Featured Articles from Boston.com

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

My colleague Kay Lazar wrote a fantastic series for the Globe last week exploring the overuse of antipsychotic drugs in nursing home patients with dementia . The two-part series -- which included a database of facilities nationwide and their frequency of prescribing antipsychotic drugs inappropriately -- prompted a flood of calls to the toll-free Alzheimer's helpline, (800) 272-3900, and a 35 percent increase in traffic to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire Alzheimer's Association website . No question, finding the right nursing home for a loved one, especially someone with Alzheimer's disease, can be the most heart-rending and perhaps toughest decision that many of us will ever have to make.

First of two parts. Rosanne Murphy was growing more agitated as she sank deeper into Alzheimer's disease. Unable to bathe, dress, or feed herself, she would call her daughter in a panic many nights at bedtime, not remembering where she was. It was time, her daughter, Alison Weingartner, realized - time for her mother, then 80, to move to a nursing home. Over two months in early 2006, she visited 10 facilities, trying to make sure she picked the right one. Weingartner finally chose Ledgewood Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Beverly because it had an Alzheimer's special care unit and it was near her home.

This is not a story about geopolitics. This is a story about a boy. But because the boy is Palestinian, his story is intertwined with geopolitics. The boy was born terribly ill. He got treatment, for years, at an Israeli hospital, financed largely by the Israeli government. And when Israeli doctors felt they couldn't perform the complicated surgery he needed, they turned to Boston Children's Hospital, and to a group of mostly Jewish benefactors. They came together, across borders and boundaries, to save a boy — but they were also well aware of the statement they were making.

By Chad Finn, Boston.com Staff Red Sox color analyst Jerry Remy, who has missed the past five games with a sinus infection, will not return to the NESN booth for at least another week. In a statement issued this morning, the network said Remy and NESN "have decided to have him take the next week off to give him the best chance to fully recover. " The target date for Remy to return to the booth is Thursday, May 10, when the Red Sox return from a road trip to begin a four-game series against the Indians.

After losing a GOP primary against a Tea Party-backed candidate on Tuesday, veteran senator Richard Lugar released this statement decrying intense partisanship in Washington: I would like to comment on the Senate race just concluded and the direction of American politics and the Republican Party. I would reiterate from my earlier statement that I have no regrets about choosing to run for office. My health is excellent, I believe that I have been a very effective Senator for Hoosiers and for the country, and I know that the next six years would have been a time of great achievement.

I t starts with a few forgotten names, missed appointments, and words lost on the tip of your tongue. Is it lack of sleep, our crazy lives, or something more ominous? Most people experience memory losses as they slip past their mid-30s and beyond. Memory mistakes ignored earlier in life suddenly seem worrisome, particularly for women — or at least women tend to talk about their anxiety more than men. Researchers have long dismissed these common complaints as "just" signs of aging, and too minor to merit serious study.

For decades, those with high cholesterol have been given a list of don'ts when it comes to their diet: Don't eat cholesterol-rich eggs; don't eat butter; don't eat red meat or regular ice cream. Well, now researchers have identified a list of do's for the diet that may work to lower cholesterol levels better than avoiding those don'ts. In a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that eating cholesterol-lowering foods like nuts, soy protein, and certain fiber-rich items result in bigger drops in "bad" LDL cholesterol than avoiding high-fat meat, eggs, and dairy foods.

Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner and president Larry Lucchino presented Derek Lowe with a 2004 championship ring before Saturday's game after his was stolen from his home in Fort Myers, Fla., last week. "You know me, I can talk," Lowe told the Cleveland Plain dealer. "But it was one of those moments where I didn't even know what to say. It wasn't like they just sent over a bat boy or sent it over. All three of them came over to give it to me. They said some really nice things.

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff Clay Buchholz put 12 runners on base in 6 1/3 innings, so let's be careful about singing any arias about his performance tonight. But given his previous starts, it was a step in the right direction. Sporting shorter hair, Buchholz left with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh inning with a 7-1 lead. Three runs scored after he was in the dugout. Three earned runs in 6 1/3 innings counts as a quality start and dropped his ERA to 8.31.

Glenn Beck has a couple. Queen Latifah also has one to her credit. Sarah Ferguson, the duchess of York, has several, and Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Buffett, and Dolly Parton published theirs years ago. Even President Obama wrote one. The only thing surprising about Stephen Colbert penning a picture book is that it has taken him this long. Colbert, who is famous for his tongue-in-cheek performance as the conservative host of late-night cable television's "Colbert Report," explained to his studio audience in January why he wanted to write a book for kids: "Nation, anyone that knows me knows that I don't like children or books or children's books.

Those hoping to bid on a bit of history from New Hampshire's Balsams Grand Resort Hotel are getting their first look at the old signs, china and other goods up for auction. A preview is being held Thursday and Friday in Dixville Notch, where an auction is set for Saturday to clear out the nearly 150-year-old resort. The resort was sold last year to two businessmen for $2.3 million. They plan to reopen it in 2013. They have commissioned North Country Auctions to liquidate the contents, which include hundreds of sets of bedroom furniture, kitchen equipment, a biomass plant and other items.

The announcement Monday morning that Big East commissioner John Marinatto resigned did not send shockwaves through the college athletic community. His departure, however, could signal more big changes in college sports with the possibility the Big East basketball schools could break away from the football schools to form their own league. Marinatto, who was on the job for less than three years, had been under siege for several months as the Big East went through the agonizing and at times inept process of defection and expansion in football and basketball.

Need a new dishwasher that won't break the budget? You can pay as little as $500 to clean your grimiest dishes of baked-on food. More good news: Some premium features, such as hidden controls and half-load wash cycles, are migrating down to the $500-to-$600 range. All the models Consumer Reports recommended are energy- and water-efficient. Efficiency, however, doesn't matter if you can't trust what you are buying to last. In the magazine's annual reader survey, there was a spike in repairs of models from Amana and Maytag, two Whirlpool brands, largely due to a recall involving the electrical failure of heating elements.