieu -- already a frequent guest of the Moscow celebrity circuit -- a chance to pay the flat 13 percent income tax levied in Russia on everyone from billionaires to the poor.

Written by Anthony Sargon

Ever since it was announced that Daniel Day-Lewis would be portraying Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's long delayed project, people got excited. Lewis is arguably one of the finest actors of our generation, and Spielberg one our top directors. The results of this collaboration are unsurprisingly brilliant, and this movie has the word Oscars pasted all over it.

U.S. singer Patti Page, famous for songs including "The Tennessee Waltz" and the novelty hit "How much is that Doggie in the Window?", has died, a spokesman said Wednesday. She was 85.

"Unfortunately she passed away last evening" in the southern California town of Encinitas, spokesman Michael Glynn told Agence France Presse, adding that she had been at the Seacrest Village retirement home there for a few months.

A previously unseen press photo of an apparently teenaged Princess Diana that a London tabloid deemed too hot to publish is coming up for auction in the United States later this month.

The black-and-white image from the dawn of the 1980s shows Diana, possibly in a ski chalet, smiling at the camera as she lies comfortably in the lap of a like-aged but unidentified young man reading a book.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" fought off all comers at the North American box office over the New Year holidays, beating two Oscar-tipped movies to the top spot, figures showed Wednesday.

The long-awaited first part of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" prequel trilogy earned $31.9 million in its third week in theaters, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Police say a paparazzo was hit by a car and killed after taking photos of Justin Bieber's white Ferrari on a Los Angeles street.

Los Angeles police Officer James Stoughton says the photographer, who was not identified, died at a hospital shortly after the crash Tuesday evening. Stoughton says Bieber was not in the Ferrari at the time.

Macau's gambling revenue jumped 13.5 percent to a record $38 billion in 2012, official figures showed Wednesday, despite the pace of growth in the world's largest gaming hub slowing from a year earlier.

Gaming revenue rose to 304.14 billion patacas from 267.87 billion patacas in 2011, according to statistics posted on the official Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau website.

French electronic composer Jean Michel Jarre has held talks with Downing Street officials in recent months, the British premier's office confirmed Tuesday, about setting up business operations in London.

The talks come after France's highest court struck down a proposed 75 percent tax rate on individual income above a million euros ($1.3 million) a year, a plan which saw the republic's biggest film star Gerard Depardieu relocate to Belgium.

South Korean pop icon Rain has come under fire after reports revealing his relationship with a top TV actress suggested he might be flouting the terms of his compulsory military service.

Rain's relationship with Kim Tae-Hee, a major TV drama star with a massive following in Japan, was first reported Tuesday by a tabloid magazine, sparking a fan frenzy on entertainment websites and social networks.