People, places & things in the news

*Index*
King Louis XVI	Bobby Brown	Alexander McQueen
Liam Neeson	Natasha Richardson

A small lock of gray hair belonging to King Louis XVI will be auctioned today, 205 years after the monarch was beheaded during the French Revolution.

The hair, in an ornate frame dating from the same era, is expected to be sold for at least $3,300, antique experts say.

Certificates on the back of the frame say the hair was cut off just moments after the king was beheaded on Jan. 21, 1793, at Place de la Concorde in central Paris.

A drummer near the scaffold was said to have cut off several locks after stopping the king's head with his foot. He later distributed them among the king's supporters.

Bidding will begin at $800, said auctioneer Jean Pierre Bouvier in Grenoble, France.

But experts predicted it would go much higher.

"It's a rare piece," said local antiques expert Roland Del-Balzo.

No forensic tests have been conducted to prove the hair belonged to the monarch. But Del-Balzo said the family selling it had certificates to prove it.

Bobby Brown may not have gotten special treatment from other inmates at the Broward County Jail, but he did from the lockup's superintendent, who made a special trip to say good-bye to him.

Brown, 31, was scheduled to check out at 6 a.m. yesterday after serving a five-day sentence for drunken driving. But when Donna Stone came to work early to see him off, he was already gone.

"I was angry when I came in," Stone said. "I came in purposely for this. We set it up yesterday."

Instead, Brown was released from the stockade at one minute past midnight and was freed at 2:25 a.m. after going through the necessary paperwork.

He had been there since Monday, when he showed up in a white convertible Rolls Royce.

Stone said the singer did little during his stay, visiting the recreation area on his first day and receiving visits from his brother, aunt and bodyguard -- but not his wife, superstar Whitney Houston.

Other inmates were fascinated with Brown at first, but that wore off quickly, Stone said.

Avant-garde British designer Alexander McQueen was driven to tears over controversy about a handicapped model he used during a fashion show.

McQueen came under fire for having American model Aimee Mullins, whose lower legs were amputated after she was born without a fibula, strut the catwalk with prosthetic legs Sunday during London Fashion Week.

Now the 22-year-old model is fighting off the paparazzi and McQueen is fighting off the critics.

Among them is Pierre Berge, president of the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, who called him a "voyeur-provocateur."

"I wanted to show the beauty that comes from inside," McQueen said between sobs in Friday's editions of Le Figaro, a French newspaper in Paris. "If you see her walk, you would understand ... She is simply magnificent."

Mullins, a Paralympic medal winner for sprinting, said she wants "to be seen as beautiful because of my disability, not in spite of it."

Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson won $85,000 in libel damages yesterday over a tabloid's allegations that she was filing for divorce behind his back and that their marriage is a sham.

Neeson, nominated for an Academy Award for his role in "Schindler's List," and Richardson, who won a Tony Award this year for "Cabaret," had sued the publishers of the Mirror tabloid for libel and malicious falsehood after publication of the story last month.

Martin Cruddace, the lawyer for The Mirror's parent company, MGN, said the newspaper "unequivocally" accepts that the story was entirely false and apologized for the embarrassment, hurt and distress caused to the couple, who have been married for four years and have two sons.

The couple said they would donate the money to victims of the Aug. 15 car bombing in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh. Neeson's family is from Northern Ireland.

-- Compiled from wire reports