Private Life

The photos were splashed across the top-circulating tabloid in Germany this week — Chancellor Angela Merkel's "secret family life" uncovered for all to see. The secret? That she has a private life. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, many European leaders keep their personal lives out of sight, and Merkel may be the most intensely private of them all. Her husband, a chemist, skipped her first inauguration in 2005 and rarely appears with her in public. Her political friends have never...

One emotion seems to have rippled through Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter network as the news broke that the 19-year-old was suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings: disbelief. "He was my friend," reads one tweet, followed by a frowning emoticon. "I want to hear his side of the story... I need to," wrote another. An analysis of the bombing suspect's Twitter account, was released Thursday by betaworks chief scientist Gilad Lotan and posted at digg.com. It shows the ruminations of an...

DEAR AMY: I am a 15-year-old girl. I have known my friend "James" for 10 years. We are close. We attend the same school and church. Our religion is against gay marriage. A few days ago, I was on Facebook but it was logged into my friend "Tiffany's" account. I didn't realize I was logged into her account until I read a message that James sent her. James told Tiffany that he was gay. He said he didn't know how to come out and tell other people. He was also slamming our religion.

The photos were splashed across the top-circulating tabloid in Germany this week — Chancellor Angela Merkel's "secret family life" uncovered for all to see. The secret? That she has a private life. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, many European leaders keep their personal lives out of sight, and Merkel may be the most intensely private of them all. Her husband, a chemist, skipped her first inauguration in 2005 and rarely appears with her in public. Her political friends have never...

What should a newspaper print about a person's most private life in a story after his death? The Post ran a story March 22 about the burial at Arlington National Cemetery of Army Maj. Alan G. Rogers, a decorated war hero killed in an explosion in Baghdad. The subject of much journalistic soul-searching, the story did not mention that Rogers's friends said that he was gay and was well known in local gay veterans' circles. The Washington Blade, a gay-oriented newspaper, identified him as gay in a story Friday that was critical of The Post.

‘Life Is but a Dream," Beyonce Knowles's HBO documentary about herself, is billed as a revealing look inside the superstar's world circa 2011-12, as she shifts business gears, reinjects her music with an updated R&B feel and, as you surely know, gives birth to a daughter. The project is mostly just a fleeting glimpse, which is ultimately a disappointment, given the world's desperate and ongoing interest in all things Beyonce. Early in the film, Beyonce relays that special feeling of...

Robert A. Maheu, who was a powerful aide to reclusive tycoon Howard Hughes and whose cloak-and-dagger exploits included involvement in a CIA and Mafia plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, died Aug. 4 at Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas. He was 90 and had cancer and heart ailments. Mr. Maheu (pronounced MAY-hew) was a onetime FBI agent who ran a Washington company that he said carried out secret missions for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Maheu's first jobs for Hughes in the 1950s included private-eye snooping...

In early 1980, John McCain was a man in transition -- and in a hurry. Nine months earlier, at a cocktail reception in Hawaii, he met a glamorous young heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley and, by all accounts, fell instantly in love. McCain spent months flying from Washington to Arizona pursuing this new relationship. Soon, the 43-year-old naval attache and his 25-year-old sweetheart were engaged. There was only one complication: McCain was still married. Carol Shepp McCain, then 42, had endured much in more than 14...

One of the things that make an athlete great is extraordinary arrogance. The best of the best always believe they will find a way to overcome adversity, to pull off the shot that can't be pulled off, to find a way to win when losing appears inevitable. No one has defined that arrogance more clearly over the past 14 years than Tiger Woods, who has dominated golf since he turned pro in 1996. On Friday morning, Woods came out of hiding. Exactly 12 weeks after the early-morning accident that led to revelations that he had repeatedly...

An occasional series in which the Post's book critic reconsiders notable and/or neglected books from the past. First published in 1960, reissued in paperback in 1982, now out of print but not at all difficult to find in used copies, Noël Coward 's first and only novel is a small gem. It must have caught everyone by surprise when it appeared. Coward was in his early 60s and really didn't need to go to the trouble. He was one of the world's most famous and beloved entertainers, the author of dozens...

