Black Friday Sales Suggest A Strong Cyber Monday

Shoppers stormed retail stores this past weekend, and now on Cyber Monday, many are clicking their way to more purchases. “I am definitely a price-based shopper,” said Sarah Kelly, a 28-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who bought a KitchenAid mixer Monday morning as a holiday gift. She also bought shoes, clothes and other presents after waking [...]

Danny Burstein On Living Up To Sondheim’s ‘Follies’

Before he was cast in the Broadway revival of Follies, actor Danny Burstein had never seen Stephen Sondheim’s famous musical, which first hit the Broadway stage in 1971. And he didn’t know much about the show, except that everyone in the theater world seemingly had an opinion about it. “Everyone thought it should be this [...]

Performances: Michelle Williams Teases Out The Lie Of ‘My Week With Marilyn’

As we head into the heaviest-duty part of Oscar bait season, we’re going to look at some of the performances that are getting a lot of attention this year. We begin with Michelle Williams in the Marilyn Monroe tale My Week With Marilyn. Michelle Williams’ performance in My Week With Marilyn is both the best [...]

To Get Kids Vaccinated, Some Pediatricians OK With Delays

Anxious parents sometimes ask the pediatrician if they can postpone vaccines for young children. And a new survey suggests quite a few doctors go along with the requests, despite standing recommendations they stick to a strict schedule. In a survey of more than 200 pediatricians in Washington state, 61 percent of the doctors said they [...]

Soybeans May Have Fed Asia Earlier Than Thought

It’s funny how the birthplace of one little bean can stir up a world of passions. But when it’s the soybean, maybe it’s not such a shocker. Soy plays an outsized role in human history, serving as the primary source of protein in Asia for millennia. That can slip by people in the United States, [...]

Feds Seize 150 Websites In Counterfeit Crackdown

Federal authorities announced Monday that they have seized the domain names of 150 websites accused of selling counterfeit or pirated merchandise. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI coordinated the effort for “Cyber Monday,” the day that for many shoppers kicks off the online holiday shopping season. Undercover agents had been buying [...]

Reports: Rep. Barney Frank Won’t Be Running For Re-Election

WBUR in Boston reports it has confirmed that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will not seek re-election in 2012. CNN says that “Frank, a 16-term Democrat, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012, according to a statement from [his] office.” Back in February, Frank announced he would run again in 2012, [...]

Sherlockian Mysteries That Will Keep You Tied Up

“The game’s afoot, Watson!” Indeed, for Sherlockians, 2011 certainly feels like a year when the literary “game” of exploring the genesis and extending the limits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 56 short stories and four novels about Holmes and Watson has grown more frenetic. (This winter sees the return of two acclaimed incarnations of Holmes [...]

Holiday Sales Have Strong Start, Will The Trend Continue?

The news that the holiday shopping season got a strong start on its unofficial launch day — Black Friday — has helped push stock index futures up sharply this morning. After all, if American consumers are indeed feeling good this holiday season, that would be very welcome news for an economy still struggling to produce [...]

Dusting Off A Gritty, Glamorous California Classic

Hector Tobar is a novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. People think of Los Angeles as a city without a past. But as a native Angeleno, I stumble upon the relics of its history all the time: the rails of our long-ago vanished street cars embedded in the asphalt, for example, and the mostly vacant towers [...]