Paintings celebrate the fuller figure of some African women

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In pictures: Celebrating Ivory Coast’s large ladies

Women’s European Gymnastics, live coverage of the apparatus finals from Brussels.

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VIDEO: Live – Women’s European Gymnastics

Charges against Karl Vanderwoude, a 26-year-old Brooklyn man, were dropped after he was wrongly accused of groping four women in a highly publicized case.

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About New York: Karl Vanderwoude, Accused Groper, Cleared This Week

Vidal Sassoon, the British-born hair-care magnate who built a global enterprise of salons and hair products and helped liberate women from time-consuming beauty parlor coiffures by popularizing a wash-and-go approach to hairstyling, died May 9 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84. Read full article > >

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Vidal Sassoon dies; hairstyling trendsetter popularized wash-and-go

Vidal Sassoon , we salute you. We, the wash-n-wear women of Washington — we, the bobbed and chopped, who are constantly in pursuit of the perfect cut, the one that would would require no products (“Product,” rather — somewhere in time the word became singular), no tools but a wide-paddled brush. Read full article > >

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Vidal Sassoon, our hair grieves for you

Federal officials said William Barnason, a building superintendent, would try to enter women’s apartments while drunk and demanded sexual favors for rent reductions.

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$2 Million Penalty for Sexually Harassing West Side Tenants

When asked about his views on same-sex marriage, Vice President Biden said he is “absolutely comfortable” with men marrying men and women marrying women. When Education Secretary Arne Duncan was asked Monday whether he thinks that same-sex couples should be able to marry, he said, “Yes, I do.” Read full article > >

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Biden comments on same-sex marriage expose internal White House divisions

The young girl growing up in a harem in Morocco is sitting alone in an abandoned house surrounded by olive trees. For one month, the girl will speak to no one and be spoken to by no one. This is her punishment for “stepping outside the permissible space” and rebelling against rules that give her brothers more freedom. Read full article > >

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Artist Lalla Essaydi challenges stereotypes of women in Islamic cultures

Atypical George Bernard Shaw woman, on love: “Change the subject, or I shall go to sleep.” Another Shavian female, poor and uneducated, to a professional writer: “I’m never wrong when I see a thing quite plain.” She also delivers this bonbon: “I never could bear to be nothing more to a man than a lollipop.” Read full article > >

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Washington Stage Guild gives George Bernard Shaw — and his strong-minded women — a home

U.S. Secret Service personnel tied to last month’s night of heavy drinking, partying and sexual encounters in Cartagena, Colombia paid 10 of the 12 women they became involved with, officials said. None of the women were found to be connected to terrorist organizations or drug cartels. Read full article > >

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Secret Service employees paid 10 of the 12 women involved in Colombia sex scandal, agency says

Richard Grenell is resigning from Mitt Romney ’s presidential campaign less than two weeks after being hired. The foreign policy spokesman came under fire for some crude (and since deleted) tweets about various prominent women. He also drew criticism from some social conservatives for being openly gay. Read full article > >

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Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney spokesman, resigns

Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs, writers and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian, living history interpreter and Jewish educator from the Washington D.C. area. He blogs at Afroculinaria.com and thecookinggene.com . As the originator of the Cooking Gene Project, he seeks to trace his ancestry through food. Edward Booker, Hattie Bellamy and Washington Twitty didn’t know what an organic farm was, but nearly everything they ate was organic. They enjoyed wild caught, sustainable fish; they were no strangers to free range chickens, and they ate with the seasons with almost nothing originating more than a mile or two away from their cabin door. They had gardens, composted, and ate no processed foods. Their food was fairly simple, often meatless; and it was a fusion cuisine, with ingredients drawn from five continents. They were not culinary revolutionaries living out of the foodie playbook – they were three enslaved individuals living among the over 4 million held in bondage before the Civil War, and they were my ancestors. In the upcoming months I will return to the fields, forests and waterways of the Old South in search of my culinary version of Roots, tracing my family tree through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. The project is called The Cooking Gene: Southern Discomfort Tour . Slavery is not just a practice or moment in American history; it is a metaphor for our relationships to lifestyles and food systems that many of us view as beyond our control. Most of us are enslaved to food systems that aren’t sustainable, but eat we must. And because we must eat, food is a natural vehicle for telling the kinds of stories about historical slavery and the impact of “race” on how we eat , even as we critique and question our contemporary food politics. Food is our vehicle to move beyond race and into relationships and use those relationships to promote the kind of racial reconciliation and healing, our nation desperately needs. Food is not an afterthought in the story of race, class and power. It is the founding element in our American story. In human no enslaved people have transformed the food habits, tastes and relationship with the table of those who enslaved them, as Africans did in the Americas. We are – all of us Southerners – the products of a strange and painful, joyous and regret-free cuisine that is the confluence of mothers and men speaking over 100 languages struggling over the means to express a common culinary love in the middle of a heartbreaking and irrevocable exile. This is the heritage I am thrilled to carry in my DNA but like many of us, terrified to reclaim and own. Why now? In the words of one my faith’s greatest sages, “If not now, when?” We need this conversation because we have tired of our ancestors being referred to anonymous “slaves” lingering in the background of Southern culinary and cultural history even as children of color could be actively engaged in growing the heirloom crops of their ancestors in urban community gardens. We feel locked out of the epic story of barbecue, revised to erase its African/Diaspora ancestry. Our farmers are struggling to hold onto land purchased after the Civil War, when they could be producing quality organic food. Many of us are crying for a culinary voice that respects and embraces the best of our contributions rather than devaluing them with buzzwords centering on contemporary food practices which aren’t as healthy or wholesome as classic early African American cuisine actually was. As my team and I wind our way from Maryland to Louisiana and back we hope to find ourselves using this story to remedy these ills of historical and cultural obfuscation and overall lack of access to the contemporary food scene. Most of all I am hoping to sit down with the descendants of the families who owned my ancestors,and in some cases are my blood relatives. If nothing else, our names, the land, shared histories and Southern food bond us and connect us in ways other Americans are not. I’ve caught the DNA bug, and want to trace these tree lines back to West and Central Africa, Europe and Native America to understand where it all comes from so that we know where we’re going. American food culture today is an inquisitive and contested landscape in search of values, directions, and its own indigenous sense of rightness and self-worth. It is a culture looking towards American ecology, seasons and opportunities for new ways to invigorate and color the national palette. It is concerned with health, sustainability, local economies, environmental integrity and social justice. We could not ask for a better season to harvest the fruits of our common food Ancestors: the cooks of kitchens high and low in the Old and Deep South. It is these men and women who I hope to champion and elevate not just because the past needs us, but because we need the past; and the future needs us now. Follow Michael on his journey at thecookinggene.com and learn more about the fundraising effort at indiegogo.com . More on Southern Food : Old world ingredients you should know and use from the South Why it's different in the South Why diversity matters in a restaurant kitchen Hugh Acheson: Southern food, beyond the butter Why eating grits doesn't automatically make you a Southerner 5@5 – Overlooked Southern ingredients Mehepyewpleez? A love letter to K&W Cafeteria Boiled peanuts She-crab soup, shrimp and grits, benne seed wafers and the lowdown on Lowcountry cuisine 5@5 – Virginia Willis – Southern is a state of mind Talk with your mouth full – what is Southern food? Reclaiming the soul of Southern food Southern food: more voices from the field

