The Dodgers scored two runs in the eighth inning to eke out a 2-1 victory against the Phillies after a throwing error by second baseman Chase Utley.

Wild Inning for Phillies as Dodgers Rally to Win

Robin D. G. Kelley’s biography, “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original,” just published by Free Press, is an omnibus of myth-busting.

Misterioso No More: Book Debunks Image of a Jazz Giant

Publishers, booksellers, agents and authors are fretting that a pricing battle between Wal-Mart and Amazon is taking prices for some titles so low that it could damage the industry.

Price War Over Books Worries Industry

Three small California companies are hoping to begin selling obesity drugs that could help treat one of America’s biggest and costliest health problems.

Medicine’s Elusive Goal: A Safe Weight-Loss Drug

Every commuter train that leaves New York City deliberately leaves a minute late, to help the harried.

The Secret New York Minute: Trains Late by Design

Six people were arrested on Friday in what prosecutors called the biggest insider trading scheme ever involving a hedge fund.

Hedge Fund Chief Is Charged With Fraud

Coaches are turning to an alternative form of transportation, both to make a good impression and to increase the territory they can cover.

Helicopter’s Clatter Carries Powerful Recruiting Message

Efforts to stabilize the financial system also set the stage for financial titans to make fortunes in more lucrative areas than lending people money.

Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth

An official said the White House’s policy would use a mix of “incentives and pressure” to end the human rights abuses that have burned Darfur into the American conscience.

Obama Drops Plan to Isolate Sudan Leaders

C. C. Sabathia kept the Angels stuck in their tracks for eight innings in Game 1 of the A.L.C.S.

Small Ball and a Big Lefty Lift Yankees

Pakistan moved troops into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan in a long-anticipated ground offensive against the Qaeda-backed militants in treacherous terrain.

Pakistan Aims Offensive at a Militant Stronghold

Earl Blumenauer, a liberal congressman from Portland, Ore., had faith that President Obama and Democrats in Congress would yield progressive advances. It has been, he says, “a hard landing.”

Frustrated Liberal Lawmaker Balances Beliefs and Politics

American prisons house a growing geriatric population. About 75 prisons have started hospice programs; half use inmate volunteers.

Fellow Inmates Ease Pain of Dying in Jail

What used to be O.K. is not anymore, as the flu has ushered in new standards of etiquette that can be, in turns, mundane, absurd and heartbreaking.

Flu Fears Curb Life’s Rituals

With the economy in tatters, foreign companies are providing alternatives for American workers.

A Lifeline Not Made in the U.S.A.

The House Financial Services Committee’s bill to regulate derivatives is a step in the right direction but has too many exceptions.

Don’t Let Exceptions Kill the Rule

A Times reporter, David Rohde, and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by the Taliban in 2008 and held for seven months in Pakistan. This is the first installment in a five-part series offering his account.

7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity

From health care systems to cellphones, the C.E.O. Steven A. Ballmer wants Microsoft “to invent everything that’s important on the planet.”

Forecast for Microsoft: Partly Cloudy

This year’s National Book Award nominations suggest that the American idea not only translates, it disregards national boundaries.

American Literature: Words Without Borders

Fox baited and the Obama administration bit. If history is any guide, the advantage now goes to the ink-and-pixel army.

The Battle Between the White House and Fox News

From the 1930s to the 1970s, Afghanistan had a semblance of a national government and Kabul was known as “the Paris of Central Asia.”

Remembering Afghanistan’s Golden Age

The thoroughbred breeder and owner Ernie Paragallo faces charges of animal cruelty over allegations of neglect of his horses, who are now being nursed back to health.

New Homes and New Hope for Some Neglected Horses

The Giants’ secondary lacks the fearsome reputation of the team’s defensive line and its linebacker corps, but that is beginning to change.

Top Billing Is Secondary to Giants’ Defensive Backs

Decent oyster sauce can lend a strong, briny taste to almost anything, especially greens like steamed bok choy.

Vegetables Dressed in Chinese Robes

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has received a $5 million gift, to be bestowed over the next decade, to support musical theater productions. The Adrienne Arsht Musical Theater Fund made the gift, which was reported on Friday by The Washington Post; Ms. Arsht is treasurer of the Kennedy Center’s board. Washington-area theaters have been incubators of American musicals for years; a revival of “Ragtime” was a hit at the Kennedy Center this year and is transferring to Broadway, with an official opening scheduled for Nov. 15. The donation comes on the heels of another major gift to a Washington cultural institution; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Thursday that it was donating $10 million for the design and construction of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Gift to Kennedy Center for Musical Theater

Norma Fox Mazer was an American author and teacher, best known for her books for children and young adults. Her novels featured credible young characters confronting difficult situations such as family separation and death.

Norma Fox Mazer, American author and educator (born 1931)

Norma_Fox_Mazer

Victor Mizzy was an American composer for television and movies and musician whose best-known works are the themes to the 1960s television sitcoms Green Acres and The Addams Family. Mizzy also wrote top-20 songs from the 1930s to 1940s.

October 17, 2009

Headlines from October 17, 2009

Wild Inning for Phillies as Dodgers Rally to Win

Misterioso No More: Book Debunks Image of a Jazz Giant

Price War Over Books Worries Industry

Medicine’s Elusive Goal: A Safe Weight-Loss Drug

The Secret New York Minute: Trains Late by Design

Billboard 200

Love Is The Answer

Brand New Eyes

Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel

Dear Agony

Black Gives Way To Blue

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for October 17, 2009