State and National News

Hockey fans in the nation's capital are savoring an underdog victory: last night, the Washington Capitals knocked the Boston Bruins, last year's Stanley Cup champions, out of the playoffs. Nearly three minutes into overtime, Caps right winger Joel Ward fired a puck past Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, ending Boston's hopes for a repeat of the 2011 victory. The final score: 2-1.

Farming transformed Europe when it arrived from the Near East about 6,000 years ago. But was it the agricultural know-how that traveled, or the farmers themselves?

By comparing DNA from Stone Age farmers and hunter-gatherers, Swedish researchers say it's clear that the farmers traveled north through Europe, bringing their agrarian skills with them.

How else would a farmer with Mediterranean DNA end up in Sweden?

I'm imagining suave dark-eyed farmers seeking out Nordic maidens tired of all that berry picking and hide scraping.

For a case that is about show-me-your-papers, it was more than a little odd that the Supreme Court police — for the first time anyone could recall — asked reporters on the Supreme Court plaza Wednesday to show their IDs to get into a roped-off area where TV cameras routinely set up.

Take a look at this picture:

Those same coils — the ones that look like the side of a snail — are also found on the Big Island of Hawaii, which were formed by lava flows.

As Wired reports, the difference is that some of the Martian coils are 100 feet across — giant compared the Earth-bound ones.

Still scientists found that they are "morphologically consistent with terrestrial lava coils."

A meditation on quietude amidst unceasing movement, a thick-walled cell of solitary contentment in the churn of daily life: That's the premise of this new video featuring the gifted pianist Michael Mizrahi.

If you buy your own health insurance, there's nearly a 1 in 3 chance that come this summer you'll get a nice little surprise in the mail: money back from your health insurance company.

At least that's the prediction from an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Dale Miller spends his days on the streets of downtown Denver selling a newspaper called The Homeless Voice. He's been having some health problems, but he can't afford to see a doctor on the $10 to $15 a day he makes selling papers.

A local charity clinic called the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless recently helped him get a CT scan at no cost to him. Miller fully understands, though, that someone has to pay for his care.

M. Ward is a singer, guitarist and expert songwriter who's perhaps best known for his collaborations with artists ranging from Zooey Deschanel and Conor Oberst to Jim James and Jenny Lewis.