The Mercy Center for Spiritual Life hosted its annual Fall Retreat, “Dive In!” over the weekend of Nov.6-8, 2009 at Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, Mass.

As a participant and a member of the leadership team that planned the retreat, I am here to give a first-hand account of an incredible weekend.

On Friday, Oprah Winfrey announced that she is ending her daytime talk show because “it’s time to leave.” The earth continues to shudder.

It’s colossal news, of course. After all, who will now advise us on the proper books to read? Who will tell us what presidential candidate to support? What diets to try? What products to buy?

Without Oprah in the afternoon, won’t we all be lost?

OK, so I exaggerate .

The Salve Regina men’s basketball team played their first game on Nov. 16, 2009 against Albertus Magnus, losing in a heartbreakig 73-72 final score. “Our kids played very hard against Albertus Magnus,” said Sean Foster, coach for the basketball team. “Albertus did a great job making plays both on the defensive and offensive end.

NEWPORT R.I. – It started as an art project gone wrong in their freshman year of college at Salve Regina University, but today Salve students Matt Maynard and Ben Aalvik have made their clothing line, SP Anchor, into a burgeoning local business.

Aalvik and Maynard started making designs for fun, but later realized they could turn their hobby into a successful enterprise.

CHICAGO – Untested? No.

Rushed into production? Not really.

Full of substances that do harm? Hardly, and especially not compared to the dangers of the H1N1 flu virus.

That is the retort of researchers, scientists, federal health authorities and others familiar with how swine flu vaccine is being made, as they listen – at times with disbelief – to the debate about it unfolding around kitchen tables and over the Internet.