Italy's top designer brands are looking to China for salvation this year with revenues falling due to a debt crisis that has cast an air of gloom as Milan Fashion Week kicks off on Wednesday.

With Italians hurting from budget austerity and fears that an debt-laden Rome could follow Athens into the mire, the National Chamber of Fashion said the situation was "worse than in 2008" when the global financial crisis began.

Just over a week after her spectacular sweep at the Grammys, British soul diva Adele triumphed on home soil Tuesday at the annual Brit Awards in London.

The 23-year-old picked up two awards -- including the prestigious British album of the year -- to add to the six Grammys she won in Los Angeles, cementing her status as one of Britain's most successful pop exports in years.

Rio throbbed to sambas, pyrotechnics and dazzling parades in an ecstatic climax Tuesday to its famed Carnival celebrations.

With bursts of fireworks, high-decibel music and a kaleidoscope of colors, the city's top 13 samba schools treated a capacity crowd of 72,500 at the newly renovated "Temple of Samba" to stunning processions of exquisitely decorated floats.

"A Cat in Paris", France's contender for best animated feature at Sunday's Oscars, is a cartoon caper with a film noir edge, the latest in a string of international hits for French animation studios.

The low-budget whodunnit thriller -- whose original title is "Une Vie de Chat" -- is the fourth French animated feature to compete at the Academy Awards in recent years, following such hits as the Franco-Iranian "Persepolis".

Fresh from winning six Grammy awards barely a week ago, soul diva Adele could sweep up more prizes at Tuesday's Brit awards.

Londoner Adele, who has been out of action since October for throat surgery, is in the running for best British Single for "Someone Like You," British Female Solo Artist and Mastercard British Album of the Year for "21."

The Simpsons, the long-running U.S. television animated comedy show, reached its landmark 500th episode Sunday, with an appearance from controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

America's most famous dysfunctional cartoon family have played out their lives before a worldwide audience for over two decades since the distinctive yellow characters Homer, Maggie and children Bart, Lisa and baby Maggie first burst onto American TVin 1989.

English speakers got their moment in the Carnival sun on Monday as a wild, Beatles-themed street party let them shake it up, baby, with a samba swing to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."

"Sargento Pimenta," Portuguese for "Sergeant Pepper," is one of more than 400 raucous street parties that spring up throughout Rio de Janeiro during Carnival season. Hundreds of thousands of people turn out for the largest of the "blocos," packed, sweaty open-air dance parties where the crowd sings along to a repetitive medley of Carnival songs — usually in Portuguese, of course.

Sarah Burton, creative director of the Alexander McQueen fashion house, tried Monday to create an enchanted forest in the center of London for the debut offering of the McQ line, aimed at younger, less affluent buyers.

The catwalk was covered with fallen leaves, and a realistic forest was created at one end of the hall at the Old Sorting Office in central London.

Chris Brown and Rihanna are back together, musically speaking.

Two songs featuring the singers hit the Internet on Monday. Brown sings on the remix of Rihanna's sexually charged song "Birthday Cake," and she's on the remix of his upbeat tune "Turn Up the Music."

A black velvet dress that belonged to Whitney Houston and a pair of earrings she wore in "The Bodyguard" will be sold to the highest bidder next month.

Celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien said Sunday the pieces and other Houston items became available after the singer's unexpected death on Feb. 11 and will be included among a long-planned sale of Hollywood memorabilia such as Charlie Chaplin's cane, Clark Gable's jacket from "Gone With the Wind" and Charlton Heston's staff from "The Ten Commandments."