GREENSBORO, N.C. — It’s come to this: in a trial steeped in salacious private revelations , jurors now even know how long Rielle Hunter’s menstrual cycles typically lasted. That would be four to five days, in case you’re wondering. This last tidbit of information was read to a federal jury here Wednesday by Abbe Lowell, the lead defense attorney for former senator John Edwards, who is accused of violating campaign finance laws by allegedly failing to report $1 million spent to cover up his affair with Hunter during the 2008 presidential campaign. Read full article > >

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John Edwards’s defense rests following medical details about Rielle Hunter

The prosecution has rested in a case that should never have been brought: the ghastly soap opera better known as the criminal trial of John Edwards . The testimony has been salacious, mesmerizing and revolting. Edwards has been proved to be what everyone already knew beyond a reasonable doubt: an egocentric cad . How big a cad? His daughter is set to testify about his love for her late mother. Read full article > >

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Is John Edwards a criminal?

NEW YORK — Add ABC to the list of broadcast networks loading up on comedy next season. In addition to its successful Wednesday comedy block, the network will launch another block on Tuesdays and will resurrect its Friday family comedy block, last seen during ABC’s “TGIF” days. Read full article > >

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ABC loads fall schedule with comedies

Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Michael Anthony is the chef-partner at New York City's Gramercy Tavern . Last week, he received the James Beard Award for Best Chef NYC – but he almost didn't live to see that day. In late October of last year, I underwent open heart surgery. There was no warning, no history of disease, no serious abuse that led the inner lining of my ascending aorta to tear. Sometimes things just break. While attending a signing for the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook , I began experiencing chest pain. As I think anyone else my age (early 40s) would feel in that moment, I was in complete disbelief. I was both embarrassed that I might pass out and concerned that whatever I was experiencing might keep me from celebrating my colleagues’ big moment. After a quick exit, I returned to Gramercy Tavern. I knew something was seriously wrong. I was rushed to Beth Israel Hospital. Within a few hours of arriving, it was determined that I needed emergency open heart surgery. There was very little time to spend with my wife, no chance to see my children and no second option. Strange how a lifetime is ultimately translated into only minutes – clarified, distilled, precise and yet unfair. There was just enough time to gather what was wrong with my heart and who was sent to fix it: Dr. Charles Geller . In times like this we can feel thankful for competent, well-trained, extremely disciplined professionals like him. Yet what I was most struck with was his warm and confident smile. Maybe because I was introduced to him while lying on my back, it seemed clear by his build that Dr. Geller was no stranger to the pleasures of the table. He asked me about my profession and seemed to shudder with excitement when I told him about being a chef. He allowed me, despite the intensity of the moment, to believe that he was on my side. He explained calmly what we were about to experience together. In an instant, I became indebted to him forever. I woke up a day later with many questions swirling through my head. The immediacy of the surgery hadn’t allowed me to contemplate what this might mean for my career as a chef. There had been more pressing issues at hand. Now that I had made it through and was starting to wrap my head around what happened, I wondered if my body, the body that had just betrayed me, would recover enough to allow me to return to the kitchen. I also wondered why this had happened to me. Why now? I have always felt proud of my diet and the health-conscious cooking that we serve at the restaurant. I lead a balanced lifestyle, but wondered if this condition was at all related to my being a chef. While some of my larger questions have remained unanswered, I have since been told by a number of doctors that it does not seem likely that my diet or lifestyle had much of an effect on my condition. What I did learn from this experience was what I took away from the hospital staff, who left me feeling the same as Dr. Geller did, which was deeply cared for. The optimism and warmth I received from them was overwhelming and powerful. Of course, these folks were carefully trained to perform the technical aspects of their jobs, but what stood out to me was how they listened to me and responded with thoughtful and gracious gestures. They rose above the call of duty to be encouraging, which stiffened my resolve to bounce back. When I returned home from the hospital, I didn’t know where to start. Would I have a different outlook on life? On cooking? How would this experience change me? Eventually, I realized that at the core of this powerful exchange was hospitality – the very same force that distinguishes what we do every day at Gramercy Tavern. It is all of the caring things the staff did to make me feel they were genuinely on my side that I will remember long after the memory of the names of the drugs and the details of my surgery fade. After my surgery and homecoming, the gestures of encouragement poured in: get well cards, concerned emails, thoughtfully chosen books and poems, inspirational movies and carefully packed handmade food. I appreciated everyone who reached out during this time, but it dawned on me that the cooks had a special ability to connect and communicate by the food they shared . Some simply nourished and others dazzled but everyone told a story. With the help of these restaurant folk and their deliveries, I eased my way back in to being myself again by tasting each expression: barley and basil brought solidarity in tough times, kale and beet salad reconnected me with the garden, chicken fricassee invoked nostalgia, parsnip soup acted like a familiar handshake, poached lemon char sparked dreams, chocolate chip cookies felt just like a pat on the back. Each bite made me feel a profound sense of thanks to those who lent a hand or a meal when I needed it most. Through the careful choices and deliberate styles, informal gestures and intricate work, whether immediately consumed or painstakingly preserved, we communicate so much with those who are at the receiving end of a thoughtful meal. Their gestures pushed me to develop enough strength to return to the kitchen to reenter this dialogue, and this generosity of spirit made me feel unbelievably proud to belong to the restaurant industry. While we work day in and day out to provide for our guests, my experience reminded me why taking care of each other comes first. Previously – Serving up gratitude in troubled times What have food-based gestures of kindness in troubled times mean to you? We'd love to hear your story in the comments below.

