NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 60 photographs by Richard Avedon, some rare and unpublished, will be auctioned next month by Christie’s in Paris to create the Richard Avedon Foundation endowment fund.

The November 20 sale, the largest auction ever of Avedon’s work, is expected to fetch up to $6 million or more for the fund designed to help teach a generation flooded with technology to harness the power of photography.

“We want to help organizations that use photography to tell the truth about things,” said Paul Roth, executive director of the Richard Avedon Foundation in New York.

“We want to help young people learn how to use cameras and therefore have the power of controlling visual information in their own lives.”

The sale is also expected to confirm the resurrection of the photography market, which swooned with the economy before finding its footing. Avedon’s early images, made over a half century ago, aimed for similar results in his beloved Paris.

“Avedon as much as anyone is really responsible for recreating the image of a vibrant Paris after World War Two when the economy was really in its doldrums and there was widespread poverty,” Roth explained.

One of Avedon’s iconic fashion photographs of that era, “Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955,” is estimated to sell for $500,000 to $700,000. It is the largest Avedon exhibition print in existence, and hung in Avedon’s New York office for a quarter century.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – TV industry spoof “30 Rock” is going out live for the first time this week, and the improv-happy cast on Tuesday was almost giddy at the prospect of things going wrong.

“So much can go wrong, but I came up through improv at Second City (sketch theater company) and there’s a certain thrill to things going wrong,” Emmy-winning executive producer and star Tina Fey told reporters.

Like a typical “30 Rock” episode there will be three different stories, said Fey, with one pegged around her character Liz Lemon’s 40th birthday.

“One story is that no-one has remembered Liz’s birthday, another is that Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Badwin) has tried to give up drinking while his fiancee is pregnant — and he’s not enjoying that — and there’s another story with Tracy Morgan making some discoveries about how fun it is to act up on live TV,” said Fey.

Matt Damon and “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm are widely expected to guest star in Thursday’s live episode on NBC, which was first inspired by the cast putting on a live benefit show during the 2008 Hollywood writers’ strike.

The cast will perform one show for the U.S. east coast broadcast, and do it all over again for the west coast three hours later.

Fey, and “30 Rock” actor Tracy Morgan, are “Saturday Night Live” sketch show veterans; Baldwin has hosted SNL more than a dozen times, and actress Jane Krakowski is a Broadway veteran.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK, Oct 11 (Reuters Life!) – Few bosses need worry that their employees want their jobs as most workers are just happy to be employed and one fifth would even have a fling with their boss if it helped their career, according to a U.S. survey.

The U.S. recession has driven bosses and their employees closer together and only 30 percent of employees want their boss’s stressful job, recruitment firm Adecco Staffing U.S. found in a poll tied to National Boss Day in mid-October.

But the survey found that some people are willing to go to greater lengths to keep their jobs in a tough market.

Almost one in five said they would have a fling with their boss if it would help their career and a similar number share connections with their boss through social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Striving for the boss’s job is not a top priority, though.

Employees with children aged 18 or under at home are more likely (39 percent vs. 23 percent) to want their boss’s job to help pay for education and other costs.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Few bosses need worry that their employees want their jobs as most workers are just happy to be employed and one fifth would even have a fling with their boss if it helped their career, according to a U.S. survey.

The U.S. recession has driven bosses and their employees closer together and only 30 percent of employees want their boss’s stressful job, recruitment firm Adecco Staffing U.S. found in a poll tied to National Boss Day in mid-October.

But the survey found that some people are willing to go to greater lengths to keep their jobs in a tough market.

Almost one in five said they would have a fling with their boss if it would help their career and a similar number share connections with their boss through social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Striving for the boss’s job is not a top priority, though.

Employees with children aged 18 or under at home are more likely (39 percent vs. 23 percent) to want their boss’s job to help pay for education and other costs.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – More than a third of U.S. teenagers would consider delaying or skipping college, an increase from last year, because of the high costs, according to a new study.

It showed that while more teens think a college degree is needed to get ahead than adults did when they were adolescents, fewer believe they can afford to continue their education.

“This is very concerning,” said Stuart Rubinstein, of investment firm TD Ameritrade Corp., which conducted the poll. “A college degree is really necessary these days for someone who is on a path to have a good career and life-time earning potential.”

While higher education costs have grown, so has unemployment among teenagers. U.S. jobless figures reached 9.6 percent in September, but 26 percent of teenagers aged 16 to 19 were unemployed, government data showed on Friday.

Teens are competing with adults who have turned to retail and fast food jobs after losing other positions, Rubinstein explained.

About 79 percent of teens see a degree as critical for their future success, down from 84 percent a year ago, but up sharply from 57 percent of adults who saw it as essential when they were teens.

NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Israel signed a $2.75 billion deal on Thursday with the United States to buy about 20 radar-evading Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-35 fighter jets, calling it the world’s most advanced combat plane.

