Soprano and Illinois native Christine Brewer — once a music teacher in a small former coal-mining town — writes about not underestimating adolescents' powers of subtle understanding.

If you were choosing repertoire to explore with this age group, what would you pick? Tell us in the comments section below.

Saying that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich needs to "feel the rainbow ... stop the hate, stop anti-gay politics!" a protester showered the former House speaker and his wife with glitter Tuesday at a book-signing in Minneapolis.

Gingrich took it in stride, saying "it's nice to live in a free country" as he swept away some of the glitter.

The protester was quickly removed from the room.

American novelist Philip Roth is the winner of the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. The chairman of the judges, Rick Gekoski, says Roth's work "stimulated, provoked and amused an enormous, and still expanding, audience", according to Reuters. In a video statement, Roth thanks the judges, and hopes the prize will draw more readers to his work.

But one member of the three-judge panel wasn't happy with his win.

Making their first appearance on Mountain Stage is young duo The David Wax Museum. Its exciting and vibrant hybrid of traditional Mexican folk and Americana has earned accolades from the Boston Music Awards, and its performance from the 2010 Newport Folk Festival resulted in a return appearance in 2011.

David Wax became interested in Mexican folk while spending summers in rural Mexico. In 2007, Wax teamed up with violinist and singer Suz Slezak, who he encouraged to track down a quijada, a traditional Mexican percussion instrument made from a donkey's jawbone.

"An Egyptian who was once a Special Forces officer has been chosen 'caretaker' leader of al Qaeda in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death," CNN's Peter Bergen is reporting.

Jacque Reid is a broadcast journalist and a contributing editor to The Root.

David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf.

Sometimes you pick up the paper and feel like you are reading yesterday's news. And sometimes you pick it up and feel like you are reading tomorrow's.

I had that crystal ball vibe when I was slipping and sliding through the New York Times this morning on my iPad. Three stories came in rapid succession.

As Dominique Strauss-Kahn "sits in a solitary cell at Rikers Island, N.Y., isolated for his own protection and under a routine suicide watch," the woman who says the managing director of the International Monetary Fund sexually assaulted her in New York City over the weekend is set to appear before a grand jury today, her lawyer confirmed on NBC-TV's The Today Show.

Michael Arceneaux is a Houston-bred, Howard University-educated writer currently based in Los Angeles.

Rachel Maddow's wish has been granted. Less than a month after the MSNBC anchor's much-talked-about interview with the Guardian, in which she encouraged her closeted on-air peers to reveal their true gay selves, someone answered that call. It might not be the cable-news anchor people expected, but CNN's Don Lemon has managed to snatch up a number of headlines all the same.

Jonathan Chait is a senior editor at The New Republic.

Jerry and Helen Peterson are a married couple in East Orange, New Jersey, earning $252,000 per year. Jerry, a CPA, and Helen, a public relations executive, understand the need to close the deficit, but don't understand why their taxes have to go up. "I don't feel rich," says Jerry, as Helen frowns the worried frown of a woman who has been singled out by the Obama administration for brutal economic reprisal of the sort Stalin imposed upon prosperous peasants.