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After 1958 official Catholics began ordaining their own bishops without Vatican approval. Vatican loyalists countered by holding underground services of their own, starting a bitter rivalry between the two factions. One of the prickliest issues is whether Beijing or the pope has ultimate authority to ordain bishops, control finances, allow abortions and decide other key church matters. Relations between China and the Vatican hit a low point last year when the Holy See canonized dozens of Chinese saints on Oct....

The committee’s recommendation isn’t binding–FDA Commissioner David Kessler has until early January to take official action–but it brings a long-simmering debate to a head. Silicone implants had already been on the market for more than a decade by 1976, when the FDA started regulating medical devices. Like hundreds of other products, they were automatically approved, with the understanding that manufacturers would have to document their safety later. No one denies that breast implants can cause trouble....

Even in the Catholic church, which has long forbidden condoms as a means of birth control, leaders have become to endorse them in very particular circumstances. Yet, others within the church still insist condoms promote sexuality out of the bonds of marriage and outright condemn them. But views are shifting. In 2010, Reverend Federico Lombardi, speaking on behalf of Pope Benedict, stated that the use of condoms by people with HIV could be “the first step of responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk to the life of the person with whom there are relations… whether it’s a man, a woman or a transsexual....

Ken Evans, technology director for Canada-based aluminum giant Alcan, read about the Bangladeshis’ plight 10 years ago in an Indian news-paper and started noodling. The answer he came up with was an exceedingly simple system: two buckets connected by a hose. The red bucket is filled with granules of alumina, an aluminum oxide. When arsenic-laced water is poured in, the alumina molecules bond with the arsenic, removing the poison. The purified water then flows into the green bucket, ready to drink....

She doesn’t even have children yet, but together we wondered if mine would be the last generation to experience the joy of riding a chairlift with grandchildren and taking in their huge smiles in awe of the mountains. We’re already seeing 30 fewer days of winter here at 8,000 feet, and we know it’s only going to get worse. Of course, a lot more is at stake than my theoretical great grandchildren’s ability to ski, but this question hit me hard....

...and so on. This isn't (entirely) meant to point and laugh at angry Philly sports fans. No, it's also a teaching moment. Because, you see, Pronger is doing the Flyers a solid by not retiring. If he were to make it official -- and make no mistake, aftereffects from a stick to the eye have all but ended his career -- the team would have to carry his contract against the cap until it expires in 2017....

At recent meetings of researchers and health officials, Martin has reported finding foamy virus in a number of patients with CFS, a persistent, debilitating, flulike affliction that has swept the world during the past decade. He also implicated the virus in a recent spate of severe, unexplained neurological illnesses. Few experts share Martin’s belief that he’s looking at a foamy virus. But four separate research teams are now finding evidence of an unusual viral infection among CFS patients, and there’s a growing sense that they may be bearing down on the same suspect....

It’s hard to imagine Ross Perot as the answer to anyone’s prayer. But after watching Perot and the press bounce off each other for the past six months, I am convinced theirs is a match made in heaven. Ever since 1972, when Richard Nixon temporarily hoodwinked the political reporters and their bosses, the fourth estate has been searching for a nut it could keep out of the White House. Vindication is sweet, even if it takes two decades....

Having decided a few years back that she missed doing weekly television–and reluctant to return in some “Grandma Goes to College” sitcom dreck–Burnett fixed upon the notion of a comedic anthology. But when she pitched her idea to the networks, she recalls, “eyes glazed over. In network circles, anthology is referred to as the “A-word’. " Then last year Disney chairman Michael Eisner called her with a spookily prescient proposal: would Carol Burnett be interested in starring in a comedic version of, uh huh, “The Loretta Young Show”?...

The deal, says BMW spokesman Hubert Bergmann, is better than the company could have gotten anywhere else in Europe. And it’s clearly good for Leipzig and surrounding towns, which stand to gain some 11,000 new jobs when the plant opens in 2005. Perhaps most important, it’s a sign of good news for eastern Germany as a whole. The former German Democratic Republic still suffers from the legacy of half a century of communist mismanagement, despite half a trillion euros in reconstruction subsidies....

Educated: Williams College, University of Texas (Ph.D.), Harvard Law Profile: Ex-drug czar, ex-education secretary; epitome of beefy chic; hero of intellectual Republicans, but decided against running for president; author of “The Book of Virtues,” which has, he says, sold 1.8 million copies so far; crusader against trashy culture and for high academic standards. BENNETT: I’m worried because of the barbarism that the culture can lead to. If you look at some rap videos, they’re barbarous–like portraying the slaying of Nicole Simpsons....

In 1917 we were sent to France. We were camped out in one of Napoleon’s old forts in Redon. It wasn’t so bad, since the climate in France was much better than in Texas. The most excitement I had was on the trip over. When I was on the ship and was first entering the war zone, it got pretty exciting. I used to stand on deck and watch the torpedo boats hunt down submarines, which were new to us....

Whatever qualms Morin may have been keeping to himself, he overcame them last Saturday. As scripted, he passed through the station’s air lock and slipped his feet into special restraints on the tip of the station’s robotic arm. Dangling 250 miles above Earth, he took a deep breath and set to work–attaching instruments, connecting power cables, tightening bolts–as the arm pulled him from one end of the station to the other....

As he pondered what to do or say about Michael, young Joe was burdened by problems of his own. His ex-wife, Sheila, had just published a book that described Joe as a bully who had pressured her for an annulment so he could marry his office scheduler. In the end, Joe chose to muddle through. At a Democratic state convention earlier this month, he stammered that he was sorry. He had rejected remarks prepared by his advisers and seemed to draw little inspiration from the rhetorical flourishes of his forebears....

Funny as ““The Daytrippers’’ is–especially when the clan’s pursuit of the elusive Louis leads them into the company of families even loopier than their own–the movie’s tone is ultimately more bittersweet than knee-slapping. Mottola knows all too well the maddeningly regressive dynamics of a family trapped too long in its own company. The characters may start as cartoons, but by the end our judgments about everyone have been revised and deepened....

MEACHAM: Do you regret that the president was unable to build the kind of international coalition you had in 1990-91? BUSH: It’s a very different problem he faces, and my coalition-building was far easier because you could see the troops from Iraq in Kuwait. Even then, though, there was a lot of opposition. I was reminded by one of my top people the other day that the French were very difficult to get onboard....

But when Justice turned over that report to congressional investigators in 1995, page 49 was missing. “It appears that the page on which mention is made of a shell casing for military CS round… was not produced to Congress,” a Justice Department lawyer explained in a recent memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. Congressional investigators want to know what happened to the page. Was it accidentally lost in some cardboard box? Or did someone purposely remove it?...