MOSCOW – A fatal car crash in downtown Moscow has exposed growing public anger at officials who seem to live above the law, as they flout the rules of the road and endanger the lives of ordinary Russians.

A black Mercedes with a flashing blue light on the roof and a VIP inside collides head-on with a little hatchback, killing the two women in the car. The VIP — a vice president of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company — leaves in another car, and police blame the hatchback for swerving into oncoming traffic.

But civic activists have disputed the official version, and a rap song condemning the oil executive to hell has become an instant YouTube sensation, with more than 300,000 hits by Friday afternoon.

In recent years, numerous government officials, powerful businessmen or their relatives have been involved in fatal accidents, often caused by drunken driving, and gotten away with fines or reprisals. But this time people are saying “enough.”

Bloggers are urging Russians to boycott Lukoil gas stations, and opposition activists are calling on the Kremlin to stop the “lawlessness” of officials and rich businessmen who flout traffic rules and avoid responsibility for accidents they cause.

Read the whole hot breaking news

LOS ANGELES – Spread 10 ways, the phrase “nominated for best picture” hasn’t had much of a box office effect.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doubled the number of nominees this year in hopes of drawing more attention to more movies. But the revenue bump for this year’s crop is less than the one enjoyed by last year’s five best-picture hopefuls.

And of that $135 million, all but about $24 million went to the one film in least need of an Oscar bump: the record-smashing “Avatar.” The figures were generated between the nominations Feb. 2 and the last weekend before Sunday’s awards.

Last year’s best picture nominees pulled in $146 million over a comparable period, and most of that went to a film Oscar helped turn into a sensation: “Slumdog Millionaire.” Three of the five 2009 nominees at least doubled their take in that period, something no film in this year’s batch even came close to doing.

“The bottom line is adding five more movies didn’t necessarily add two times the gross to the crop of films,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box office president for industry tracker Hollywood.com.

One possible explanation is that a best-picture nod may be less valuable now with more films getting one, but several other factors lessened the honor’s financial impact.

Read the whole hot breaking news

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Bizarre allegations of rape, incest and bestiality in western Missouri led to the arrests of six family members last fall and unleashed public scorn over the unthinkable acts they are accused of committing two decades ago.

But one of the more sensational claims — that one of the suspects forced their young victims to help kill a man — is creating an uphill climb for prosecutors that could sink the rest of their case, legal experts say.

Investigators say the sexual abuse allegations have been corroborated by six siblings, at least three of whom say they were raped and molested over a 10-year period beginning in the mid-1980s on a farm east of Kansas City.

Still, the case against Burrell E. Mohler Sr., 77, his brother and four adult sons could be compromised by the homicide claim. Authorities have yet to produce a victim or file homicide charges, and officials are mum about whether a homicide investigation is even under way.

Without a body, prosecutors could face larger doubts about victims’ stories that defense lawyers could exploit.

Read the whole hot breaking news

NORWOOD, Pa. – As the high-speed Acela train came thundering down the rails, a teenage girl screamed at her friends to get off the tracks.

But Gina Gentile and Vanessa Dorwart did not move. They hugged as the train bore down on them at speeds up to 110 mph, carrying out a suicide pact that the witness herself had backed out of only moments before.

The loss has shaken Norwood and its neighboring towns just outside Philadelphia. There were hints the pretty and popular high school sophomores may have been suffering from depression, but experts say such suicide pacts are extremely uncommon — especially among teens.

Pacts are made because suicide is so daunting — and they are broken for the same reason, said Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University.

“This is a deeply fearsome thing,” Joiner said. “We’re not wired for it; our bodies will recoil from it.”

Gee and Ness, or Gee-Gee and Nessa, were funny, outgoing and as close as sisters, said classmates at Interboro High School in Prospect Park.

Read the whole hot breaking news

Paris –
In the latest collection from Dries Van Noten, he staged an artistic military maneuver for the first major show of Paris fashion week.

Held Wednesday, March 3, in the City Hall of Paris, the show was a near perfect distillation of this designer’s key strengths – cerebral cutting, ethnic fantasy and arty joie de vivre. And, yet it was more than that; a clever evocation of what women should, and will, be wearing this coming fall.

“1950s and ’60s cuts, and then a dose of rebellion,” was Van Noten’s description of this fall 2010 women’s ready-to-wear collection, which mimicked and deconstructed the sort of fashion codes one associates with the high-end couture of a half-century ago.

Read the whole hot breaking news