Allison Kennie, who’s in her early 30s, was looking for something different to help her get back in shape after she had her daughter a few years ago. Friends suggested Punk Rope.

If you’ve never heard of Punk Rope, it’s kind of a cross between recess and boot camp. It was created by Tim Haft, a personal trainer and USA Track & Field Coach, and combines jump roping, play and music. Read more.

Benelli is one lucky yellow Lab. A few months ago she was in a Georgia shelter slated to be euthanized and now she has a new home in Maine — safe and sound with Dustin, Lindsay and Gauge, also a rescue dog. Read more.

Four great talents came together for the making of “Lincoln”:  Steven Spielberg, surely America’s greatest contemporary filmmaker;  playwright Tony Kushner, who wrote “Angels in America” as well as the screenplay for Spielberg’s 2005 movie “Munich”;  historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book “Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” formed the basis for Kushner’s script;  and Daniel Day Lewis, who seems to have been born to play Abraham Lincoln.

There are lesser talents on display here as well, several of whom add juice to the 1865 business of getting the 13th Amendment through a divided House of Representatives while the Civil War still rages.