By Alex Williams
Last Christmas, Donna Hoffman, an ardent environmentalist who lives in Austin, Texas, came up with an unlikely gift for each member of her family: an energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulb.

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BY EMMA BROCKES
The generation of actors who emerged from Laurence Olivier's Old Vic theater in London, and those who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the National, are what Ian McKellen calls "the family that is British theater." You can probably hear him saying it - those rich, round tones that could advertise Englishness and that, when he's dressed as a king or a wizard, strike the audience with something like a moral force. Working in this family, he says, "is not like doing a movie with a film star who is protective of their own territory and you're having to accommodate that. If you're in a play with Frances de la Tour or Maggie Smith or Vanessa Redgrave, there are certain shared assumptions." One of these is the primacy of the play - "The play's the thing!"

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After selling almost 200 million games over more than two decades and generating untold billions of US dollars in revenue for Nintendo of Japan, Mario is back with two new games. Super Mario Galaxy, released this month for Nintendo's Wii console, is the first major new Mario game in five years. Also, Mario shares top billing with his longtime rival Sonic the Hedgehog in a separate new game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

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BY SUSAN KENDZULAK
The late 1990s saw a plethora of biennials sprouting up around the world as organizers realized the benefits these art showcases brought to their cities. Some are well known, like Venice and Sao Paulo, but all bring some level of international recognition and create important cross-cultural ties.

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By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
A photographic exhibit captures one of the largest mass movements of people in recent history in images ranging from women carrying sacks of grain in Africa to men pushing shopping carts in California.

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