WASHINGTON - A forward-looking indicator based on pending home sales shows the housing market could edge down but appears to be in the process of leveling out, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in April, stood at 101.4, down 3.2 percent from an upwardly revised March reading of 104.8, and is 10.2 percent lower than April 2006 when it registered 112.9. The revised March index ... [full story]

She set out to learn about life with autism, and after a year spent with people across the vast spectrum of that condition, Sigourney Weaver found she hardly needed to step out of her own two shoes.   HER INNER AUTISM - Sigourney Weaver plays a woman with autism in the new movie 'Snow Cake.' Working on the film has inspired the Oscar-nominated actress to advocate for autistic adults. CNS Photo courtesy of Neil Davidson. "What I ... [full story]

Fifty years ago, millions of Americans were petrified at the prospect of being surpassed by the Communist Darth Vader when the Soviets launched Sputnik into the abyss. In the same year, passions were inflamed when nine black teenagers started attending a formerly all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark. During this turbulent time, pension fund managers and other investment professionals on Wall Street and around the country were grappling with a far more prosaic predicament. ... [full story]

'TRUE FACTS' Homer Hickam's book "Rocket Boys," a memoir about growing up as an aspiring rocket scientist, was made into a 1999 movie called "October Sky" starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The two titles are anagrams. BRAIN SWEAT   PRIME NUMBERS - The Leaning Tower of Pisa weighs 14,200 tons … that's less than its 1908 weight of 14,486. CNS Photo.    WHAT IS IT - This is a scanning electron micrograph of a straw itch mite, magnified 1,500 times. ... [full story]

We'd have supposed there were already enough mind-boggling questions bouncing around, what with the surge in Iraq, a crisis of global warming and what to do about all those uninvited immigrants in our midst. But no. Go back a few millenninia. Adam and Eve are the headliners in a huge new Disneyland-type museum across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, reviving questions that have challenged us, on and off, for most of the past century: Were ... [full story]

In an effort to educate Americans about everyday dangers they might encounter at home, the Home Safety Council has named the month of June as Home Safety Awareness Month. The council is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing the home-related injuries that each year are responsible for an average of 20,000 deaths and 21 million doctor's office and emergency-room visits. "We hope to bring attention to the serious problem of preventable home injuries and ... [full story]

NEWPORT, Ore. – It may not be possible to determine the cause of death of the gray whale that washed ashore south of Newport last weekend, officials say, due to the decomposition of the carcass and limited amounts of organ samples that could be taken. Partly for that same reason, officials are also cautioning the public to stay away from the whale, avoid touching it and stop taking away body parts. “We’ve had concerns because ... [full story]

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Oregon's wine grape industry is booming due in part to the growing number of new vineyards and wineries popping up across the state. According to a new report on selected Oregon commodities, wine grape crops posted gross sales of $46.7 million last year, an increase of 27.6 percent since 2005. Increases in harvested acreage and improved yields due to better growing practices, management and seasonal conditions resulted in a 25.6 percent increase ... [full story]

To ignore the potential contribution of private enterprise is to fight the war on poverty with a single platoon, while great armies are left to stand aside. - Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Mario Cuomo of New York electrified the 1984 Democratic Convention with his tale of America as two cities, one rich and one poor, almost permanently divided into two classes. Today John Edwards is running for president on this same platform and using the ... [full story]

Did a comet hit the Great Lakes region and fragment humanpopulations 12,900 years ago? EUGENE, Oregon - Two University of Oregon researchers are on a multi-institutional 26-member team proposing a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animals across North America almost 13,000 years ago.Driving the theory is a carbon-rich layer of soil ... [full story]