Israel is to receive the jets from 2015 through 2017, according to an Israeli statement at a signing ceremony at the consulate in New York. The Jewish state is the first buyer outside the aircraft’s nine-nation co-development group.

The agreement was signed after years of talks on such issues as aircraft price, Israeli industrial participation in F-35 production as well as integration of Israeli capabilities on its own F-35 fleet.

The cost was put at about $96 million per aircraft, including the engine. In addition, the deal includes simulators, spare parts and maintenance — making the total value $2.75 billion, the Israeli statement said.

At least 19 F-35s are expected to be part of the first batch. The total value could be as high as $15.2 billion if all options are exercised, the Pentagon told Congress in an initial notification in September 2008.

“The signing … is an event of great strategic and historic significance,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said in a separate statement.

Describing the F-35 as the world’s most advanced fighter, Oren said it would boost Israel’s ability to defend itself, “by itself, against any threat or combination of threats, from anywhere within the Middle East.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Unreleased Lady Gaga songs, handwritten Paul McCartney lyrics and clothing from Princess Diana and Elvis Presley are among unique celebrity items that will be sold in an online auction this month.

McCartney’s handwritten working lyrics to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” from the 1969 Abbey Road album are expected to be the top seller with a price tag of at least $200,000.

But bids could start as low as $100 for items like a signed handwritten letter from Phil Spector, the music producer convicted of murder.

About 850 items such as CDs from Lady Gaga’s first manager, Michael Jackson’s crystal studded helmet worn during his 1981 “Triumph tour and James Brown’s original 1987 signed U.S. passport are for sale at www.gottahaverockandroll.com from October 6-15.

“Whether it was from ex-managers, ex-lovers, ex-wives, sons, daughters, they all come from family members or friends, some collectors,” said Peter J. Siegel, co-founder of GOTTA HAVE IT! Collectibles, Inc.

This is the largest of the company’s Internet auctions of rock and roll and pop art. In 2008 Elvis’s Peacock Jumpsuit sold for $300,000.

More than 90 Beatles items should be popular in the year of John Lennon’s 70th birthday, Siegel said.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Women were winners in the U.S. recession, as wives’ income jumped to a record share of family earnings. But it was only by default.

Wives earned 47 percent of family income in 2009, up from 45 percent the previous year, not because their salaries rose but because more of their husbands lost jobs, according to a study from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

“Make no mistake: this increase is not due to advancement or opportunities for women, but rather it is an indication of hard financial times for families,” said Kristin Smith, a family demographer at the Institute.

Women weren’t getting higher wages during the recession. The median wages of employed wives fell to $30,000 in 2009 from $31,041 two years earlier. The median income of husbands with employed wives fell in that time to $42,000 from $46,562.

Instead, the economy shed more male-dominated jobs such as in construction and manufacturing, which left wives earning more of the family take-home pay, the report said.

“As husbands lose their jobs, family earnings plummet, and the role of wives’ earnings often becomes critical to keeping families afloat,” said Smith.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Women were winners in the U.S. recession, as wives’ income jumped to a record share of family earnings. But it was only by default.

Wives earned 47 percent of family income in 2009, up from 45 percent the previous year, not because their salaries rose but because more of their husbands lost jobs, according to a study from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

“Make no mistake: this increase is not due to advancement or opportunities for women, but rather it is an indication of hard financial times for families,” said Kristin Smith, a family demographer at the Institute.

Women weren’t getting higher wages during the recession. The median wages of employed wives fell to $30,000 in 2009 from $31,041 two years earlier. The median income of husbands with employed wives fell in that time to $42,000 from $46,562.

Instead, the economy shed more male-dominated jobs such as in construction and manufacturing, which left wives earning more of the family take-home pay, the report said.

“As husbands lose their jobs, family earnings plummet, and the role of wives’ earnings often becomes critical to keeping families afloat,” said Smith.

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – More than 60 photographs by Richard Avedon, some rare and unpublished, will be auctioned next month by Christie’s in Paris to create the Richard Avedon Foundation endowment fund.

The November 20 sale, the largest auction ever of Avedon’s work, is expected to fetch up to $6 million or more for the fund designed to help teach a generation flooded with technology to harness the power of photography.

“We want to help organizations that use photography to tell the truth about things,” said Paul Roth, executive director of the Richard Avedon Foundation in New York.

“We want to help young people learn how to use cameras and therefore have the power of controlling visual information in their own lives.”

The sale is also expected to confirm the resurrection of the photography market, which swooned with the economy before finding its footing. Avedon’s early images, made over a half century ago, aimed for similar results in his beloved Paris.

“Avedon as much as anyone is really responsible for recreating the image of a vibrant Paris after World War Two when the economy was really in its doldrums and there was widespread poverty,” Roth explained.