Sisters

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

After several years of upheaval over the best way to conduct breast cancer screening, researchers are working to find clarity over when women should begin getting mammograms, how often and at what cost. A pair of new studies clears up some of the uncertainty by finding that women who have a mother or sister diagnosed with breast cancer, or those who have unusually dense breast tissue, should have their first test at age 40 and repeat the exam at least once every other year. For these women, who face at least twice the average risk of developing breast cancer in their 40s, the benefits of routine screening between the ages of 40 and 49 outweigh the risk of false alarms and unnecessary work-ups that might otherwise put them at greater risk than doing nothing, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Annals of Internal Medicine.

SHE MADE a name for herself in the '90s with movies like "A League of Their Own" and "Tank Girl," but Lori Petty likes to say she was an accidental movie star. Moving to New York at age 18, she worked as a waitress in between auditions and slept on friends' couches, at the YMCA, or, on occasion, in Central Park. "It was so comfortable it was like home," Petty recalls as she sits at a deck cafe overlooking the Santa Monica beach, her big blue eyes and cropped hair rendering her immediately recognizable to "Point Break" fans sitting nearby.

Summer brings no shortage of popcorn movies but some films this season are more like a fully satisfying meal. Consider these offerings - with casts young and old, settings foreign and home-grown, stories contemporary and period - which will linger in your memory long after the lights come up. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Lovers of "Downton Abbey"will be thrilled to see Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton together again, playing for...

An identical twin whose plot to kill her sister made headlines around the world sobbed uncontrollably Friday as a judge sentenced her to 26 years to life in prison. Despite her emotional, last-minute protest of innocence, Jeen "Gina" Han, 24, dubbed "the evil twin," received the maximum sentence. "It is obvious Miss Han is a danger to society, particularly her own family," said Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore. "All of her family have been victims of her crimes."

The Goodmans The Goodman sisters created a surprise indie hit with their first feature, "The Tao of Steve," in 2000. The film, co-written with Jenniphr's housemate Duncan North, starred Donal Logue as an underachieving, frequently stoned womanizer and Greer Goodman as the one who got away. "Jenniphr went to NYU film school. I went to Yale drama school. And we were sitting around doing nothing," Greer Goodman recalls. "I thought, 'Instead of waiting for some job on some sitcom, why don't I write with my sister who went to film school and made movies that won awards?

Hollywood has been fertile ground for brothers. It has accommodated the Warner brothers, the Marx brothers, the Coen brothers, the Farrelly brothers, the Hughes brothers, the Wayans brothers. So where are all the sisters? "There's so many brothers!" exclaims Jennifer Todd, who partnered with her older sister Suzanne for 13 years to produce blockbuster movies as Team Todd. She is probably thinking of the Weitz brothers, the Wachowski brothers, the Wilson brothers. "It's endless!"

The Williams sisters have seldom spent such a miserable day together. Venus Williams botched routine shots all the way through a 7-6 (2), 6-4 loss to Flavia Pennetta on Thursday, the first major upset at the Cincinnati Open. She made 38 unforced errors, repeatedly dumping balls into the net or well beyond the baseline. Playing on the same court a few hours later, Serena Williams topped her sister in confounding mistakes. She had 44 unforced errors during a 7-5, 6-4 loss to Sybille Bammer , who reached the quarterfinals of a tournament for only the third time this year.

Seven and a half years ago, a woman approached screenwriter Alex Kurtzman at a party and introduced herself. "She said, 'Hi, I'm your sister,' " Kurtzman said. "I was in shock. " Kurtzman clearly saw his father's features reflected in the woman's face, but here he was at age 30 and he'd never met her. The stunning experience of encountering his half-sister for the first time led to Kurtzman's latest movie and his directorial debut, "People Like Us," which opens June 29. A heavily fictionalized version of his own story, the film stars Chris Pine as Sam, a self-absorbed young man charged with delivering $150,000 of his recently deceased father's money to a sister he never knew he had (played by Elizabeth Banks)

A hostess escorted Emily Blunt to a private room in the commissary on the Universal Pictures lot, where a lone table had been set for a meal. The actress glanced around at the empty, window-less space and asked, "Might we be able to go out into the main dining room? I feel a bit cooped up in here. " As a team of handlers scurried to grant her request, one publicist whispered admiringly, "Wow, I've never had a star ask for less privacy. She's so cool, right?" Blunt, 29, seems to inspire this breathless sort of praise.

In Philadelphia last week, a child sexual abuse trial involving Catholic clergy led to a bombshell - a bishop from West Virginia was accused of abuse. In Kansas City, a Catholic bishop goes on trial in September, accused of failing to report suspected child abuse. Last year church officials paid $144 million to settle abuse allegations and cover legal bills, and although many of the cases went back decades, church auditors have warned of "growing complacency" about protecting children today.

Rick Santorum was late. The audience was a little restless, drowning out a tea party activist lauding the Republican presidential contender. But then came Camille and Haley Harris, young sisters who are the Christian folk-pop duo First Love from Tulsa, Okla. They sang their newest song. It's about Santorum. That's right. Santorum has a theme song. "Game on. Join the fight," the sisters, radiant and exuberant, sang to a jangly, upbeat tune, touting his insistence that God, not government, bestows rights, his devotion to the Constitution, his promise of "justice for the unborn" and his commitment to bring "factories back on our shores.

USC needed a win or two in the Pacific Life Pac-12 Conference women's basketball tournament to bolster its slim postseason hopes. But after a 69-55 loss to Washington State during Thursday's quarterfinal round at the Galen Center, USC's chances of making the NCAA tournament were downgraded to hopeless. Measured by seeding differential, the third-seeded Trojans' loss to the 11th-seeded Cougars marked the biggest upset in tournament history, besting the 2002 upset by seventh-seeded Oregon against second-seeded Washington.

The California desert sun can be relentlessly unforgiving. So too, it seems, can the tennis powerhouse Williams sisters. Eleven years have passed since Serena Williams was greeted with a booming chorus of boos in the women's finals and left for good. Venus did the same. And with the two-week BNP Paribas Open underway this week at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens, still no sisters. "Even now, all these years later, we continue to boycott the event," Serena wrote in her 2009 autobiography.

A sister ship of the cruise liner that ran aground in Italy last month was adrift in the Indian Ocean after a fire broke out in the engine room. No casualties or injuries were reported Monday on board the Costa Allegra, which is owned by Costa Cruises, the same Italian company that operates the Costa Concordia. The Costa Concordia ran aground on the Italian island of Giglio on the night of Jan 13., killing 25 people, with another seven still unaccounted for. Costa Cruises confirmed in a statement that a fire broke out in the electric generator room Monday afternoon but was promptly extinguished.

It feels like the coldest day of the year on a January afternoon in Brooklyn. Snow is expected by evening and even the usually unflappable New Yorkers in the area are feeling the chill, clutching the collars of nylon puffer jackets closer to their chests, some ducking into a rustic, dimly lighted restaurant in the Cobble Hill neighborhood to escape the freeze. Inside, seen through the crowd of neutral tones and wool coats, sits entertainer and rising fashion It girl Solange Knowles, a definite bright spot on a frigid day. She seems to warm up the postage stamp-sized eatery with her colorful ensemble, approachable demeanor and pouf of curly hair.