The corner of McGuinness and Kent, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has undergone a minor face-lift in the seven years since my aunt Liz was struck and killed there. The Budget Rental Center that occupied the east corner is now an Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and there’s a new BP service station across the street from it, in what used to be a vacant lot. You can no longer park on the east side of McGuinness, because the gas station’s driveway flows out into the street there. Seven years ago, before the gas station, a row of parked trucks lined the curb, and it is for that reason that the driver of the Budget rental van, turning left onto Kent, was unable to see Liz as she rode her bike from the sidewalk to the street...

An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us -- energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US right now...

“Bully,” Lee Hirsch’s moving and troubling documentary about the misery some children inflict upon others, arrives at a moment when bullying, long tolerated as a fact of life, is being redefined as a social problem. “Just kids being kids” can no longer be an acceptable response to the kind of sustained physical and emotional abuse that damages the lives of young people whose only sin is appearing weak or weird to their peers...

Earl Scruggs died yesterday morning, March 28, 2012. The bluegrass and wider music worlds mourn and celebrate him. Be sure to listen to the example of his music offered immediately after the last paragraph of this essay. —Steve Martin

Some nights he had the stars of North Carolina shooting from his fingertips. Before him, no one had ever played the banjo like he did. After him, everyone played the banjo like he did, or at least tried. In 1945, when he first stood on the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and played banjo the way no one had ever heard before, the audience responded with shouts, whoops, and ovations. He performed tunes he wrote as well as songs they knew, with clarity and speed like no one could imagine, except him. When the singer came to the end of a phrase, he filled the theatre with sparkling runs of notes that became a signature for all bluegrass music since. He wore a suit and Stetson hat, and when he played he smiled at the audience like what he was doing was effortless. There aren’t many earthquakes in Tennessee, but that night there was...

Before he temporarily stepped down from his position last week as chief of the Sanford, Fla., police department, Bill Lee Jr., gave an explanation of his decision not to arrest George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. Lee said he had no reason to doubt Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. Though Lee is no longer in the spotlight, his words linger for at least one compelling reason: his explanation bears an eerie resemblance to cases brought under the Fugitive Slave Law during the Antebellum period. Today, a legal standard that allowed the police chief to take Zimmerman at his word recalls the dark past of slave-owners claiming their property. The writings of Martin Delany, the African American political philosopher and activist, shed light on the uncanny resemblance...

A Tibetan exile who set himself on fire in Delhi earlier this week has died, as Indian police and paramilitaries launch a security crackdown to prevent further protests or self-immolations during the visit of the Chinese premier, Hu Jintao.

Jamphel Yeshi, 27, suffered 90% burns after dousing himself with petrol during a protest on Monday, and authorities fear that more Tibetans will follow suit to protest at Chinese policies in their homeland. About 30 Tibetans have died and another dozen have been seriously injured in the past 13 months in similar protests, mainly inside China...

Iran expects to reopen talks with world powers that could defuse mounting tensions over its disputed nuclear program on April 13, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday.

Turkey has offered to host the talks and the location will be decided in the next few days, Salehi said, after greeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on his arrival in Tehran.

The major nations are keen to get Iran to enter talks on curbing its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects is aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability but Tehran says is peaceful...

Concerns about disloyal Afghan security forces are deepening after an Afghan soldier and local police officer yesterday killed three members of the international coalition, known as ISAF, that is seeking to build up the Afghan security forces.

The head of ISAF sought to ease pessimism about the ability of Afghan forces to take over from coalition troops as they prepare to withdraw by 2014, saying that while such attacks are upsetting, they are typical in a conflict like this and do not indicate failure...

Think texting and walking is no problem? Well, maybe you should talk to Bonnie Miller, a Michigan woman who recently fell off a pier while texting and walking at the same time.

"I can't let pride get in my way of warning other people to not drive and text or walk and text. It's quite dangerous," Bonnie Miller told ABC 57, a local television station in South Bend, Ind...

Parlez-vous Python? What about Rails, or JavaScript? Foreign languages tend to wax and wane in popularity — but the language du jour is computer code.

The market for Web sites, night classes, online lectures and games that offer crash courses in programming and Web site construction is booming. Those jumping on board say they are preparing for a future in which the Internet is the foundation for entertainment, education and nearly everything else. Knowing how the digital pieces fit together, they say, will be crucial to ensuring that they are not left in the dark ages...