Search results for

Head lice are one of the top reasons that kids miss school, yet there's no single, foolproof remedy. Many parents, and now professional salons, find themselves searching for louse eggs and removing them by hand. These nits are a nuisance, but no reason for kids to stay home, say leading medical experts.

Readers everywhere are rediscovering the work of Brazil's Clarice Lispector. Critic Juan Vidal calls Lispector a singular artist, whose newly collected stories linger in the mind like poetry.

Patti Smith's new memoir is a dreamy, elegiac recollection of loved ones gone too soon, energized by her interests and travels. It jumps in time, from her husband's death in 1994 to Hurricane Sandy.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has announced he will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. Randall Miller, professor of history at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, discusses Specter's decision.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has announced that he is resigning. Spitzer will step down on Monday and hand over the reins of power to Lt. Governor David Paterson. Spitzer had been under intense pressure to resign after federal law enforcement alleged that he had paid large sums of cash to a high-class call girl agency.

Deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has returned to Thailand from 17 months in exile to face corruption charges. He says the allegations are empty.

President-elect Obama is reported to have picked Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan to serve as his education secretary. Duncan, who has run Chicago schools for seven years, is known for his efforts to reform urban public education. An announcement is expected Tuesday.

Many people working at NASA now were inspired by the Apollo missions they saw on TV as kids. What that future holds may indeed depend on how young people now think about going to the moon and beyond.

Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard's latest book, Confronting the Classics, takes a gleefully contrarian approach to marble-bust greats like Homer and Thucydides. Reviewer Annalisa Quinn says the work "expertly straddles the line between scholarly and accessible."

The knighthood of Fred Goodwin, the ex-chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has been revoked. He led the bank to near-collapse in 2008, and his massive pension generated public outcry. Now, though, some people say the loss of his title is an attack on business.