New Upheaval: Chinese student leaders Chai Ling...

New Upheaval: Chinese student leaders Chai Ling and Feng Congde, at the forefront of pro-democracy protests in June, 1989, before escaping to the West, are now in a pro-independence movement of their own. The couple, who fled Beijing and reappeared in Paris, said in a joint statement of their impending divorce: “We have been through many storms together, but because of personal differences and because our roles have changed as we adjust to a new environment after our escape, we feel our lives should be separate.”

Barry Bashing: Excerpts from the first book on Marion Barry will be revealed in the February issue of Penthouse magazine. The book, by Washington writer Jonathan Agronsky, claims that after Barry’s arrest on drug charges, an unidentified “high-ranking black leader” approached President Bush to work out a plea bargain, but Bush allegedly said: “No, I’m not going to intervene. I want him to go to jail.”

Missed Translation: AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland was in Warsaw at the invitation of the Solidarity workers’ movement to witness the swearing in of Lech Walesa as Poland’s president, but Kirkland couldn’t hear his interpreter with all the noise. So he winged it: When the audience applauded, he applauded. But at one point when the audience and the American cheered one speaker, the interpreter interrupted: “You can’t clap now, he’s praising you.”

Bold Move: World chess champion Gary Kasparov says he will donate his diamond-studded trophy--worth an estimated $1 million--to a charity to help defeat Armenian homelessness. “Feeling the responsibility of being one of them . . . I have decided this trophy . . . will be sold at a charity auction and all the money will be distributed among those people,” Kasparov said Wednesday in Lyon, France, as an audience gave him a standing ovation. Kasparov retained his title in a match against Anatoly Karpov and received $1.7 million with the trophy.