Sandra Smith writes: Waiting for the auctioneer is something like being present at a stage musical while the orchestra warms up. My stomach was a little fluttery. Would I understand? How fast would he talk? What if I scratched my nose and he thought I was bidding? I got so caught up in it, I forgot to listen to the amounts of the bids.

In the late eighties, James Leeper was a fast-rising prosecutor known for his fairness and loyalty. Decades later, his alleged misconduct in the Jonathan Fleming case has shocked colleagues and adversaries alike. Fleming, 27, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. It took 24 years, but eventually it became clear that there had been much more to Fleming's alibi defense, and that Leeper had failed to disclose it to the jury.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization has introduced a sculpture of a life-size bronze wolf in a copper canoe which it commissioned from internationally acclaimed Namgis First Nation artist Mary Anne Barkhouse. Now on exhibit: On the foggy night of May 29, 1914, two ships collide in the St. Lawrence River. The Empress of Ireland, with 1,477 souls aboard, sinks in less than 15 minutes. An estimated 1,012 people — passengers and crew — perish.

Pamela Prah writes: Nationwide, US employers reported in 2013 that skilled trades positions were the most difficult to fill, the fourth consecutive year this category has topped the list. A 2011 industry report estimated that as many as 600,000 manufacturing jobs were vacant because employers couldn’t find the skilled workers to fill them, including machinists, distributors, technicians and industrial engineers.  

Significant improvement with the use of a combination drug therapy for recurrent ovarian cancer was reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. This is the first ovarian cancer study to use a combination of drugs that could be taken orally.

Joan L. Cannon writes: Unless memories and tradition count as “things,” these concrete reminders are not just things. They’re emblems. They’re absolute reminders — souvenirs in a literal sense — of what has happened in many lives, not just our own. As such, they serve as records that are apt to endure longer than any on paper.            

The overwhelming majority of the participants in these three experiments were more creative while walking than sitting, the study found. In one of those experiments, participants were tested indoors — first while sitting, then while walking on a treadmill. The creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when the person was walking, according to the study. A fourth experiment evaluated creative output by measuring people's abilities to generate complex analogies to prompt phrases.

The Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a resolution recognizing the importance of providing preventative heart screenings to women through primary care. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced a bill to authorize additional leave for members of the armed forces in connection with the birth of a child. Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) introduced bill to provide for an increase in the amount of monthly dependency and indemnity compensation payable to surviving spouses by the secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Julia Sneden writes: To me, they were just my big cousins, glamorous in their uniforms — so brave, so tall, so handsome — and it while I knew they were going off to danger, I never for a moment considered that they might not come back. It's right that we pause to remember the cost, and also right to look back and remember that they were often youngsters who fought as much for their own remembered good times as they did for that anomalous thing called "my country."

Two unusual interments at San Francisco National Cemetery are "Major" Pauline Cushman and Miss Sarah A. Bowman. Cushman’s headstone bears the inscription "Pauline C. Fryer, Union Spy," but her real name was Harriet Wood. Also buried at San Francisco National Cemetery is Sarah Bowman, also known as "Great Western," a formidable woman over 6 feet tall with red hair and a fondness for wearing pistols.

The National Portrait Gallery is featuring mid-20th century artists who were reinventing portraiture at a moment when almost everyone agreed that figuration was dead as a progressive art form. The Gallery has gathered more than 50 paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture from approximately 1945 to 1975 to demonstrate the innovations of American portraiture despite the vogue for abstraction.

Janet Yellin on performance and grit: One aspect of grit that I think is particularly important is the willingness to take a stand when circumstances demand it. Such circumstances may not be all that frequent, but in every life, there will be crucial moments when having the courage to stand up for what you believe will be immensely important. What's New · What's Next · Site Map · A-Z Index · Careers · RSS · All Videos · Current FAQs · Contact Us   Search   Advanced Search   About the Fed…

"My biggest concern for women is what happens in retirement. Women have longer life expectancies than men, and married women tend to be several years younger than their husbands, so that the average married woman reaching retirement can expect to spend several years as a widow, and the average single women reaching retirement will spend all of her retirement years that way. In the shift away from defined benefit and toward defined contribution retirement plans, the financial security of women in retirement will depend very much on how the wealth accumulated for retirement is managed."

