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Rough-and-tumble towns have popped up in areas once dominated by sleepy farming hamlets. Black gold has brought big-money jobs, but housing is expensive, crime has spiked, and water is running out.

Much of what was in President Obama's fifth State of the Union address was signaled in the days leading into the speech. Even so, there were a few revealing moments.

The site in central Rome has also yielded evidence of how actively the early Romans intervened to shape their urban environment. But the excavation has been particularly challenging because the temple lies below the water table.

Also: Martin Scorsese will direct a documentary about The New York Review of Books; arsonist sentenced to read Malcolm Gladwell; Rebecca Mead on Middlemarch.

Isabel Allende dips a toe in the waters of genre fiction with her new novel Ripper — about a girl who puts her online gaming group to work tracking down a serial killer who's targeted her mother. Reviewer Amal El-Mohtar says the book would function just as well as a character study, without the crime plot.

Quindlen's novel Still Life with Bread Crumbs is predictably comforting and readable, even as it details the challenges of a modern middle-aged woman: the fallout of divorce, a career on the wane, and the endless financial and emotional support demanded by her family.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., didn't like a reporter's question. With the camera still rolling, he said he would throw the journalist "off this [expletive] balcony." Also, said Grimm, "I'll break you in half."

One of the nation's most remote places is now awash in oil money. We sent a photographer to North Dakota to capture not just what it looks like but how it feels.

For Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward, the recent chemical spill — and sometimes confusing information authorities have provided about the risks to citizens — reflect long-standing regulatory failures in the state. He says West Virginia has "basically ignored" recommendations for stricter oversight.

Among the many issues in contention at the Syrian peace talks is the possibility of humanitarian relief for cities and villages under siege. No place is in greater need of assistance than the city of Homs in western Syria. One of the first regions to rise up against President Bashar al-Assad, Homs is now the site of an ongoing humanitarian aid crisis. Approximately two to three thousand people find themselves trapped in a disputed district and in increasingly desperate circumstances.