China's new clout on the global art market, and its taste for home-grown works, is driving up the price of contemporary Chinese artists -- forcing the Western art world to make space at the table for the rising stars.

Last year China became the world's leading auction marketplace for fine art, after overtaking France, Britain and finally the United States in the space of five years, according to research by Artprice.

Latin-American musician and vocalist Edmundo Ros has died at his home in Spain at the age of 100, the Grand Order of Water Rats show business fraternity said Saturday.

"He died last night peacefully at his home in Spain, two months short of his 101st birthday", said secretary John Adrian, adding that he had died of old age.

Move over azuki and sweet sticky rice. While Japanese pastry chefs may have started using cocoa a few centuries after the West, this once foreign flavor has captivated Japan's confectionery world.

Japanese chocolate makers and pastry chefs were the star guests at the 17th Salon du Chocolat held in Paris this week. One of them, Susumu Koyana, 47, was even named "Best Foreign Chocolatier" -- winning out over top masters from celebrated chocolate-making nations like Belgium and Switzerland.

Famed New York painter Chuck Close and other artists are suing Sotheby's, Christie's and eBay, contending the auctioneers willfully violated a California law requiring royalty payments on sales of their works.

The three federal suits filed Tuesday seek class-action status to represent many other artists and demand unspecified royalties and damages — which could total hundreds of thousands of dollars given current art prices.

Health insurance premiums. Degenerative disease. Car crashes. Aging. Death. Romantic betrayal.

There are dark comedies, and there are really dark comedies. "Sons of the Prophet," Stephen Karam's absorbing new play that opened Thursday off Broadway, is definitely in the latter category.

Lindsay Lohan arrived late to her first day of community service at the county morgue Thursday and was turned away, another hiccup in the actress' effort to prove to a judge that she is complying with terms of her probation.

Lohan had been told to arrive at 8 a.m. for an orientation session but arrived 40 minutes late, spokesman Craig Harvey said. The actress was told to try again on Friday but will have to arrive at 7 a.m., he said.

Vienna's annual film festival, the Viennale, kicked off Thursday evening, promising over 200 movies and documentaries and guest stars like director David Cronenberg and legend Harry Belafonte.

The two-week event opened its 49th edition with Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's film "Le Havre" and will close on November 2 with George Clooney's political drama "The Ides of March", one of the hits at this year's Venice Film Festival.

President Obama will have a late night chat with Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" next week.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer says in a tweet that Obama will be on the show Tuesday.

After 14 years as one of Ireland's most successful boy bands, Westlife are finally handing in their mics.

The pop group members issued a statement announcing their split, saying "the decision is entirely amicable."

"The Sound of Music," the musical made world famous by the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews, has never been performed in the picture-postcard Austrian city of Salzburg where it is set.

But on Sunday this will change as the Salzburg State Theatre premieres a sell-out German-language version of the feel-good Rodgers and Hammerstein story of the singing-and-dancing von Trapp family on the eve of World War II.