Gatsby to Garp examines the vibrant American literary landscape of the twentieth century, a period that encompassed a remarkable explosion of creativity, and explores such topics as language and style, geography and setting, literary identity, and relationships among writers. By looking at the literary output of the entire century through a series of vignettes, connections emerge — sometimes unexpectedly.

Stanford scholar Dan Jurafsky found that the words used in online restaurant reviews provide a surprising source of insight into human psychology. While positive reviews of expensive restaurants were rife with sensual and sexy metaphors, the good food at cheap restaurants prompted references to drugs.

This is what you look for in a hospice patient: the brow must be untroubled. Smooth, free of lines. There should be no grimacing. The face of the patient must be serene, peaceful. Tommy has an untroubled brow. His face remains ruddy. His body is calm, arms propped on pillows to keep him comfortable, two pillows behind his sleeping head. A loose sheet covers his quietly breathing, thinning body. Regularly scheduled doses of Morphine and Haldol, with an occasional drop of Atropine, are keeping my husband pain-free and tranquil, the goal of hospice.

The V&A’s exhibition traces the development of the fashionable white wedding dress and its interpretation by leading couturiers and designers over the last two centuries. The exhibition features some of the earliest examples of wedding fashion including a silk satin court dress (1775) and a 'polonaise' style brocade gown with straw bergère hat (1780. The preference for white in the 19th century will be demonstrated by a white muslin wedding dress decorated with flowers, leaves and berries (1807) recently acquired by the museum.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Three mysteries will always taunt me: Einstein's Theory of Relativity, how to buy low and sell high, and how it's possible to have three huge closets crammed with clothes and still never have a thing to wear-at least nothing appropriate for the occasion at hand. Everything I own is either too formal or too casual for anything to which I'm ever invited. I seem to have an uncanny knack for either buying all the wrong clothes or not getting asked to any of the right affairs.

Can you use a popular book to explore interfaces between science, citizen action, public health, and the US Legal system? The Science in the Courtroom makes it possible; Interested in integers? Fascinated by fractals? Consult MIT's OpenCourseWare Math website; Folger Digital Texts visitors will find a source code that allows new noncommercial Shakespeare projects and apps; The Yale Writing Center Advice for Students contains areas that include "What Good Writers Know" and "Model Papers from the Disciplines."

Julia Sneden writes: I was at the checkout counter of a local supermarket last Saturday, watching as a pleasant woman rang up my groceries. In the brief pause as I wrote my check, the cashier turned to the youngster who was bagging the groceries. "Hey, do you know if the library is open today?" she asked. "Nah," the bagger replied scornfully. "I don’t do libraries. I can Google anything I need to know."

Traditional urban design tends to separate living spaces and commercial spaces into separate zones, which results in large distances between homes, markets, schools, and other urban spaces. Some urban designers have created housing and neighborhoods with on-site child-care and elder-care facilities, shops for basic everyday needs, and often primary-care medical facilities. "When we consider gender while designing communities, outcomes simply improve."

Ellen Leopold writes: It's easy to forget that women’s writing about breast cancer is of relatively recent vintage. The first women to portray the patient's perspective, to write about their own experience, were established writers and public figures before they took up the disease, with credentials persuasive enough to overcome their publishers' reluctance. Today's widespread use of breast-conserving surgery, for example, is at least partially attributable to the refusal by some of them to undergo radical mastectomies.

Thousands of people joined the farmers, ranchers, and tribal leaders of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance for a ceremonial procession along the National Mall to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. The procession was the largest event yet of the five-day Reject and Protect encampment. "Today, boots and moccasins showed President Obama an unlikely alliance has his back to reject Keystone XL to protect our land and water," said Jane Kleeb, Executive Director of Bold Nebraska.