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Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced Wednesday that he is switching parties and is now a Democrat. The switch means that if Democrat Al Franken is declared the winner in the contested Minnesota Senate race, Democrats will have the 60 votes needed to block GOP filibusters.

Ming Tsai, who owns the Blue Ginger restaurant in Wellesley, Mass., took NPR's "How Low Can You Go" family supper challenge and concocted a dish of chicken-and-corn fried rice with lemon spinach. Tsai says fried rice is close to his heart because it's the first meal he ever cooked. And his kids love it.

It's hip to be square this weekend at the annual National School Scrabble Competition in Providence, R.I., where middle schoolers are facing off. The team that makes the highest play using the letter Q wins a signed Shaquille O'Neal basketball jersey.

Gourmet magazine's editor in chief and food critic Ruth Reichl grew up in a house where mold-covered pudding was considered an adequate dessert. But Reichl doesn't begrudge her mother. In a new book, she thanks her.

Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield are the directors behind the hit nature documentary series Planet Earth. Their new movie, Earth, uses some of the same footage but is "character-based" rather than "habitat based."

Most people are putting off big purchases during the recession — especially cars. Dealers are trying to change that with what analysts say are some of the lowest prices in a long time. But all those rebates and discounts have yet to re-kindle the market.

Havana-born writer Achy Obejas returns to her native city with a novel called Ruins. It's a bittersweet portrait of Cuban life in the mid-1990s.

In their 2004 book, Gary Stern and Ron Feldman, top executives at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, cautioned the world about systemic financial risk and the need for more oversight. They admit to a fleeting sense of "I told you so."

Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of William Strunk and E.B. White's Elements of Style, the grammar manual used by millions of students, including commentator Marc Acito.

Sarah Pekkanen's debut novel will be published in 2010, but it was a long time in the making. After finding that her life was not "best-seller material" — so much for "write what you know" — Pekkanen turned to the experts for help writing her first book of fiction.