Paris

A 14-YEAR veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department was arrested Monday for allegedly engaging in an ongoing conspiracy to steal from a local toy store, police said. Bridgette Paris, 48, was charged with retail theft, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, forgery and related offenses, police said. The charges followed an investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Police have not identified the store that Paris allegedly targeted.

No responsible Dad wants his 17-year-old daughter jetting off to Europe in the company of a party-hardy girlfriend, under the care of dubious - and perhaps nonexistent - chaperones. But when Dad is an ex-CIA agent and his little girl is abducted within hours of touching down in Paris, it's time for some serious parental intervention. And so, with a 96-hour window before Kim (Maggie Grace) disappears forever into a sordid underworld of Albanian sex traffickers, Bryan Mills - Liam Neeson, making a surprisingly good action hero - flies from the City of Angels to the City of Light to track his offspring.

Perhaps it's time for a moratorium on movies where the trajectories of various people intersect, often portentously, across the tableau of a big city. Michael Winterbottom did it with wrenching effectiveness 10 years ago in Wonderland (the city: London). Paul Haggis' Crash connected the dots, and the racism, of Los Angeles. There have been many others, with the lives of strangers and friends, rich and poor, happy and sad, colliding on the streets. And now there is Paris . Directed by Cédric Klapisch with a roving camera and an obvious affection for his town, Paris isn't bad. But like the relationship that takes off between a more-than-middle-aged history professor (Fabrice Luchini)

WASHINGTON - It's hard to keep up with David McCullough at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. "I think it's one of the real treasures of the capital city, really of the country," says the 77-year-old historian during a recent afternoon interview, excited as a schoolboy as he walks quickly along hallways, up and down stairs, from room to room. "Here's the painting I wanted to show you," he says, stopping in front of an oil portrait by Abraham Archibald Anderson of a pensive, bow-tied Thomas Edison.

"Scum," French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the rioters who have seized control of many working-class "suburbs" around Paris every night since Oct. 27, when two teenagers died in an accident that many blame on the police. Sarkozy plans to run for the presidency next year, and he wants to seem even tougher on crime and on immigrants (two separate issues that he regularly conflates) than his main rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. But his conviction that the policy of multiculturalism has failed has become the new popular wisdom in France, where right-wing commentators refer to the riots as the "Paris intifada" - as if the rioters were all Muslims.

French Premier Jacques Chirac has been forced to withdraw the university reform bill that sent hundreds of thousands of protesting French students into Paris streets over the past three weeks. The student protests no doubt evoked memories of the student riots in France in 1968 for Mr. Chirac and others, but there was a fundamental difference. To confuse them is to misunderstand the students' anger. Unlike their radical predecessors who tried to topple bourgeois society in the heady demonstration days of May 1968, these young people are afraid they won't be allowed to enter it. The reform bill would have raised the current minimal tuition costs and allowed universities to tighten entrance requirements, which are very loose at present.

The question was squarely before me. Did I want a coupe simple, or a coupe transformation? Transformation had a nice ring to it, but when you're talking haircuts - and you're talking them entirely in French - there's a risk that something might be lost in the translation. Marie Antoinette, for example, underwent what could be described as a coupe transformation. So I opted for a plain old haircut. "I think you should go for the bronzage, too," my husband said as we left the salon where I had made an appointment to return two days hence.

Springtime in Paris: A harsh winter, with unusually heavy snows, is abating. People on the streets are shedding their heavy togs for cooler, lighter-weight clothes. But for designers and followers of the fashion world, springtime in Paris means the return of wool, tweeds and fur, for spring is when fall ready-to- wear collections are unveiled. And for hundreds of designers, buyers, reporters and fashion devotees, it is the best time to be in Paris. It appears that French designers, like their Italian counterparts who showcased designs in Milan earlier this month, are calling for shorter skirts and more subdued silhouettes than they did last fall.

PARIS - Lawyers for 15 French people, either black or of Arab descent, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the state for abusive identity checks based on alleged racial profiling. A lawyer for the group said they were routinely targeted for police identity checks that often included humiliating public body pat downs, insults, and even threats because of the way they looked. The plaintiffs' lawyers said this was the first such collective action in France to tackle abusive identity checks, a problem documented by several studies.

At Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, on the first Tuesday of every month, they spread a large piece of canvas on the floor of Congregational Hall. Imprinted on the canvas is a pattern that replicates the labyrinth embedded in the floor of the great cathedral in Chartres, France. From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., members of the congregation and the public are invited to walk the labyrinth. Janet Brown tends the labyrinth during those hours. She describes herself as a facilitator, or guide, and says she has witnessed a wide variety of reactions.

PARIS - Paris is a city where possibilities are endless, expectations are high, and no one doubts that magic can happen. Anyone who saw Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris , his recent homage to the City of Light (up for four Academy Awards Sunday), knows what I'm talking about. Allen's protagonist, a Hollywood screenwriter who yearns to be a serious scribe, takes to wandering the rainy streets of Paris at night in search of a muse. On one such night, he accompanies a couple in 1920s dress to what he assumes is a costume party.

LOS ANGELES - Woody Allen's romantic fantasy Midnight in Paris and Alexander Payne's family drama The Descendants have won top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America. With his biggest hit in decades, writer-director Allen earned the guild's prize Sunday for original screenplay on Midnight in Paris . The film stars Owen Wilson as a modern Hollywood writer who gets a chance to hang with his literary idols in the 1920s Paris of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

WHEN I walked into Paris Wine Bar, the newly opened adjunct to London Grill at 23rd and Fairmount, it was as if I'd walked into a wine bar in another, parallel dimension. You see, Paris Wine Bar is a wine bar that serves no wines from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Argentina, Chile or even California, Oregon or Washington state. "All of our wines are from Pennsylvania," Cristina Tessaro, the bar manager, informed me. I looked around for hidden cameras to make sure I wasn't being punked.

Bio: 54; Philadelphia native; married 25 years, with a son, 23, and a daughter, 21. Philadelphia restaurant connections: Pomodoro, Marabella's, Circa, Rococo, Oberon, Guru, City Grill, Zanzibar Blue, Mantra, Pat Bombino's, City Tap House. First Philly chef gig : Lily's in New Market, 1976. What's new? He's executive chef and partner in the just-opened Heirloom (8705 Germantown Ave., 215-242-2700, www.heirloomdining.com ), which specializes in new American regional cuisine - hearty meals in an intimate Chestnut Hill setting, he said.

We've all heard how Jacob and Isabella were the most popular names for babies in 2010, but what about twins? Thanks to the Social Security Administration, we now know that Ella and Emma was the favorite combo for girls; Jacob and Joshua for boys; and Madison and Mason for a mixed pair. But the list also reveals that there are 16 sets of twins named Heaven and Nevaeh; 14 pairs named London and Paris, and 12 named Mia and Mya, ranking the combos 18th, 21st and 23rd among top names for twin girls, respectively.

George Whitman, 98, the American bibliophile whose iconic English-language Paris bookshop, CQ Shakespeare & Co., has been a haven for book lovers for more than half a century, died Wednesday 12/14, store officials announced. Mr. Whitman "died peacefully at home in the apartment above his bookshop," two months after a stroke, a Web posting said. Nestled on the left bank of the Seine River, Shakespeare & Co. is a warren of books, stacked with volumes from floor to ceiling. Since its founding in 1951, the shop has been a beacon for writers and would-be writers, whom Mr. Whitman allowed to crash in the store in exchange for help around the shop.

Francois Lesage, 82, the heir of the legendary Maison Lesage embroidery atelier that has long been embellishing Paris couture houses' most fantastic creations, died Thursday, atelier officials said. Founded by Mr. Lesage's father, Maison Lesage worked for creme de la creme of early 20th-century designers, including Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli. As the number of embroidery ateliers in the French capital dwindled, the house of Lesage became the go-to spot for designers looking for exceptional work.

PARIS - Francois Lesage, the heir of the legendary Maison Lesage embroidery atelier which has long been embellishing Paris couture houses' most fantastic creations, died yesterday. He was 82 years old. Founded by Lesage's father, Maison Lesage worked for the creme de la creme of early 20th-century designers, including Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli. The house of Lesage became the go-to spot for designers looking for exceptional work. Under Lesage's leadership, the house acquired such prestigious clients as Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga and Christian Lacroix.