I continue a series on the "trump promotion." Defenders are apt to dismiss their chances of winning extra tricks in trumps -- a suit declarer has claimed as his own -- but they may have no other chance to beat the contract.

Dear Readers: With the holidays here, it's time to reprint my mother's delicious family recipe for CORNBREAD DRESSING.

DEAR AMY: I am a young woman and a single mom. My daughter is almost 3 years old and is starting to understand what a family is. She knows a "mama," a "dada" and a "baby" make a family.

Excerpted from "Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present" by Hank Stuever. © 2009, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Cheating scenario, 1989: There were errant signs. Like the times you phoned the office and it rang and rang ("I was in the conference room," he said), like the matchbooks from places with names like the Candlelight Inn, where you'd never been. There were always plausible explanations. Work lunches!...

A GOOD FALL Stories By Ha Jin Pantheon. 240 pp. $24.95

Apparently, Tareq Salahi's watch can't do the time.

If your personal finances don't allow for much more than a wreath and a tree this holiday season, not to worry: The du Ponts have you covered.

NEW YORK -- A new prize recognizing artists age 35 and under would provide the winner with $100,000 and help from mentors such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, the prize's creator announced on Tuesday.

Getting there The Brandywine Valley, in and around Wilmington, Del., and Chadds Ford, Pa., is about 110 miles north of Washington off Interstate 95.

LA'S ORCHESTRA SAVES THE WORLD By Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon. 294 pp. $23.95 According to George Bernard Shaw, "Hell is full of musical amateurs," but Alexander McCall Smith's new book defies that assessment. One of the most popular writers of our time, McCall Smith has seen his books transl...

Books we missed, books we raved about, and books that have been revived in print.

NEW YORK -- Bryant Gumbel shocked a television audience with the news that he's recovering from cancer surgery and treatment.

Dear Miss Manners: My partner and I are having a disagreement over the proper etiquette concerning holiday cards. I have always included a very short, handwritten note in each holiday card, including the recipient's name and that of their family members, as an addition to the greeting printed on the...

Dear Carolyn: Is it ever appropriate to date a friend's ex? I have a longtime friend who has been divorced for the last four years. Her ex has made it clear he would like to see where things can go with me. I am attracted to him, consider him a good friend but don't want to lose my close friendship...

NEW YORK -- The publisher of President Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" has stepped down.

LONDON -- Record sale prices for a Raphael drawing and a Rembrandt portrait helped Christie's International in London raise the highest total for an auction of Old Masters -- even as other works struggled to attract bids.

"As the World Turns," the daytime soap that introduced us to Meg Ryan, James Earl Jones, Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei, has been canceled after 54 years. CBS announced Tuesday that it will shut down the daytime drama.

Veronica's life gets worse every week on "Mercy" (NBC at 8), as she seeks help for post-traumatic stress disorder and deals with her imploding marriage and ill father.

Take the engineering mystique of Google, add the prestige of The Washington Post and New York Times, throw in the spice of secret meetings, and what have you got?

Of the hundreds of bands vying for attention at October's CMJ Music Marathon in New York, Fanfarlo and Freelance Whales maintained a buzz and rose above the din. Both create stately sounds that draw heavily on chamber pop and go beyond indie rock's usual guitar/bass/drums setup by using harmonium,...

Laurence O'Dwyer dodders so convincingly as Henry, the ancient itinerant actor in "The Fantasticks," that audiences worry about him. Between laughs, that is.

Imagine your young ones gathered before a luxuriously decorated fireplace, quietly listening to readings of "The Nutcracker" and "The Night Before Christmas." A fantasy? Only if they're too hepped up on hot chocolate and a "Nutcracker"-worthy spread of rainbow-hued candy canes to sit still. It's all...

"Fish need clean water," said Leslie Argueta, 10, a fifth-grader at Forest Knolls Elementary School in Silver Spring. "We learn how to help them grow from little tiny eggs to big fish." Leslie and her 25 classmates will then put the fully grown fish into a river.

Those Roosevelt scalawags are at it again. Kermit, Ethel and Archie -- endearingly obstreperous scions of America's 26th president -- unleashed all sorts of havoc in "Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major," a children's musical that frolicked into the Kennedy Center Family Theater three...

-- How much would you pay for a trip into space? A lot of people are wondering that after the company Virgin Galactic unveiled the first-ever commercial passenger spaceship on Monday.

To set up a Trout in the Classroom program at your school in the Washington area, have an adult go to http://www.troutintheclassroom.org for more information. Or a teacher or other adult can call Jim Greene at 301-652-3848 or e-mail him at jgreene@waterwisp.com . Trout Unlimited also publishes a fun...

Of the hundreds of bands vying for attention at October's CMJ Music Marathon in New York, Fanfarlo and Freelance Whales maintained a buzz and rose above the din. Both create stately sounds that draw heavily on chamber pop and go beyond indie rock's usual guitar/bass/drums setup by using harmonium,...