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The chief minister of India's most populous state came from humble origins, but Mayawati, as she is known, has not been shy about displaying her wealth. Recently, the show of opulence at a political rally — where she accepted a garland made entirely of money — seems to have gone too far, even by her standards.

Gone are the days when actors brought their own lunches to the set in brown paper bags. It's a full-time job feeding the hundreds — sometimes thousands — of men and women working each day on major films. Susan Stamberg spends a day with craft service — the crew responsible for the snacks that keep moviemakers going during long days of filming.

Jack Rose was a big man who coaxed a big sound from his acoustic guitar. Friends say he was just as vigorous when he wasn't playing, so it came as a shock when Rose died suddenly in December at 38. The last record he completed, Luck in the Valley, comes out next week.

The late, great opera diva's sound could sometimes be hollow and dark, sometimes shrill, sometimes gorgeous. Callas continues to thrill and divide audiences with her distinctive voice and the raw intensity she put into it.

Connoisseurs of the rarified sport of cricket still speak in whispers of the scandal, 34 years ago, when an Englishman was accused of rubbing Vaseline into the ball to make it swerve more. That affair pales by comparison with the uproar in Australia this week when Pakistan's captain was caught on camera biting a cricket ball like an apple. Ball-tampering is considered the worst form of skullduggery in the so-called Gentleman's Sport. The loudest protests have come from Pakistan's arch-rival, India.

As a small South Asian kid with a big mouth, Russell Peters found himself the victim of race bullying. To coax his bullies from rage to laughter, he used self-deprecating comedy. Decades later, he is still poking fun at his own ethnic quirks to disarm audiences, and in the process, he is becoming one of the highest-earning comedians.

Barry Black is the first Seventh-day Adventist and the first African American to hold the post of Senate chaplain. He's also the man who sits squarely at the intersection of church and state at the U.S. Capitol.

By the time she was 18, Wang had carved out a niche as a performer to call when older big-name pianists couldn't make it to their engagements. But now, at 22, she's headlining a project of her own: Her debut CD, Sonatas and Etudes, has been nominated for a Grammy.

The joke used to be that some women went to college to get their M.R.S. — that is, a husband. But a study by the Pew Research Center finds that women today are more likely to marry men who have lower education levels and lower income levels than they do.

For the first time in 40 years, Starr has produced his own record. The songs on Y Not were formed out of separate tracks, fleshed out by guests such as Joss Stone, Joe Walsh and his former bandmate, Paul McCartney. Starr also answers the question, "Will people still be listening to The Beatles 400 years from now?"