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Havana--At a dingy former Woolworth's here, the fluorescent lights bathe the store's pink walls and thinly stocked shelves in a dim, artificial glow. Still a variety store, though owned by the Cuban state, it sells a hodge-podge of items, including beer and pastries, motorcycle helmets and baseball jerseys, plastic utensils and used clothing. A wall placard lauds the recent 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Customers amble about, although few find anything to buy, the pastries aside.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begins a two-day visit to Mexico--her first as the top U.S. diplomat--she will emphasize the "complexity and range" of relations and not just headline-grabbing drug violence, a senior State Department official says.

First ladies are always the subject of fascination. Their experiences often illustrate the evolving roles of women in our society, and they are usually an essential part of the governing team at the White House. Most first ladies have taken on special projects that reflect their core values, such as highway beautification for Lady Bird Johnson and the promotion of reading for Laura Bush. Michelle Obama is emulating her predecessors, with a difference. Her signature initiative--improving the lives of military families--has become a personal mission and an emotional cause.

If you're thinking about going into teaching, take heed of this message from Katherine Merseth, a senior lecturer and director of the teacher education program at Harvard University: "The dirty little secret about schools of education is that they have been the cash cows of universities for many, many years, and it's time to say, 'Show us what you can do, or get out of the business.'"

Are Peter Rabbit, Mother Goose, and Snow White giving our children lead poisoning? Not likely, but a new federal law aimed at protecting children from brain-damaging lead in toys, jewelry, and other products is causing problems in libraries, consignment shops, and used-book stores. The law makes it illegal to sell children's merchandise that has more than 600 parts per million of lead by weight, a level that will drop to 300 parts per million in August. It turns out that children's books printed before 1985 might have been printed with lead-based ink.

President Obama became Professor Obama at his prime-time news conference last night.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates invited freshman members of Congress over to the Pentagon for a meeting. At one point during the visit, a congressman wondered aloud whether it was possible that the Pentagon was so focused on two counterinsurgency wars that it wasn't preparing for more conventional battles.

With 401(k) accounts being a bit of a sore spot these days, this might not seem like a good time to consider a prescription drug program that takes its inspiration from a successful 401(k) participation strategy. But it turns out that in some ways, encouraging people to invest regularly in a 401(k) is not unlike encouraging people to stick to a regular medication regimen. ...

Two ongoing prostate screening studies, one in the United States and the other in Europe, provide an early peek at mortality information. The studies, discussed in the just released issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, have caused a storm of confusion, since they seem to conflict. Actually, the studies are complementary, both make a lot of sense, and they are certain to influence medical practice even before they are completed.

Just one day after the Treasury Department's announcement that the government will work with private investors to buy up to $1 trillion in toxic assets from banks, Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared before a key congressional committee today to make another request: that his authority be expanded to seize not only troubled banks but other financial institutions, as well.

President Obama likes to tease Larry Summers as a "propeller head" and a "numbers guy," shorthand for a policy wonk who relishes the kind of esoteric arguments that everyday people might find boring and incomprehensible. But Summers doesn't seem to mind. In fact, the former Harvard president takes the joking with good cheer, his White House associates say, because he is so pleased to be back in power at a historic time.

A bill that would create a task force to study the impact of cellphone cameras and video-recording devices in Connecticut classrooms has sparked a debate between educators who say the captured content can be harmful to their careers and those who say that restricting what images students can document might lead to battles over free speech.

Here are five things you should know about your kids and milk:

After days of speculation, the Treasury Department unveiled the details this morning of its plan to buy up to $1 trillion in toxic assets from banks with the help of private investors. The plan is meant to be a kind of happy medium between waiting for banks to fix the problem themselves and taking full ownership of the assets. Even so, there are still risks for the government, which will necessarily share in any profits--or losses--on the investments.

Call it Bonusgate, the burgeoning scandal surrounding $165 million in newly cut checks to employees of global insurance and financial services giant AIG, which is blamed for triggering one of the biggest financial crises in history.

House Democrats and Republicans today lobbed some of their most caustic criticisms at one another since Barack Obama became president--but they did manage to rally around their shared outrage over American International Group's millions in bonus payments long enough to pass a bill with bipartisan support that will "claw back" those bonuses through taxes.

Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Turkey--his first as president to a majority Muslim nation--is expected to touch heavily on themes of partnership with the NATO ally and like-minded views on key security issues rather than the disagreements that plagued U.S.-Turkish relations during the Bush administration.

If you're unable--or simply unwilling--to pay thousands of dollars a year for membership in the new exercise studio started by Gwyneth Paltrow and her personal trainer, never fear. You don't need to be cashed up to get a good workout. In fact, you don't need to join a gym at all. We asked four fitness pros for their advice on putting together a home gym for $100 or less. Here's what they said.

Duke University is almost synonymous with great basketball. It has had one of the best basketball programs in the country for more than three decades, winning three national championships and appearing in 10 Final Fours since the NCAA tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Shirwa Ahmed, a Somali-American from Minneapolis, earned the dubious distinction of being the first known U.S. citizen to become a suicide bomber. "It appears he was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota," FBI chief Robert Mueller said recently, adding that the FBI was on the lookout for a handful of other young, male Somali-Americans who had gone missing. Ahmed blew himself up last fall, killing about 30 other people in a suicide truck bombing outside Mogadishu, Somalia.

Parents could soon be using their iPhones to monitor a child's blood glucose levels throughout the day, whether that child is at school or at the beach. Of course, there are already dozens of iPhone apps available for tracking exercise, diet, and blood pressure--things where you type in the information yourself. But this new tool, unveiled yesterday by LifeScan Inc. of Milpitas, Calif., would be the first to monitor health information remotely, then share it with family members or doctors.

Every March, college basketball fans from across the country fill out brackets for the NCAA men's national championship tournament. Often forgotten amid the craziness and excitement of the month is the simple fact that the players competing in the tournament are students, too.

John Thompson Jr., now a radio analyst with ESPN 980 in Washington, coached the Georgetown Hoyas to the 1984 National Championship. His son, John Thompson III, is the current coach of the Hoyas.

Every weekday, President Obama sits behind his big desk in the Oval Office or settles into a comfortable chair in his East Wing residence and opens a purple folder containing some very important material--10 letters from the outside world. The correspondence is chosen by his staff as a sampling of the 40,000 letters he gets every day. The letters are selected to give him an idea of the public's cares, concerns, suggestions, and critiques of how he's doing.

Al Qaeda has increased its influence dramatically across northern and eastern Africa over the past three years, according to Gen. William Ward, the head of U.S. Africa Command.

Fertility treatments are an often expensive gamble but one that a growing number of would-be parents are willing to take. In their new book, Budgeting for Infertility, coauthors Evelina Weidman Sterling and Angie Best-Boss provide hopeful moms and dads with a manual for managing the one part of the fertility treatment process they can control: Paying for it. I spoke with Evelina Weidman Sterling, who has a Ph.D. in public health and has conceived two children with assisted reproductive technology, about the book.

Despite President Barack Obama's call for students to spend more time in school, the recession seems to be forcing more districts to go in the opposite direction. Districts in about 17 states already have a four-day week, and similar proposals are being debated in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, and Washington, the Associated Press reports. In Broward County, Fla., for example, district officials are considering a four-day schedule for high schools.

With the $787 billion from the stimulus package beginning to roll out of Washington's coffers, the money is arriving in places like Columbus, Ohio, where it's covering the salaries of 25 police cadets, and Kansas, where it's funding the widening of U.S. 69 outside of Kansas City. But even as economists debate whether the cash injection will kick-start the economy, there's plenty of concern about how much will actually get to its intended destination.