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President-elect Obama held his third news conference in as many days and announced the formation of a White House panel aimed at creating jobs. Obama picked former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker to head the panel.

The recession has increased the appeal of having older homeowners borrow against their home equity. The loan doesn't have to be repaid until the homeowner dies, moves or sells the home.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not give convicts the right to test DNA evidence from their cases. Forty-seven states have passed laws establishing rules on when the government has to give convicts access to such evidence.

Asian-American stoners Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay while a new Errol Morris film, Standard Operating Procedure, documents the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq. Bob Mondello says the latter is an eye-opener.

Crowds of anti-China protesters — many chanting "free Tibet" — blocked the Olympic torch relay through the streets of Paris. Eventually, the torch was extinguished and transported by bus, which may hold implications for the torch's arrival in San Francisco Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of people were expected on the mall Sunday for the inaugural concert. Washington, D.C., officials were anxious about the city's trains, buses and roads holding up. Things were slow going through the security checkpoints. And when the concert was over, everyone tried to leave at once.

A shipment of food from Catholic Relief Services was distributed Tuesday in Haiti at a makeshift camp in the Petionville Club Golf Course, near Port-au-Prince. Lane Hartill, the group's regional information officer, says the U.S. military's presence is making the distribution effort easlier, but people are still desperate.

Critic-at-large John Powers discusses two new works — one a documentary, another a novel, that blur the lines between public and private lives.

President-elect Barack Obama is back in Chicago putting together his new administration. He and his wife, Michelle, were in Washington, D.C., Monday to get a special look at what will be their home Jan. 20. The two were greeted at the White House by President Bush and first lady Laura Bush. The two men met alone in the Oval Office for about an hour.

Seven states saw a third or more of their hospitals punished under the federal health law's campaign against hospital-acquired conditions. Critics accuse some unscathed hospitals of gaming the system.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the state children's health insurance program into law, bringing the program's total to 11 million children. It's the first element of the Obama plan to make health care available to more people who now lack access to the system.

Pressured by demanding global financial markets and a populist backlash at home, President Obama unloaded on AIG executives Monday for keeping bonuses but extended an offer of help to small businesses.

Brian Evenson's new collection brings together stories that have appeared in literary fiction, speculative fiction and horror publications — and yet they flow together into a disturbing whole.

Connor Willumson's graphic novel follows the trail of a mysterious athlete, or possibly an actor — gawky, pale, never takes his mirror shades off — running through the desert outside Las Vegas.

Graphic novelist Nick Drnaso's new book chronicles the aftermath of a murder in tightly-controlled, almost miserly panels that still manage to convey the horror of a senseless killing.

Jamel Brinkley's brilliant new story collection is intent on recognizing what masculinity looks like — but also questioning our expectations of it, and criticizing the ways it can be toxic.

A century ago, Hollywood had no stars. Movies were silent and the actors were anonymous. Melanie Benjamin's new novel outlines how actress Mary Pickford and writer Frances Marion changed that.

Evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen's new book is a breezy (sometimes too breezy) account of the ways animals have adapted to city life, and the staggering impact humans have had on evolution.

Tommi Parrish's new graphic novel is about a seemingly inconsequential encounter — old, estranged friends spend a few hours talking and drinking — but it's bursting with style and emotion.

Writer Santiago García and artist Javier Olivares examine Diego Velázquez' painting Las Meninas and its influence down the centuries with a heady — and sometimes heavy — mix of comics and high art.

Alison Wilgus' graphic novel imagines a time-traveling history student from 2042 New York who finds herself trapped in Japan in 1864, masquerading as a male warrior as she tries to find a way home.

W. Maxwell Prince's bloody, silly and deeply likeable new graphic novel imagines a world where works of art are real spaces you can step into — with real problems that can cause hundreds of deaths.

Fighting continues in Sudan even as talks were to begin in Saudi Arabia between representatives of the warring factions. People continue to flee the conflict and humanitarian needs are growing.

Robin Black's Life Drawing follows an artist couple working through the pain of a past betrayal. "It's ... a fascinating subject," Black says. "Who stays together and how do they manage it?"

Curtis White is no enemy of science, but his new book criticizes what he sees as today's overreliance on rigid thinking and social organization, and our unquestioning optimism about technology.