Wendi Deng Murdoch: La Tigresa del Magnate
Behind Wendi Deng’s billion-dollar spike
US/UK/China/Australia: No profile
I was commissioned to write a piece about Murdoch’s wife – then someone pulled the plug
Our Julian - for once, Australia really is punching above its weight in the world
Washington has delivered to Osama bin Laden one of the suspected terrorist mastermind's key demands
Stars and Stripes, the daily tabloid for US military personnel, prides itself on its independence
Eric Ellis takes to the road in a series tracking the revolutionary re-invention of America.
How Clinton Courts America's Techno Might
California Freeway 101 is not the Washington Beltway, although it might as well be
Enter Mikey Weinstein, The Cyberace Socialist Capitalist
Mikey Weinstein has credentials that would earn him a top slot on the Paula Jones legal team.
Wired-up Commuters Trip Up Transport Strike
Suppose they called a transport strike . . . and nobody came.
Why Clinton Tries To Court The `geek Freaks'
When San Francisco investment banker Sanford Robertson says he had dinner with Bill Clinton, he makes no exaggerated boast about a Democratic rubber chicken fund-raiser in a hotel conference room.
Mac Backfire - Despite Arch Support
McDonald's must wish all its customers were like Don Gorske.
The Wisconsin native may well be the world's most practised exponent of the Big Mac. Gorske had his first "Mac Attack" in 1973 and since then has downed 14,837 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun combination.
Black American Dream Comes True In Blossomfields
The good burghers of Olympia Fields will today celebrate Martin Luther King Jnr Day in the United States, along, notionally, with 25 million African-Americans who comprise about a tenth of the US population.
From Silicon Valley to Seattle, the West Coast's resurgent technology and aircraft industries are revving up America's economic renaissance. Eric Ellis reports from America's boom towns in the final part of a series on the US economy.
"Is that a Pentium you have there?" It's not a question one expects of a hotel room service waiter delivering breakfast. But if hospitality staff in Hollywood are stereotyped as "waiting" to be discovered, in Silicon Valley they're biding time en route to becoming the next Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Mark Andriessen.
Old Grey Mayors Ain't What They Used To Be
Think "mayor" in the United States and you think unrequited political ambition, if not on the road to the White House then certainly connecting with it at a major intersection.
Big Money Flows In The Contest To Run California
Forget the age-old ideology war between Democrats and Republicans. The most spirited battle in the contest to govern the United States' most important State is being waged over the very Californian issue of herbs, or "erbs" as locals prefer to say.
Primary Colourless As Americans Fail To Vote
The self-styled Land of the Free this week displayed an apathy that would horrify many Indonesians prepared to die for US-style liberties. While Indonesians were throwing off a 32-year-old dictatorship, the country many young Asians claim as a model could not be bothered even showing up for its various local referendums, primaries and gubernatorial polls.
Brown Victory In Black And White
The black disc jockey rapped Get Down for Jerry Brown and the people of Oakland, the festering sore of poverty that separates two of the world's richest regions, did.
Meet Mary . . . Quite Contrary
There are a lot of odd places in the United States, and Palm Springs is one of them. Smug and perfectly manicured, it has this strange other-worldly quality about it, appropriately enough given that it's a "God's Waiting Room" of superannuated entertainers with allergy problems cocooned from real life in palatial residences and over-watered golf clubs, sometimes their own.
Fong Helps Redraw US Ethnic Political Map
As he stands beaming before the gates of Chinatown on Grant Street in the heart of San Francisco, Matt Fong is a man Bill Clinton would be proud of.
Latino Voters Bring A Si! Change To California
John Howard might find some common ground with Californian politician Robert Dornan. Pauline Hanson certainly would. Dornan is your common or garden white-bread, white-skinned conservative Republican redneck.
Washington And Hollywood Share A Common Enemy
Hollywood and Washington tend to agree on the enemy. And the foe of the moment is China, as Eric Ellis reports from Los Angeles.
Democrats Clean Up Despite `peckerdilloes'
The booming States of the US West put performance over peccadilloes in snaring the biggest prize of the night for the triumphant Democrats, California's governorship. The Democrat rout of the Grand Old Party was no better expressed than in California where former State Lieutenant-Governor Gray Davis beat his long-time office colleague, State Attorney-General Dan Lungren.
It's A Crime If You Can't Clean Up In This Industry
Kathie Jo has taken over what is normally a grisly government task, cleaning up crime scenes with her Crime Scene Steam and Clean operation in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles.
Arnie's LA Story: He Muscled In On The Old Beach
When Arnold Schwarzenegger declared "I'll be back" in James Cameron's 1984 hit The Terminator, he may well have been referring to this notorious part of Los Angeles.
Clinton On Black Pride Expedition
It's unlikely President Bill Clinton will watch last year's cult hit movie When We Were Kings on Air Force One when it takes him and his delegation on an historic safari through Africa.
Hollywood, Fidel And Other Borderline Cases
Bill Clinton and Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, could do worse than call in the famous marriage counsellor Dr Ruth Westheimer.
Women Hit The Roof Over Bank's Glass Ceiling
As many merger and takeover victims know, corporate culture clash is a delicate thing to contend with.
