Michelle Hogg created disguises for the gang behind one of Britain's biggest bank heists and then testified for the prosecution. What is in store for her as she begins her life under the Witness Protection Program?
By Duncan Campbell
When Michelle Louise Hogg embarked on a theatrical make-up course at the London College of Fashion she can little have imagined that it would lead to her having to spend the rest of her life on the run. Nor can she have guessed that she would, one day, have to employ the very skills she learned for changing the appearances of actors to disguise herself.

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Lin Mun-lee has been taking one of the world's greatest museums into uncharted territory over the past two years; the results are already speaking for themselves
By Ian Bartholomew
It has been two years this month since Lin Mun-lee (林曼麗) took over the directorship of the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院, NPM). There have been many big shows, but far more importantly, Lin believes she is presiding over a change in direction for Taiwan's, and indeed one of the world's, greatest museums.

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FICTION

Drones, which pollinate one-third of the world's vegetables, are no longer hard at work. In fact, many are dead at the hands of parasites and hornets
By Christian Gauvry
Less than a year after France's decimated bee populations showed signs of recovery, beekeepers here are once again in a panic as their income-generating worker drones are disappearing by the tens of millions.

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Chevy's Impala, one of the first cars to sport 'coke bottle curves,' gets a facelift after 50 years
By Jerry Garrett
One fine winter day 50 years ago, my father pulled into our driveway with a new Chevrolet, a 1958 Bel Air Impala Sport Coupe in Panama Yellow. At the time, the Impala was not yet a separate model in Chevy's line, just a nameplate that designated its status as the top trim level for the popular Bel Air coupes and convertibles.

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Estelle Lau takes a balanced look at the US Exclusion Laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and at the lives of Chinese nationals who got around them
By Bradley Winterton
From 1882 to 1943 people perceived as being of Chinese origin were barred from immigration into the US under what have become known collectively as the Chinese Exclusion Laws. It remains the only exclusion based on race, rather than nationality, the US has ever enacted.

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Russell Banks patches together a mad siren and a womanizer in his new novel, 'The Reserve,' but the result doesn't do justice to his reputation as a strong author
By Michiko Kakutani
Russell Banks' new novel, The Reserve, bears less resemblance to any of his gritty, visionary epics, like his 1985 masterpiece, Continental Drift, than it does to a melodramatic B movie from the 1940s. Its two main characters are not his usual blue-collar workers, struggling against horrible odds to hold on to their glimpse of the American Dream, but a wealthy socialite and a famous artist who take their privileges for granted and who lead profligate, self-dramatizing lives.

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