National

Lewis Henry Bailey was freed from slavery in Texas and began his journey back to Virginia by foot 150 years ago. The jail where he was sold to slave dealers as a child is now a museum and the offices of a local Urban League chapter just outside of the nation's capital.

Trendy turkey recipes from years past included tandoori turkey and grilled turkey. This year, tried-and-true roast turkeys are back, according to two food bloggers who combed 11 food magazines in search of top Thanksgiving recipes.

A congressional directive requires U.S. detention centers to fill 34,000 beds per night. Supporters say it ensures that the nation's immigration laws are being enforced. But critics say housing a fixed number of immigrants at any given time is inhumane, inefficient and too expensive.

The health care law is helping low- and middle-income Americans pay for their insurance. Where does that money come from? In part, it is a matter of the well-off helping pay for those who have less. But that's not the full answer.

The U.S. landline network was once the best in the world. But these days, phone companies see them as a burden, an old technology too expensive to maintain. AT&T wants to start replacing the system with cheaper options. Some call it a hasty abandonment of the tried-and-true traditional network.

About 10 percent of working Americans carpool to work. For two years, Neville Amaria was one of them. He spent two to three hours a day in the car with as many as four co-workers squeezed in alongside him. Now his office has moved closer to home. Here's an audio diary from the last morning of his carpool.

The White House has been fighting to prevent the disastrous rollout of the health care law from defining President Obama's second term. This week, diplomats from the U.S. and other countries are meeting for a second round of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, and a breakthrough there could shape history's view of this president.

Author Doris Lessing died Sunday at the age of 94. Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature for a life's work which included around 40 books and collections of essays and memoirs. Her book, The Golden Notebook, has been called the first feminist novel — a characterization Lessing rejected as "stupid."

The American Reader is a year old. The monthly literary journal is online and in print, but co-founder Uzoamaka Maduka says "it's all one magazine." The publication's staff has faith that readers want "deeper engagement" and strong editing, and they're hoping the free online content will entice their audience to pay for more.

Winston and Pansy Greene are getting on with their lives despite Pansy's Alzheimer's disease. In the three years since her diagnosis, little has changed, though the couple is starting to have different takes on the future. Pansy has remained positive; Winston says with no cure, he has to be realistic.