Earth

CAP D'ANTIBES, France (AP) — With an apt rendition of "Gold-finger," singing legend Shirley Bassey roused celebrity-revelers to dig deep into their pockets at the 20th amfAR gala in the Cap D'Antibes Thursday, helping to raise an estimated $25 million for AIDS research.

We've all known people like Nancy. The title character of Andrew Semans' "Nancy, Please" is a real pill, dark eyes, slumped shoulders, and an eternal pout. There's always drama in Nancy's life, and she's always expressing it physically. She's always impetuous, always difficult, and frequently nasty, as if lashing out not against a single person but the world at large. In spite of it all, her punk sneer and angular sensuality is also sharp like a knife, tight like a fist. And for young potential PhD Paul, she is an out-and-out boogeyman. Working as a graduate student at Yale, Paul has just emerged from the dark tunnel of being Nancy's roommate. We're led to believe they didn't interact much, and when they did, it was slightly more than the standard tension that occurs when two young people with nothing in common share space. The more stringently academic Paul, now headed to the safety of an apartment shared with longtime girlfriend Jen, is counting his blessing he's emerging from...