Michelin Guides laud Tokyo
The creators of the famed Michelin Guides have bestowed a virtual galaxy of 191 stars to 150 restaurants in Tokyo — more stars than in any other city in the world, including Paris. Eight restaurants in the Japanese capital, including two sushi eateries, received Michelin’s highest three-star rating, according to the new Tokyo guide announced Monday, the first outside Europe and the United States. But Paris can still claim to have the most top-rated restaurants, with 10. Michelin also crowned 82-year-old Jiro Ono of Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi restaurant in central Tokyo as the world’s oldest three-star chef.
“Lust, caution”
Don’t try this at home
Chinese doctors have warned moviegoers not to try some of the more ambitious sexual positions featured in the uncut version of the Ang Lee film “Lust, Caution.” The movie, set in World War II Shanghai, has been a big hit in China, despite losing seven minutes to the censors. “Most of the sexual maneuvers in ‘Lust, Caution’ are in abnormal body positions,” said Yu Zao, a deputy director at a women’s hospital in southern Guangdong province. “Only women with comparatively flexible bodies that have gymnastics or yoga experience are able to perform them.” Lee won the best director Oscar in 2005 for his controversial gay cowboy drama, “Brokeback Mountain.”
Vote-getter
Still clerking at 81
Contractors working at the historic home of Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) found an unopened letter addressed to the famed suffragist, accompanied by her paycheck. The letter was dated April 2, 1901, and included the $41.06 check for Anthony’s monthly salary as clerk of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. In the friendly note, association treasurer Harriet Taylor Upton tells Anthony about her recent election to her local school board. Regarding the men on the board, Upton wrote: “They’ve been a splendid lot of fellows and they’ve treated us just as if we were men.” The Susan B. Anthony House was the activist’s Rochester, N.Y., home and the site of her 1872 arrest for illegally voting in the presidential election.
People
Trump’s motley crew
NBC on Monday named the contestants who will appear on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” The lucky 14 include bad girl Omarosa; Vincent Pastore, who played Sal Bonpensiero on “The Sopranos”; Kiss singer Gene Simmons; and “Taxi” star Marilu Henner. Of course no reality show could be complete without a member of the Baldwin clan; Stephen will oblige this time. The show debuts Jan. 3.
Passages
John Hughey, 73, a steel-guitar player who toured for years with Conway Twitty and recorded with Elvis Presley, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and many other stars, died of heart complications Sunday in Hendersonville, Tenn.
Samuel Leonard, 101, a Cornell University professor whose pioneering work in reproductive endocrinology in the 1930s led to development of the birth-control pill, died Nov. 12.
Today in History
1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1945: Twenty-four Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war-crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
1967: The census clock at the Commerce Department ticked past 200 million.
Today’s Birthdays
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., 90. Comedian Dick Smothers, 69. Journalist Judy Woodruff, 61. Actress Bo Derek, 51. Actress Ming-Na (”ER”), 44. Rapper Mike D (The Beastie Boys), 42. Country singer Josh Turner, 30. Actress Nadine Velazquez (”My Name is Earl”), 29.
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