Video: Barefoot RunningThe Roving Runner strides along Central Park barefoot with Christopher McDougall, author of the best-selling book “Born to Run.” To read more and to comment on this video go to the Well blog. Related Blog Post     

 China - handle with careThe emotional condemnation that followed the execution of Akmal Shaikh is exactly the wrong way to deal with the world's next superpower, says Malcolm Moore in Shanghai. By Malcolm MooreComments 77 | Comment on this articleEast meets West: Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao in Beijing last November Photo: Getty The reaction to Akmal Shaikh’s execution by the British government has been a fiasco that must have made diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai wince. From a British perspective, the outrage over Mr Shaikh’s execution may have seemed justified. China must improve its human-rights record if it wants to be a responsible player on the world stage. Executing a 53-year-old man of questionable sanity and burying him in an unmarked grave in a remote and icy cemetery in Urumqi appears unjust in our eyes. Bluntly ignoring Gordon Brown’s entreaties makes China seem cold and defiant. But from a Chinese point of view, there was little to be done. A personality disorder or paranoia do not qualify as mental illness in the eyes of the court. And Britons in China must be subject to Chinese law. The fact that Mr Shaikh was the first European to be executed in China for half a century shows that, until now, China has often allowed foreigners to remain outside the law as it sought to curry favour with more powerful nations. But no longer. “Today, when the British drug dealer violated the law on our land, we can openly and rightfully punish him without any mercy. We don’t need to follow the orders of others any more,” remarked one commenter on a Chinese web forum. It may be 170 years since Britain subjected China to colonial humiliation during the Opium wars, but the memory of red-faced foreigners banging…

  Sally Ryan for The New York TimesEnthusiasm for Palin, and Echoes of DivideBy KATE ZERNIKE Barbara Stoutjesdyk posed next to Sarah Palin’s bus. Ms. Palin’s book tour has favored smaller cities where she and Senator John McCain performed well in 2008. “It may not be this year, it may not be next year, but we’re going to take our country back,” said Sherry Haner, 54, who was standing in the cold on Wednesday outside a mall in Grand Rapids, Mich., hoping to make it into the overflow crowd after failing to get one of the 1,000 bracelets Barnes & Noble had handed out as tickets to the signing. 

  Clinton camp derides Caroline Kennedy's bid for US Senate seat Tom Baldwin in Washington
Caroline Kennedy is facing a first test as a politician in her own right from Hillary Clinton's supporters who are opposed to a privileged member of America's foremost political dynasty filling the shoes of the former First Lady in the Senate. The daughter of President Kennedy, who has led a fiercely protected private life, has declared her interest this week in the New York seat being made vacant by Mrs Clinton's nomination as Secretary of State. “She told me she was interested in the position,” said David Paterson, the New York Governor, who must appoint the successor to Mrs Clinton for a two-year term before an election is held in 2010. “She'd like at some point to sit down and let me know what her qualifications are.” Those qualifications are being scorned openly by leading figures from Mrs Clinton's camp, however. Anthony Weiner, a congressman, Stuart Applebaum, a union leader, and Robert Zimmerman, a fundraiser, have all voiced scepticism about Ms Kennedy's candidacy recently. Some have suggested that appointing her would be a slight to Mrs Clinton, who was dismayed by the high-profile endorsement given to Barack Obama by Ms Kennedy, 51, and her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, at a crucial stage of the Democratic primary. Times Archive, 1963: President Kennedy assassinatedThree shots were fired. The President was wounded and collapsed into the arms of his wife. She was heard to cry, ‘Oh, no’ as she cradled his head in her lap Archive Topic: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Related Links Obama hit by new ethics doubts over aide Obama looks to green jobs to save the economy …