The discussion everywhere these days is about Iran’s strength. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, describes Iran as “ the greatest threat that the world faces over the next decade .” He and others are impressed by Iran’s recent declarations about its nuclear capacities and its missile tests. Newt Gingrich has compared the Iranian challenge to the rise of Hitler’s Germany. More measured commentators also see Iran’s rising influence and power across the Middle East. Read full article > >

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Iran’s growing state of desperation

As “The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011” at the Museum of the City of New York demonstrates, an 1811 map turned an island into a city that works and walks.

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Critic’s Notebook: Manhattan Street Grid at Museum of City of New York

The Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, considered the greatest living pastor of the American black church, is still working to save souls at age 93.

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On Religion: Gardner C. Taylor Ministers to Generations to Come

The country’s athlete of the moment isn’t Aaron Rodgers , who has the Green Bay Packers chasing an undefeated season as he crafts one of the greatest years ever by an NFL quarterback. Nor is it Albert Pujols, whose skills at hitting a baseball are so rare that the Los Angeles Angels agreed Thursday to pay him $254 million over the next 10 years . Read full article > >

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Tim Tebow stands at crossroads of sports, religion and popular culture

The holiday season is a time for counting blessings. That’s why this seems like an appropriate time to give thanks for the greatest gift that the celebrity world has given us this year: Ryan Gosling. Gosling obviously was a celebrity long before 2011, but 2011 was the year that Ryan Gosling the Phenomenon truly came into being. Read full article > >

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The blessing of Ryan Gosling

CAIRO — Three Americans studying at the American University in Cairo have been arrested and accused of participating in the violent demonstrations that are sweeping this capital city. The protests, now in their fourth day, are posing the greatest threat to Egypt’s military leaders since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last February, and could jeopardize parliamentary elections scheduled for Monday. Read full article > >

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Three Americans arrested in Cairo as unrest enters 4th day

Mr. Frazier, the former heavyweight champion, had an epic rivalry with Muhammad Ali that included the Thrilla in Manila, regarded as one of the greatest fights in boxing history.

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Joe Frazier, Ex-Heavyweight Champ, Dies at 67

Every week we gather a list of the best events for the weekend . Here are some things we’re excited about: A lot of people start the crossword or Sudoku puzzle and then forget about it. But if you’re the type of person who must finish, who must get every word and properly place every number, head to the Arlington Puzzle Festival , an all-day gathering looking for the greatest puzzle solver in the area. The event includes a tournaments, with grids designed by puzzle constructor Will Shortz and U.S. and World Sudoku Championship winner Thomas Snyder. Read full article > >

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Plan your weekend: Arlington Puzzle Festival, Fotoweek

Every week we gather a list of the best events for the weekend . Here are some things we’re excited about: A lot of people start the crossword or Sudoku puzzle and then forget about it. But if you’re the type of person who must finish, who must get every word and properly place every number, head to the Arlington Puzzle Festival , an all-day gathering looking for the greatest puzzle solver in the area. The event includes a tournaments, with grids designed by puzzle constructor Will Shortz and U.S. and World Sudoku Championship winner Thomas Snyder. Read full article > >

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Plan your weekend: Arlington Puzzle Festival, Fotoweek

The movie director and TV producer Gil Cates, who gained his greatest renown as self-declared “ringmaster” of the most hyped, exciting, wryly amusing, wincingly crass, maudlin and bloated circus in Hollywood — in other words, the Academy Awards — died Oct. 31 in Los Angeles. He was 77. Mr. Cates collapsed in a parking lot at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was founding dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television. Read full article > >

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Gil Cates, best known for producing Oscars, dies at 77

ST. LOUIS — It was a strange calm that fell across Busch Stadium late Friday night, in the waning moments of one of the greatest World Series in recent memory, a sense of peace and prosperity that felt somehow out of place. After weeks of digging out of massive holes and clinging to life in the face of overwhelming odds, the St. Louis Cardinals were leading the Texas Rangers in the ninth inning of Game 7, and the usual anxiety was tinged with this foreign thought: What does one do when the last mountain is climbed? Read full article > >

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World Series Game 7: St. Louis Cardinals top Texas Rangers to cap improbable run to title

In a performance destined to be etched in bronze on a plaque in Cooperstown, Albert Pujols produced one of the greatest nights a hitter has ever had in the World Series.

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For Albert Pujols of St. Louis, 3 Home Runs for a Record Night

PHOENIX — Counted out by most everyone else, the Arizona Diamondbacks are in position to complete another comeback. And this one could be the greatest of the bunch. Ryan Roberts hit a grand slam, Chris Young had the first two-homer game in Arizona’s postseason history and Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers 10-6 Wednesday night to force Game 5 in the NL division series. Read full article > >

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Roberts hits slam, Young homers twice as Diamondbacks force Game 5 with 10-6 win over Brewers

I t is one of the enduring mysteries of American history — so near-providential as to give the most hardened atheist pause — that it should have produced, at every hinge point, great men who matched the moment. A roiling, revolutionary 18th-century British colony gives birth to the greatest cohort of political thinkers ever: Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Jay. The crisis of the 19th century brings forth Lincoln; the 20th, FDR. Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America’s righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not. This was largely the work of one man’s leadership, moral imagination and strategic genius. He turned his own deeply Christian belief that “unearned suffering is redemptive” into a creed of nonviolence that he carved into America’s political consciousness. The result was not just racial liberation but national redemption. Read full article > >

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King, in word and stone

I t is one of the enduring mysteries of American history — so near-providential as to give the most hardened atheist pause — that it should have produced, at every hinge point, great men who matched the moment. A roiling, revolutionary 18th-century British colony gives birth to the greatest cohort of political thinkers ever: Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Jay. The crisis of the 19th century brings forth Lincoln; the 20th, FDR. Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America’s righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not. This was largely the work of one man’s leadership, moral imagination and strategic genius. He turned his own deeply Christian belief that “unearned suffering is redemptive” into a creed of nonviolence that he carved into America’s political consciousness. The result was not just racial liberation but national redemption. Read full article > >

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King, in word and stone