Leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain met Friday in Rome to find a way out of its current financial crisis ahead of a full European Union summit next week. Robert Siegel talks to Matthias M. Matthijs, Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, for more.
The Degnan residence was built as a weekend retreat in La Canada Flintridge — a Los Angeles suburb reachable by freeway in 40 minutes (in light traffic) today, but that took a couple of hours' drive in 1927, before major freeway construction began in Southern California. This Spanish Colonial Revival home was Williams' first commission as an independent practitioner.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams thought a home's entrance should make a statement. In this Colonial Revival residence, designed in Beverly Hills for the Landis family in 1955, the narrow foyer has large double doors that swing open to reveal a high ceiling covered in a trompe l'oeil sky, and a lavish chandelier hung from a starburst medallion. The medallion's design is repeated on the marble floor.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
The staircase of the French Normandy-style Sensenbrenner residence, built in Beverly Hills in 1933, features a Williams trademark cherished by his homes' owners: a beautiful, sinuously curving staircase that was the focal point of the foyer. "He did the most beautiful entry halls I've ever seen," said real estate agent Bret Parsons.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
This Spanish Colonial Revival-style home is an example of how Williams worked with the existing landscape to make a home part of its natural surroundings. The window placement allows for views of the city skyline and the Hollywood Hills.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
In recognition of Williams' creation of some of the Beverly Hills Hotel's most iconic spaces — the Polo Lounge, the Fountain Coffee Shop, the Crescent wing of the building — the hotel's owners named a suite in the hotel after him. Williams designed it to be a home away from home for long-term guests. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon declared it "the best hotel room I've ever stayed in."
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Another view of the Historic Paul Williams Suite. Originally designed in the late 1940s, the suite was moved to the second floor during a renovation in the 1990s, and re-created just as Williams designed it. It contains the same use of stone, curved walls and marble that are found in many of his permanent homes.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams was a great believer that the mild Southern California climate should be taken advantage of whenever possible. He created an "outdoor living room" on the patio of this home, with a fireplace and furniture that would encourage alfresco meals. The large patio doors also help diminish the demarcation between outdoors and indoors.
Credit Courtesy of Karen E. Hudson
Architect Paul Williams (in a photo thought to be from the 1940s or '50s) developed the ability to sketch buildings upside down to accommodate white clients who might not want to sit next to him.
Paul Revere Williams began designing homes and commercial buildings in the early 1920s. By the time he died in 1980, he had created some 2,500 buildings, most of them in and around Los Angeles, but also around the globe. And he did it as a pioneer: Paul Williams was African-American. He was the first black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, and in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA's first black fellow.
Singer Marisol Hernandez (center) takes listeners from her grandfather's burro cart to La Santa Cecilia's Latin Grammy Award, on Olvera Street in Los Angeles.
Named for the patron saint of musicians, La Santa Cecilia has deep roots in the immigrant community of Los Angeles. Yet the band's six members draw inspiration not only from their rich heritage, but also from their everyday lives growing up embedded in American culture.
During a short, recent trip to historic Olvera Street in downtown L.A. — "It's a little street with little shops resembling any town in Mexico or Latin America" — singer Marisol Hernandez describes the hopes and dreams the city represents.
The first minarets in Murfreesboro, Tenn., are about to be placed atop a new mosque. But when construction is complete on the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, located about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, no one will get to move in.
An ongoing court battle has stalled the project, one of several Islamic centers around the country that, like the so-called ground zero mosque, have encountered resistance from local communities.
Community Science Workshops give low-income kids around California opportunities to learn about science firsthand — from holding spiders to building robots.
Credit Jason Henry / Mission Science Workshop
Dan Sudran helps kids from San Francisco's John Muir Elementary reconstruct a 36-foot gray whale with actual whale bones.
Many kids who grow up in big cities have lots of opportunities to experience science hands-on. There are zoos, museums, planetariums and school field trips.
But those amenities are sometimes out of reach for lower-income children. And in some rural areas, those opportunities simply don't exist at all.
In California — as in many states — public school science programs have faced deep budget cuts. Many kids have been left behind.
Dan Sudran has taken it upon himself to help close the gap.
For little girls, princesses hold roughly the same value that tulips did for the Dutch back in the 1500s, and that princess mania is sure to get a boost with the new Pixar movie Brave,which stars a Scottish princess named Merida.
For a keyhole glimpse into the pink and glittery world of pre-K princess culture, consider the scene at a recent princess-themed birthday party in a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Credit Philippe Antonello / Sony Pictures Classics
Antonio the newlywed (Alessandro Tiberi, left), Uncle Paolo (Roberto Della Casa) and Anna the prostitute (Penelope Cruz) in one of To Rome With Love's four independent stories. This one features Anna attempting to teach Antonio something about love.
For four decades, Woody Allen's been churning out movies at a rate of almost exactly one film per year, a phenomenon that I'd describe as being "like clockwork" if my whole sense of time hadn't been scrambled by his latest comedy, To Rome With Love.
A Yemeni army tank fires at positions of al-Qaida militants near the coastal town of Shaqra, Yemen, last week, in a photo provided by Yemen's Defense Ministry. Yemen's army says it has pushed al-Qaida fighters out of towns in the south.
Credit Mohammed Huwais / AFP/Getty Images
An armed Yemeni tribesman loyal to the army stands near a destroyed government building in the provincial capital of Zinjibar last week. The Yemeni military drove al-Qaida militants out of the city two days earlier.
Yemen's offensive against al-Qaida has focused on territory in the south of the country that the militants have held for nearly a year. With the backing of the U.S., Yemen's army has cleared al-Qaida and its allies. But many local residents believe the fight is far from over. Kelly McEvers spent several days in southern Yemen and filed this report.
We're in a Yemeni army land cruiser with a shattered windshield. Our destination is the town of Shaqra, the last town in the al-Qaida badlands before the sandy ground turns into mountains.
Musician David Byrne at his rehearsal space at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. Byrne's first musical, Here Lies Love, chronicles the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos.
Credit Andrea Shea / NPR
Director Alex Timbers shows off a miniature model set for Here Lies Love.
