BY now, most high school dress codes have just about done away with the guesswork. (Today)

SEVERAL years ago, as Labor Day approached and parents nationwide began that end-of-summer ritual I know all too well -- packing the children off to college -- I found myself facing a new and particularly fraught task: preparing to return my son not to college but to war, to the mountain passes northeast of Kandahar, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. (Today)

FIVE days a week, Michael Kiernan, 50, a computer network administrator, makes the 90-minute commute home from the Bronx County Courthouse, where he works, to suburban Long Beach on Long Island. Like a lot of New Yorkers, he has it down to a science. He leaves work at 4:45, walk-jogs across 161st Street, then hurries into the subway, where he gets into the first car on the D train. He stands by the door, riding two stops to 145th Street, then races up the stairs for the A train, a downtown express. Again he stands, in the first car, by the third door, which at 34th Street opens at the stairs to the Long Island Rail Road. If all goes well, he catches the 5:20 home. (Today)

RAPUNZEL has nothing on Avery, a 10-inch injection-molded mall princess whose flaxen hair cascades to her knees. Rapunzel might also have envied Avery's smart wardrobe and her arsenal of styling tools, from thumb-size lip gloss to a tiny curling iron. (Today)

JAY-Z started spreadin' the news in September, and since then he has taken every prominent opportunity to remind us: he has a candidate for a new New York anthem, and he wants our votes. (Today)