Our nation's core bargain with the middle class is disintegrating. We are into the fifth year of a relatively robust expansion, but millions are worse off. Exposed to greater risks in job security, they feel abandoned, left to fund their own health and retirement programs out of static or falling real incomes.
It doesn't have the glamour of a Sub-Zero refrigerator, but it's hard to imagine life without the vacuum cleaner. The Rodney Dangerfield of home appliances turns 100 in 2007 and has undergone some revolutionary changes that have dramatically improved its efficiency. So if you're still pushing dust around with that ancient Hoover, it may be time for an upgrade.
With home sales plummeting and prices dropping in some areas, sellers who want out need to put the best face possible on their properties. No one knew that better than I when I decided to put my Washington home on the market last summer-right before a 100-year downpour put the backyard under 10 inches of water and flooded the basement.
AP - Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices on Sunday and kidnapped more than two dozen people at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness.
AP - Gunmen attacked the convoy of the Palestinian foreign minister and raided a training base for an elite security forces unit Sunday, stepping up factional violence over a decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to end nine months of Hamas leadership and call early elections.
AP - Instead of enjoying a relaxing day at the international space station, the space shuttle Discovery's seven astronauts prepared Sunday for an unplanned, fourth spacewalk to get a stubborn, half-retracted solar array to fold up.
You are Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. You were chosen over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea's Kim Jong Il and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Congratulations.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Iraq on an unannounced stop in his Middle East tour and pledged his continued support for the new Iraqi government against those who seek to derail it.