A wide-ranging effort to boost the populations of the western pond turtle in Washington state has had some success —with six sites now hosting the species one biologist calls "very charismatic."

Karen Schmidt is one of the few women among the regular chess aficionados at Westlake Park. The happiness she's found there underscores two things: the unchanging, international lure of chess that transcends the divisions of politics, religion, race and money — though not always gender — as well as the recent transformation of the downtown park.  WATCH

To know Edgar Martinez, you must know Maguayo. And to know Maguayo, you must first know Felipe's Place, the sprawling, open-air establishment a block away from where Edgar took his first swings. "This is Edgar's clubhouse," a relative told Larry Stone on his visit to Edgar's hometown of Dorado, Puerto Rico.  VIEW