Europe

On a wall in Norman Constantine's room hangs a poster of Bruce Lee, that powerful character from the old martial arts movies. It seems only fitting. After all, Norm Constantine was always a pretty powerful character himself. For two years a decade ago, the handsome, 6-foot karate black belt reigned as the colorful Nittany Lion mascot at Pennsylvania State University. Off the field, his tireless array of activities instructing, coaching and bringing cheer to disabled people would make the President's schedule look leisurely.

In this town, where high-rollers are routinely wooed by those who run the casinos, big spenders of a different breed began arriving late Thursday. They came to buy art, and they, too, were being pampered. Specifically, they arrived to check out the art of Donna Summer. Yes, that Donna Summer, who in 1975 became the queen of the discos with a hit titled "Love to Love You Baby. " Covering one entire side of an LP, it amounted to a marathon orgasm. But the number sure did have a beat.

An early death is almost commonplace among pop stars, but there is surely no more unusual epitaph associated with all of rock's tragedies than the one written on Ritchie Valens' headstone in Los Angeles. His stage name, Ritchie Valens, and his given name, Richard Valenzuela, share equal space on the marker. Beneath them are the title and music to the opening bars of his first hit, "Come On Let's Go. " "That's just the way Connie (Valens' mother) wanted it," said Luis Valdez.

The last decade has been a season of agony for the Catholic Church in the United States, a pilgrimage through purgatory made all the more painful by being self-inflicted. Thousands of children have accused Catholic priests, seminarians, nuns, and brothers of molesting them. Victims have told stories of suffering intensified by official church neglect. The church has paid out billions of dollars in settlements. Most controversial of all, Catholic bishops have been accused of trying to hush it all up, shuffling offenders from one unsuspecting parish to another.

If you had told investors what was going to happen in 2012 - U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate-earnings growth - and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year. But that's just what they got. The markets all ended the year substantially higher, despite losing ground in the final days as fiscal-cliff concerns mounted. The Dow ended 2012 with a 7.3 percent increase, its fourth yearly gain in a row, having started the year at 12,217.

Long before the closing ceremonies drew a record crowd of 48,571, it had become obvious that the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival rated A-OK with a lot of folks in Oklahoma. The most recent edition of the nation's largest amateur sports event generated $3,028,043.50 - a ticket revenue record - and the 13-day attendance of 423,039 left the state's total second only to North Carolina's 464,423, set in 1987. Like its most recent predecessors, the '89 Olympic Festival succeeded best in preparing athletes for the Olympic experience.

Stella Elkins was a lucky bride. For her spring wedding to George F. Tyler in 1905, her parents built her a cottage in their apple orchard in Elkins Park. A 50-room cottage. Named Georgian Terrace, it was designed by Horace Trumbauer, architect to Philadelphia's Gilded Age potentates. Mom and Dad - Stella and George Elkins - lived next door at Chelten House, a stone-and-timber estate also by Trumbauer. Grandfather William L. Elkins, a onetime grocer who smartly plowed his profits into oil, gasoline, streetcars, and railways, built an even more sublime Trumbauer creation, Elstowe Manor, just a robust croquet stroke away.

The Volkswagen Beetle is the best-selling vehicle of all time, and you would think the Teutonic transiteer would be content with that title. But, no. Volkswagen wants to be king of the car cosmos. The goal of the company that also builds such rides as the Audi, Porsche, and Bentley is to be the world's largest automaker. Numero uno. Capo di tutti capi. To that end, it will be spending billions to enhance the appeal of its Audi automobiles, which are already Europe's most popular luxury cars.

Amtrak's updated plan for high-speed train travel on the East Coast envisions 37-minute trips between Philadelphia and New York, after a $151 billion redevelopment of the entire Northeast Corridor. Faster service would be phased in gradually, as Amtrak improves existing tracks, signals, bridges, and power lines and then builds a separate high-speed corridor between Washington and Boston to accommodate trains traveling at 220 m.p.h. In a report released Monday, Amtrak revised its projections for costs, ridership, and the alignment of its proposed new 438-mile high-speed corridor.

In June 1917, corn grew on the land that would soon sprout Camp Dix. Three months later, nearly 50,000 young men were there training and living in barracks built so quickly that they had no indoor plumbing. Large stoves were used for heat, and the electricity was carried by two lone wires running down the center of each building. "They were training in the clothes they arrived in," historian Daniel W. Zimmerman, curator of the Fort Dix Museum, told a crowd Tuesday at Barnes & Noble Bookseller at the East Gate Square shopping center.