Shoot the Piano Player
It seemed almost too good to be true, and in the end it was. iTunes busts open a breathtaking example of musical plagiarism.

Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks and Bias
Plastic Nazi zombie women of the Delta Zeta national chapter seek to rid Indiana sorority of real girls. This movie writes itself. I mean, for crissakes, the heartless national VP of the sorority is actually named "Kathi Heatherly."

Making the Return Trip: Elderly Head Back North
For the first time since the Depression, more Americans ages 75 and older have been leaving the South than moving there, according to a New York Times analysis of Census Bureau data.

Who Do You Think We Are?
The General Social Survey is a wonder of the social sciences. After the United States census, it is the most frequently analyzed data source in its field. Here are some of the latest results.

American Liberty at the Precipice
When the Founding Fathers put habeas corpus in Article I of the Constitution, they were underscoring the vital importance to a democracy of allowing prisoners to challenge their confinement in a court of law. Much has changed since Sept. 11, but the bedrock principles of American freedom must remain.

Maryland to Unveil the Page That Began a New Chapter
It was a speech so moving the crowd wept. It was a speech so personally important George Washington's hand shook as he read it until he had to hold the paper still with both hands.

Research Shines Some Light On Mysteries of Antarctica
Two new research efforts are producing new insights into the systems that control and change Antarctica, as well into the worrisome limits to our knowledge about the suddenly crucial continent.

Wind vs. Coal: False Choices in the Battle to Resolve Our Energy Crisis
If you want to know what we can do to resolve our energy crisis, look no further than West Virginia. Understanding a recent battle over wind development in coal country could help us all.

The Best Free Software
Most software is expensive and bloated. Yet free software typically does one task and does it with precision and elegance. Among the thousands of free apps available on the Web, how do you find the best, most reliable ones for your needs?

A Cool $25 Million for a Climate Backup Plan
As far-fetched as it seems today, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could turn out to be a lot more practical than the alternative: persuading six billion people to stop putting it there.

Lincoln Online
Insight into our greatest president is possible through the nearly 1,000 messages he sent via the new telegraph technology.

Intel Prototype May Herald a New Age of Processing
Intel will demonstrate on Monday an experimental computer chip with 80 separate processing engines that matches the performance speed of the world’s fastest supercomputer of just a decade ago.

U.S. Seeks Partnership With Brazil on Ethanol
The United States and Brazil, the two largest biofuel producers in the world, are meeting this week to discuss a new energy partnership that they hope will encourage ethanol use throughout Latin America.

Far Away, Super Bowl’s Losers Will Be Champs
In some parts of the world, the Seattle Seahawks are the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Buffalo Bills are the last great football dynasty and Tom Brady is some frustrated quarterback from New England who can never win it all.

Thinks Big About the Little Guy
Steve Bigari created a system to help resolve the problems of the working poor who staffed his restaurants by pulling together or creating an array of services. The goal, he said, was to keep his employees on the job and focused on customers. Now he is trying to persuade others to offer this kind of help to their workers, not as an act of kindness or charity but as a way to reduce employee turnover and increase profit.

Lawmakers on Hill Seek Consensus on Warming
As 600 scientists meet this week in Paris to finalize the first worldwide assessment in six years of the evidence on global warming, lawmakers on Capitol Hill searched for a political consensus yesterday on how to address climate change.

Ancient Settlement Is Unearthed Near Stonehenge
New excavations near the mysterious circle at Stonehenge in southern England have uncovered dozens of homes where hundreds of people lived -- at roughly the same time that the giant stone slabs were being erected 4,600 years ago.

The Saga Of the Lost Space Tapes
Millions of television viewers around the world the first moon landing images and were amazed, even mesmerized. What they didn't know was that the Apollo 11 camera had actually sent back video far crisper and more dramatic -- spectacular images that, remarkably, only a handful of people have ever seen.

History’s Tangled Threads
The Underground Railroad was the nation’s first great movement of mass civil disobedience after the American Revolution, engaging thousands of citizens in the active subversion of federal law, as well as the first mass movement that asserted the principle of personal responsibility for others’ human rights.

Florida Shifting to Voting System With Paper Trail
Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans on Thursday to abandon the touch-screen voting machines that many of Florida’s counties installed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The state will instead adopt a system of casting paper ballots counted by scanning machines in time for the 2008 presidential election. Voting experts said Florida’s move, coupled with new federal voting legislation expected to pass this year, could be the death knell for the paperless electronic touch-screen machines.

Molly Ivins, Columnist, Dies at 62
Molly Ivins, the newspaper columnist who delighted in skewering politicians and interpreting, and mocking, her Texas culture, died yesterday in Austin. One of America's true straight shooters is gone. Farewell, Molly. bp