Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Now Law
Follow up to previous postings on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the New York Times reports: "The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades—the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act—will take effect in the nation’s workplaces next weekend, prohibiting employers from requesting genetic testing or considering someone’s genetic background in hiring, firing or promotions. The act also prohibits health insurers and group plans from requiring such testing or using genetic information—like a family history of heart disease—to deny coverage or set premiums or deductibles."
Related: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the Commission or EEOC) proposes to revise its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations and accompanying interpretive guidance in order to implement the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The Commission is responsible for enforcement of title I of the ADA, as amended, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability. Pursuant to the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, EEOC is expressly granted the authority to amend these regulations, and is expected to do so, in order to conform certain provisions contained in the regulations to the Amendments Act."

In this, the last installment in this series on the best-known American country house, Fallingwater, Jim Atkins, FAIA, and his wife, Dr. Sook Kim, travel to Bear Run in western Pennsylvania to experience the magnificently maintained and recently restored country retreat designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, now open to the public thanks to the diligence of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. This Frank Lloyd Wright creation is much more magnificent and enjoyable than any promotional literature or this article series can possibly convey. No picture can adequately provide the complete magic of the place itself. One can experience it to its fullest only in real time. Every architect and for that matter everyone interested in great architecture should see it, be inside it, and personally take in its wonderful atmosphere at least once. This magnificent masterpiece was not created by luck or chance, it did not achieve reality with any ease of deliberation. It came about almost by accident. It was the child of two arrogant, driven men who had a score to settle; two extremely talented individuals, who, by the sweat of their own dogged determination and will, made it what it is. See detailed description and many pictures: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/1113/1113rc_fallingwater.cfm

Established in 1998, the National Toy Hall of Fame, housed at Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, recognizes toys that have inspired creative play and enjoyed popularity over a sustained period. The hall annually inducts and showcases new and historic versions of classic toys beloved by generations. Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame.

The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found. Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC. Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1226500/Is-lost-Persian-army-Compelling-remains-uncovered-Sahara-Desert.html

Pew Center on the States Reports on States in Peril
Stateline.org: "California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country. This examination by the Pew Center on the States looks closely at nine states, in addition to California, that are particularly affected by the recession. All of California’s neighbors–Arizona, Nevada and Oregon–and fellow Sun Belt state Florida were severely hit by the bursting housing bubble, landing them on Pew’s list of states facing fiscal difficulties similar to California’s. A Midwestern cluster of states comprising Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin emerged, too, as did the Northeastern states of New Jersey and Rhode Island."
Read the executive summary
Read more about the states profiled
Read more about how the states were assessed
Download the full report: Beyond California - States in Fiscal Peril, November 2009

World Justice Project Rule of Law Index
"The Rule of Law Index is a new tool, created by the WJP [World Justice Project Rule], which measures countries’ adherence to the rule of law...The Rule of Law Index is the first index that examines the rule of law comprehensively. Other indices cover only aspects of the rule of law, such as human rights, commercial law, and corruption. Because the Index looks at the rule of law in practice and not solely as it exists on the books, the Index will be able to guide governments, civil society, NGOs and business leaders in targeting efforts to strengthen the rule of law."

Find useful legal news updated each weekday at: http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/

Olives are the fruits of the olive tree which is indigenous to the Mediterranean countries but also cultivated nowadays in other areas, even in America and Australia. There are many different kinds of olives. Some are used for making oil, while others are for eating (these are usually large in size). There are also some varieties which are used for both oil and consumption. The olive tree (El olivo) blossoms in spring and shortly afterwards the olive fruit starts to grow. They are a bright green colour to begin with and this lasts until the time when they ripen. This varies amongst the different types of olive but is usually towards the end of autumn. The olive is a fruit with fleshy skin. Olive oil is the natural juice of the olive, a pure product which is obtained with machinery or by natural means. The oil of the olive is found in the fleshy part of the fruit. Olives reach their maximum oil content when they are fully ripe but the finest oil is obtained from the olives that are just beginning to ripen. In Spain there are over 260 types of olives.
The olive tree belongs to the Oleaceae family and has a life span of around 300-400 years. The precise origins of the olive tree are shrouded in doubt; Persia, Jordan, the Valleys of the Nile each have their advocates. The best that we can say with certainty is that cultivation began a very long time ago in the near East and spread slowly westward to Spain along the shores of the Mediterranean. http://www.elolivo-olive-oil.com/The-Olive-tree-and-its-fruit-the-Olive-sp-7.html

The stock ticker—a machine that tracked financial data over telegraph lines and stamped it on strips called ticker tape for the sound the printing made—had barely been around two decades before Wall Streeters realized that throwing its ribbony paper out the window was a fun way to celebrate. They first did it on Oct. 29, 1886, inspired by the ceremony to dedicate the Statue of Liberty. By 1899 two million people turned out to make Admiral George Dewey, hero of the battle of Manila Bay, the first individual honored with a ticker-tape parade. Former President Teddy Roosevelt got one in 1910 upon returning from his African safari. But it wasn't until 1919, when Grover Whalen was made New York City's official greeter, that ticker-tape parades took off: from 1919 to 1953 he reportedly threw 86 of them, many at the urging of the State Department. The luminaries he feted in his early years included Albert Einstein in 1921—the only scientist ever honored with a ticker-tape parade—as well as the U.S. Olympic team in 1924 and Charles Lindbergh in 1927. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1935808,00.html

On November 17, 1989, riot police put down student protests against the communist government in Czechoslovakia. The incident started a series of non-violent protests that finally forced the communists from power two weeks later.
Learn more about the Velvet Revolution. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/
On November 17, 1936, Scribner's Maxwell Perkins wrote a letter to Thomas Wolfe that chronicled one of the most famous conflicts between editor and novelist in the history of American publishing. Perkins had helped to discover the young and unknown Thomas Wolfe (books by this author) (along with Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) and helped shape Wolfe's manuscripts into book form. He sat down with Wolfe—and his first manuscript, O, Lost, written in just 20 months—and helped him cut more than 60,000 words; the finished product, published while Wolfe was in his 20s, was still 544 pages long and now entitled Look Homeward, Angel (1929), from a poem by John Milton. The Writer’s Almanac