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Author Diane Ackerman writes that Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is an epic journey of self-discovery. He began with a microscopic eye focused on a leaf of grass, and then stretched his mental eye out to the beauty of the farthest nebulae.

Workers at Chrysler auto plants were walking off the job after a late-morning strike deadline passed. The United Auto Workers union has not officially announced a strike, but workers were starting to take strike assignments and picket signs.

The Senate agrees not to try to pass its own war-spending bill just yet, opting instead to resolve the matter first with the House behind closed doors. The Senate voted 94-1 Thursday to advance a resolution that avoids the funding question and instead pledges to support the troops.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz agreed to leave his post next month, marking the first time in the bank's history that its president has had to resign. Wolfowitz, a former Bush administration official, had been under intense pressure to leave due to allegations that he arranged a promotion and generous pay raise for his girlfriend.

John Carney's unpretentious musical romance is completely winning — with appealing characters, an unforced sense of intimacy and a light-fingered way of mixing music and story.

Commencement ceremonies were bittersweet this weekend on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

President Bush named Robert Zoellick as the next president of the World Bank. Zoellick was President Bush's first Trade Representative and then the No. 2 official at the State Department. He will replace Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned two weeks ago after a bitter battle over charges of ethical lapses. Zoellick will have to heal a World Bank sharply divided over Wolfowitz's leadership.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have quarantined an airline passenger with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. The CDC is telling passengers to get checked but says the risk is low that they may become infected.

President Bush stiffened economic sanctions against Sudan on Tuesday in a bid to end bloody conflict in the African nation's Darfur region, saying "the United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world."

President Bush says that he is glad the House has agreed to send him a funding bill for Iraq that does not set a timetable for troop withdrawal. The bill funds the war through September, when members of Congress are hoping to hear reports of political and military progress.