President Chelsea Clinton has sealed a historic deal with some of America's blue-chip companies. They will be involved in a wide range of community renewal programmes in exchange for generous tax credits. One project will aim to raise urban literacy from a dismal 54% to 99% in three years. Another project will aim to beat the TB epidemic and other scourges by offering people the chance to 'earn' cures for afflicted relatives by working at rates below the minimum wage. MF
Personal palmtops are beginning to take on the characteristics of 'virtual selves' or 'life books'. Numerous aspects of our identity can be accessed through this medium, including detailed personal, financial and work information, DNA and other physiological data. Civil liberties groups have long expressed concern about the trend. Their fears were vindicated recently when several people were arrested in Copenhagen in connection with the theft of identities. SA
This year's Hirst Prize for 21st-century art was won by Brian Bryan for Ivory Sequence Nº 3, a hyper-realist painting of a man in 20th-century costume playing a piano. 'This is the first figurative piece to win the prize,' said Sebastian Tartt, the art critic, 'and it ought to be the last. There is no place for such literal-mindedness in the art gallery of today.' RG
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