‘Life Is but a Dream," Beyonce Knowles's HBO documentary about herself, is billed as a revealing look inside the superstar's world circa 2011-12, as she shifts business gears, reinjects her music with an updated R&B feel and, as you surely know, gives birth to a daughter. The project is mostly just a fleeting glimpse, which is ultimately a disappointment, given the world's desperate and ongoing interest in all things Beyonce. Early in the film, Beyonce relays that special feeling of celebrity futility...

Arthur Ashe relied on datebooks to organize his life, logging in each upcoming speech, appearance and appointment as a means of keeping himself on task and communicating with his wife, photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe. Though Ashe died in 1993, his datebook from that year is filled with commitments. As such, it offers a window on a life interrupted: The extraordinary achievements of a sports pioneer — the first African American man to win the U.S. Open and...

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is Capitol Hill's ultimate self-made man. He began as a 19-year-old intern delivering congressional mail and propelled himself upward with a mastery of wonky detail and a talent for cultivating powerful mentors. Ryan is now a seven-term congressman, a committee chairman and the chief architect of GOP ideas on Medicare, the budget and the national debt. Ryan's big ideas bear the stamp of his own story: They stress independence and self-reliance, the qualities that took...

NEW YORK — It's a torrid summer day in New York, but the lobby of a well-appointed Park Avenue building has an immediate cooling effect, its hushed marble corridors keeping the heat at bay through the sheer force of good taste. Down a side hall, a sign on a nondescript door reads "Manhattan Film Center," and behind that door lies a room crowded with FedEx boxes, bursting file cabinets and the banal detritus of creativity's business end. The only clues pointing to the...

Several centuries ago it was written that, "Every day and every hour we say things about others that we would more properly say about ourselves. " Apparently this is a human tick that never varies through the ages. Both in praise and criticism, we reveal ourselves as much as we evaluate others. Tiger Woods seldom leaves the door ajar to any of his private rooms. But, before his own event, the AT&T National, with a field of 110 that starts at Congressional...

●Benjamin Franklin, "Experiments and Observations on Electricity" (1751) ●Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard Improved" (1758) and "The Way to Wealth" ●Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (1776) ●Noah Webster, "A Grammatical Institute of the English Language" (1783) ●"The Federalist" (1787) ●"A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible" (1788) ●Christopher Colles, "A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America" (1789) ●Benjamin Franklin, "The Private Life of the Late Benjamin...

NEW YORK — It's a torrid summer day in New York, but the lobby of a well-appointed Park Avenue building has an immediate cooling effect, its hushed marble corridors keeping the heat at bay through the sheer force of good taste. Down a side hall, a sign on a nondescript door reads "Manhattan Film Center," and behind that door lies a room crowded with FedEx boxes, bursting file cabinets and the banal detritus of creativity's business end. The only clues pointing to the identity of the occupant are a " ...

GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS A Novel Inspired by the Life & Marriage of Charles Dickens By Gaynor Arnold Crown. 414 pp. $25.99 Charles Dickens was the modern age's first great celebrity, a writer who not only essentially invented Christmas -- as a recent book argues -- but also created many of our sentimental attitudes about hearth and home. Two new novels remind us, though, that Dickens's own hearth and home were just the sort of mess we get from today's movie stars and defense-of-marriage politicians.

Dear Carolyn: I am 28 and have a little brother who is 16. He is smart, funny, kind and an all-around good kid. He is in a long-term relationship (well, for 16: six months) with a lovely young lady whom he adores. They are probably going to have sex soon. Our parents are open and have discussed sex with my brother many times throughout his life. I want to be someone he can come to with the gory questions and concerns that might be uncomfortable to bring up with the parents.

When a sports franchise falls apart, everybody spots it immediately. If guns are pulled in a locker room , feel free to draw an arrow pointing straight down. If a coach decides he needs to mortify a $100 million free agent who can't pass a fitness test , that's probably a symbol of systemic problems. If a team misspells its own name on its uniform , cover your eyes. But when a team comes together, when a franchise that was recently awful is on the verge of becoming good...