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Chefs with Issues: Food for the heart

When I was a kid, the future promised all kinds of whiz-bang technologies. Jet boots. Robot maids, like on “The Jetsons.” And, most exciting for a 12-year-old with a subscription to Gourmet magazine, “smart” refrigerators that performed tricks like alerting you to eat that lettuce in the back of the produce drawer before it spoiled and went to waste. Read full article > >

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Saving food, one sheet of paper at a time

As we stand in his colorful York Castle shop, with muted gray light drifting through the front windows on this overcast day in Rockville, Calver “Cal” Headley asks me if I can taste the soursop in his ice cream, and I confess that I can’t. His disappointment fills the air as thickly as the aroma of the nearby sugar cones. He insists that I give it another try — and offers an in-store demonstration. Read full article > >

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Jamaican ice cream scoop: It’s fruit-forward

Ellen DeGeneres , the award-winning comedian and talk show host, has been selected by the Kennedy Center to receive this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor . Ellen, as she is known to the millions who watch her syndicated talk show, had this to say about the award. Read full article > >

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Ellen DeGeneres named Mark Twain Prize recipient

NEW YORK — Fox will plant four comedies on Tuesday’s schedule, including one originally developed by NBC for its star Mindy Kaling. Her new show, “The Mindy Project,” will immediately follow “New Girl” — Fox’s most promising launch from last fall. Read full article > >

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TV Column: Fox picks fall trifecta: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato and Mindy Kaling

Another milestone they count down in Times Square, less deliriously, is the moment a company goes public by selling shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Thursday, May 3, at 9:29:50 a.m., it’s the turn of the Carlyle Group , Washington’s semi-mythic private-equity leviathan, the capital’s most fabled generator of cash, conspiracy theories and conspicuous philanthropy. Read full article > >

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David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle Group and Washington philanthropist

The current issue of Newsweek has a photo of President Obama with a rainbow-colored halo superimposed over his head and the title “The First Gay President.” Nonsense. Obama is not the first gay president. He is the first female president. Read full article > >

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Barack Obama, the first female president

The first rule of magazine covers is: Make ’em pay attention. Stop them at the checkout stand, at the mailbox or while walking down the street. Does that image — the half-naked celebrity, the airbrushed model, the outrageous headline — turn heads? Does it make subscribers want to read and non-readers want to buy? Does it make them angry? If so, you’re on the right track. Read full article > >

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Newsweek’s Obama cover: Does controversy sell?

The barrel-roof townhouses of River Park are Campbell’s soup cans, halved the long way, balanced on top of metal cubes two blocks from Southwest Washington’s Waterfront Metro station. They are called “houses” — because people live in them, and really, what else could they be called? — but they are architectural punch lines, visual acid trips, the left-behind parts of the secret UFO that docked down by the waterfront half a century ago and then flew away before anyone caught it on camera. The barrel-roof townhouses of River Park were — Read full article > >

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Southwest waterfront’s River Park community turns 50

Playing the “whatever happened to . . . ?” game with former reality show contestants can have mixed results. So it’s a pleasant surprise when, 10 years down the road, one is pursuing the same passion that drove him to appear on camera in the first place. Read full article > >

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At Cancun Cantina, Josh Gracin tinges his country twang with R&B

GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards takes mincing, careful steps now, not the long strides of the triumphant. He shuffles to the right, but lawyers deep in conversation block the way, somehow not even noticing him. He pads to the left in his sensible, soft-soled shoes but is trapped by red leather chairs and an L-shaped defense table wedged into a tight corner in an even tighter federal courtroom. Read full article > >

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John Edwards endures two-pronged trial, testing his morals and his actions

GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards takes mincing, careful steps now, not the long strides of the triumphant. He shuffles to the right, but lawyers deep in conversation block the way, somehow not even noticing him. He pads to the left in his sensible, soft-soled shoes but is trapped by red leather chairs and an L-shaped defense table wedged into a tight corner in an even tighter federal courtroom. Read full article > >

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John Edwards endures two-pronged trial, testing his morals and his actions