No Rain On Parade Of Eisner's Disney Dollars
Mickey Mouse was the MC, Sidney Poitier did a guest spot, a Supremes-style chorus in white satin togas performed an upbeat tribute to the Greek god Hercules as pyrotechnics and roving spotlights raked the rapt audience.
Read Their Lips - It's Ebonics
It was the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, that gave rise to the hitherto most famous example of the Black English used among the United States' 32 million African-Americans.
Where Asia's Boom Is Good News
From Silicon Valley to Seattle, the West Coast's resurgent technology and aircraft industries are revving up America's economic renaissance. Eric Ellis reports from America's boom towns in the final part of a series on the US economy.
Emerging Tiger Headed For The Big Bucks
South-central Los Angeles is not known for its golf enthusiasts. Gang wars, riots and grand-scale urban decay are more the stuff of this seething part of the metropolis. That was until a fortnight ago at Augusta when 21-year-old Californian golf genius Eldrick "Tiger" Woods blitzed the world's best players to become the youngest ever Masters champion.
Trading Firm Deals With Brace Of Harassment Court Cases
Tough bond traders might wear braces and talk in jargon but the undergraduate dealing room antics of the 1980s would be history, right?
Multimillionaire Walks The Talk On Death Row
Marion Suge Knight is not the type of guy to bump into in a boardroom let alone on a dark night in south-central Los Angeles.
Some Big Money Brooding In The Mississippi Bayous
Eric Ellis reports from Brookhaven, Mississippi on another lost export opportunity for Australia
Gen-X 'attitude' A Real Cash-spinner
It's a new US market: the 50 million or so Generation Xers, sons and daughters of affluent baby boomers, who have money to spend - their parents' money - and, as ERIC ELLIS reports from Los Angeles, Corporate America is discovering them.
It's been a brush with fame at every turn for Eric Ellis since he arrived to open The Financial Review's Los Angeles bureau.
After two centuries of being mercilessly thrashed by Poms for our supposedly coarse brand of English, it comes as something of a surprise to learn that some Californians think Australians are "intellectual" - because of how we speak.
Golden Globes A Glittering Farce
Tonight, in a glittering ceremony, an army of film and television stars, directors, writers and various industry "luvvies" will celebrate the Golden Globe Awards in a storm of gushery, hoopla and, of course, the merit and sincerity one finds only in Hollywood.
Mild-mannered Clerk Turns Into A Warlord
It is enlightening, and perhaps even disturbing, that for a place with such a penetrating influence on international popular culture, Los Angeles often seems to know remarkably little about the outside world.
Clinton's Impeachment Puts The Republican Party On Trial
On Thursday, Washington began the turgid and ultimately pointless process of putting America's most consistently popular president on trial for what amounts to getting fellated in the White House.
Crash! Boom! Merchants Do A Brisk Trade In Crisis
The Earth moved for San Francisco yesterday, and it was not just because the First Philanderer, Bill Clinton, was in town.
Lethal Salesman Randy's A Ghoul's Best Friend
Randy Bell, "Mr Disaster" to his colleagues and competitors, is the man you call when you have a problem with a difficult-to-sell property.
Trading Firm Deals With Brace Of Harassment Court Cases
Tough bond traders might wear braces and talk in jargon but the undergraduate dealing room antics of the 1980s would be history, right?
California Dreamers Take Their Nightmare East
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
Joni Mitchell took the suburbanisation of then pristine California as her inspiration but a generation later, her Big Yellow Taxi may well be the anthem for a new era of grumpy Americans.
New Economy: Where Chips Overtake Potatoes
Eric Ellis takes to the road and arrives in downtown Boise, Idaho, in the first of a series tracking the revolutionary re-invention of America.
For Your New Economic Miracle And Evangelic Zeal, Dial Omaha
Eric Ellis arrives in Omaha, Nebraska, and finds a town with no unemployment.
Sci-fi City Where Mad Max Would Feel At Home
Boulder could be the setting for Mad Max - before the apocalypse.
Pittsburgh Forges A Future From `brownfields'
This grim perma-grey and heavily unionised city, the one-time "Forge of the Universe", where the Carnegies and Mellons and Fricks made their fortunes and founded the US 20th century economic dominance, has become used to decline.
Antelope Prays For Cults To Stay Away
Eric Ellis drops in on Antelope, Oregon, and finds there's business in the cults of America.
Grey Panther Keeps Black Power Alive
Hippies become yuppies, activists become presidents, communists become ultra-right conservatives and Black Panthers become, well, "Grey" Panthers.
Everything's Bigger In Texas, Particularly The People
Eric Ellis reports from El Paso, the fat capital of the United States.
The Valley Is Aiming To Escape LA's Clutches
"Welcome to Pornodelphia, the, like, totally awesome, sixth biggest city in the USA, dude."
Clinton's Mantra Neutered South Of The Border
A Health food store cum bookshop and espresso bar - just about every town in Middle America has one.
Latino Salsa Fires US Economy - And Bigotry
Eric Ellis arrives in Castroville, California, in his series on the momentous economic transformation of the United States.
University Avenue, Palo Alto runs through the American Dream.
Franchise Land Booms, Rarely Busting In Smalltown US
Eric Ellis reports from Boring, Oregon, typical of the small town franchiseville of the new US economy.
Don't Send For The Cavalry, These Indians Play Cricket
Eric Ellis in Fremont, California, finds a shift in Silicon Valley away from the traditional American immigrant dream.