This is egg laying season, if you're a bird.

If you're an octopus, particularly a giant Pacific octopus, you've been there, done that. In fact, you died doing it, in what is the saddest mommy story I've heard in a long while. It comes from biologist Jim Cosgrove who describes it all in a lecture he calls, "No Mother Could Give More."

The Lake Shore Limited: A Novel

by Sue Miller

The FBI special agent who headed a watershed investigation into public corruption in Clay County has died. Timothy S. Briggs, 46, apparently suffered a heart attack while jogging with another agent Tuesday near the FBI office in London. Briggs was a dogged, hard-working investigator who was passionate about rooting out corruption and other crimes, said officials who worked with him.

The World Health Organization says the E. coli bacterium behind the outbreak of life-threatening infections in Europe is a new strain, never seen in people before.

At least 18 people have died from infection with the germ, which has struck at least 1,500 people. Almost all of the cases and deaths have occurred in people who either live in Germany or who traveled there recently.

For 46 years, Dorothy Tolliver has lived down the street from the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview. When her two children were young, Tolliver, who is black, remembers playing with them on a swing set next to the site’s monument on sunny afternoons. Tolliver acknowledged the irony of having so many happy moments near a monument commemorating an oppressive figure to some African-Americans. The park was established by Confederate veterans in 1924. In 46 years, Tolliver had never seen an event or program focused on African-American life there.

Joseph A. Bosco served in the office of the secretary of defense as China country desk officer from 2005 to 2006 and previously taught graduate seminars on China-U.S. relations at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is now a national security consultant.

FRANKFORT – Data from the 2009-10 school year show that nonacademic indicators for Kentucky's public school students remained at levels similar to those reported for the 2008-09 school year. The overall high school dropout rate increased less than one-half a percentage point, from 2.89 percent in 2009 to 3.19 percent in 2010, according to a state Department of Education press release.

Work on the Fox Valley Dam project is once again under way after inclement weather put a damper on progress. The Fox Valley Dam was found to be "partially incompliant" by the Kentucky Office of Dam Safety nearly two years ago because several structures were built in its "breach zone."

21st century contemporary Celtic music may take in Balkan tunes, African percussion, Latin rhythms, and have a gritty urban edge. Are the musicians who draw upon such diverse influences simply creating World Music soup with a dash of Celtic spice? Or are they the innovators of a cutting edge Celtic sound that enhances the global music vibe? See what you think.

Coming from a country where the leader has been referred to as "the son of God" and where the official news agency has reported about a "mysterious natural wonder" involving a halo at Kim Jong Il's birthplace, this probably shouldn't be too much of a shock: