A sale of correspondence by one of China's top literary couples has been cancelled, a Chinese auction house said, after the widow voiced a strong protest over infringement of privacy. Monday's planned sale of three letters by Qian Zhongshu, who died in 1997 but remains a household name in China for his novel "Fortress Besieged", and his widow Yang Jiang, 102, has been abandoned, Poly International Auction said in a statement. Yang, who is an author and translator in her own right, had condemned the sale over the weekend, threatening to take legal action.

By Walker Simon NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dream-like painting of children releasing kites by Brazil's Candido Portinari sold for $1.4 million at Christie's Latin American art sale and set a world auction record for the artist. Portinari's 1941 "Meninos Soltando Pipas" was the top seller at the Wednesday evening sale, which totaled $16 million and set benchmarks for other Latin American artists. "The strength of the Brazilian market reigned supreme," said Virgilio Garza, Christie's Latin American art chief.

An anonymous bidder paid $610,000 in a charity auction for coffee date with Apple chief Tim Cook, the organizers said Wednesday. The Tim Cook auction tied the record for highest winning bid at charity auction site Charitybuzz, according to a statement from the group and its partner, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. The bid tied a record set by a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster auctioned in March 2013 for $610,000, the statement said.

An anonymous bidder paid $610,000 in a charity auction for coffee date with Apple chief Tim Cook, the organizers said Wednesday. The Tim Cook auction tied the record for highest winning bid at charity auction site Charitybuzz, according to a statement from the group and its partner, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. The bid tied a record set by a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster auctioned in March 2013 for $610,000, the statement said.