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The cook who picks cotton: reclaiming my roots

After Hilary Rosen’s remarks about Ann Romney’s life as a homemaker, some thought Democrats might tread more cautiously in their attempt to paint the GOP as being anti-women. Nope. On Capitol Hill, Democrats are aggressively pushing the case that Republicans are now waging a “War on Women” on three legislative fronts. First, they are blasting House Republicans for their proposal to block changes to the Violence Against Women Act that would extend protection to battered women who are LGBT, immigrants or Native Americans who live on tribal lands. “We are seeing the sheer gender bias of their so-called ‘clean’ bill,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said Friday. “They don’t want to sully their hands dealing with women in the shadows.” Read full article > >

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The Democrats’ three-pronged plan for the ‘War on Women’

The Marine Corps is bringing women into units that had been male-only, starting with its infantry officer school at Quantico, Va., and some ground combat battalions.

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Marines Moving Women Toward the Front Lines

Ray Isle ( @islewine on Twitter ) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray. Spring is in the air, which means you're either gamboling in the grassy fields (or your nearest urban park) and looking for love, or else you're sneezing your head off and wishing one of those gamboling twerps would just trip over a rock or something. Regardless, you need a drink. If wine is your tipple of choice, you can do no better for springtime picnics and whatnot than a dry rosé. Whether or not the style originated in southern France, these days it certainly comes in the package along with all the visuals we associate with Provence: the brilliant light, the quaint towns, the wizened Frenchmen playing boules and discussing how perfectly nice Provence used to be before a bazillion tourists discovered it. In any case, try pouring yourself a glass of the crisp, berry scented 2011 Château Grande Cassagne ($10) or the slightly rounder 2011 Mas Carlot ($11), both from the Costières de Nîmes (technically in the Rhône, but what the heck); the 2011 Commanderie de Bargemone ($15), from the Coteaux d’Aix; or the 2011 Domaine Houchart ($12) from the Côtes de Provence.   Cocktail-wise, there are myriad possibilities, but in the spring I lean toward the refreshing and not overly put-you-on-the-floor in terms of alcohol content. One fine option is the Aperol Spritz, which the Venetians drink by the gallon as soon as the weather turns nice. Aperol is a lightly bitter aperitif, a bit like Campari but substantially lower in alcohol. Served in a big wine glass with Prosecco, sparkling water, ice and a slice of orange (rough proportions are 3 oz Aperol, 1 oz Prosecco, 1 oz fizzy water, but adjust as needed), it is a drink that will instantly give you an air of high-spirited sprezzatura, and beautiful Italian women (and/or men) will flock to you, and then ask for a ride in your speedboat. Note also, if you don’t feel like going through the rigmarole of mixing this drink, a pre-mixed version from the Prosecco company Mionetto has just appeared called Il Spritz ($15), which is surprisingly tasty.   And then there’s beer. Of course, lots of beer is good in the springtime, just as lots of beer is good at pretty much any time. But try a saison. A grassy, hoppy, low-alcohol Belgian ale originally drunk by farmworkers during the summer harvest season, saisons are now available throughout the year (thank you modern technology). The standard bearer for the category is undoubtedly Saison Dupont; the somewhat fruitier Fantôme Saison is terrific too. A few American brewers are doing excellent saisons as well—they can be hard to find, but if you come across Brooklyn Brewery’s Sorachi Ace (made with an unusual Japanese hop strain) or the Boston-based Pretty Things’s Jack D’Or, which is pretty darn remarkable, buy them. More from Food & Wine 50 Best Bars in America Best Steak in the U.S. Best Burgers in the U.S. Best Grilled Cheese in the U.S. Spring Recipes

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Simply smashing spring drinks