State and National News

Seth G. Jones, author of Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa'ida Since 9/11, is senior political scientist at Rand Corp. and former senior adviser to U.S. Special Operations Command.

With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner due in China for economic talks that start on Thursday, the U.S. and China are rushing to avert a diplomatic crisis over the fate of blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng.

The New York band Hospitality makes music that's unmistakably friendly and welcoming — it's hug-and-a-handshake pop that lives up to its name by jangling and chiming comfortably. The songs on the band's self-titled debut, out earlier this year, have a gliding quality to them that's immensely pleasing; Hospitality doesn't overwhelm so much as it wears listeners down with a subtle charm offensive.

Microsoft is committing $300 million to the venture with Barnes & Noble. They are working to create a new subsidiary of the bookseller. The two companies are hoping to energize sales of the Nook tablet.

Clive Palmer says he wants to build Titanic II to sale from London to New York. Like the builder of the original, Palmer says, "It is going to be designed so it won't sink."

Peggy McAlpine wasn't happy when she lost her world record. The Scottish woman was 100 when she became the oldest person to paraglide. That title was recently taken away by an American woman. So at age 104, McAlpine took the the skies again and regained the record.

"CIA drone missiles hit militant targets in Pakistan on Sunday for the first time in a month, as the United States ignored the Pakistani government's insistence that such attacks end as a condition for normalized relations between the two perpetually uneasy allies," The Washington Post writes.

Natural bedfellows and squatters, punk and folk music are born out of rebellion and struggle, even if they don't always stay that way. The past three decades have seen Billy Bragg, Violent Femmes, World/Inferno Friendship Society and the fiercely DIY Plan-It-X label smash together folk and punk like contra dancers in a circle pit.