NATION

Fighting Words

Army wives go on the offensive against a think-tank report that they say perpetuates a stereotype

The FBI's Top Gun

Bob Mueller is smart and tough. He has to be to fix a troubled agency

SOCIETY & SCIENCE

Toxic Playgrounds (Environment)

Forts and castles made of arsenic-treated wood last for years, but should kids be playing on them?

BUSINESS

How Jack Fell Down

Inside the collapse of the GE-Honeywell deal--and what it portends for future mergers

Hyundai In High Gear

Once the butt of jokes, the Korean brand is among the hottest on America's highways

THE ARTS

How To Make A Score (The Arts/Cinema)

Brando fights, De Niro stages heists and Norton does rewrites. Hey, no one said a film was easy

The Poet Of Pastry (The Arts/Art)

Wayne Thiebaud offers deep pleasures in the everyday, from pies and cakes to slices of landscape

Rerun Revival (The Arts/Television)

A slew of video and cable options is turning the tube into a pop-culture history classroom

WORLD

The Softer Touch (Letter From Beijing)

How China hopes to seal its bid for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games

Missing Link

How feuds and culture clashes have stymied the U.S.S. Cole investigation

PERSONAL TIME

When Mommy Or Daddy Dates (Personal Time/Your Family)

For a single parent, finding romance the second time around is a tantalizing prospect but a tough proposition

The Artificial Heart, Revisited (Personal Time/Your Health)

The new model is a big improvement over the torture devices of the 1980s, but is it the answer to our prayers?

The Burning (CD-R) Question (Personal Time/Your Technology)

Why is it so hard to cut music CDs on a PC? Plenty of programs claim to do the job. Some of them actually work

In Brief (Personal Time/Your Technology)

GLOBAL BUSINESS

Beating The Mansion Tax

You can avoid capital-gains tax on a pricey home by moving frequently--or by selling some beaten-down stocks

A Side Trip To Portofino (Global Business/Business Class)

If you're going to this year's economic summit, take time to visit Genoa's beautiful neighbor

Revolutionary Shipyard (Global Business/Custom Manufacturing)

A Polish shipbuilder fattens its books by catering to the individual needs of international clients, like U.S.-based forest-products giant Weyerhaeuser

Selling The Sun...And The Wind (Global Business/The Trade in Renewable Energy)

Renewable energy has come of age--but it's mostly foreign companies that are making money on it