Mongolia

I'm planning to take a trip to China with my 13-year-old son. Should we take a tour or hire private guides? The Internet is full of companies offering China tours, and most brick-and-mortar travel agencies can hook you up with an excursion of any length to the most popular cities and sites: Beijing, Shanghai, Xian and the Great Wall. You're probably better off arranging a tour or private guide before departing rather than after your arrival. Language barriers can make it difficult to find a guide or even to take public transportation.

Friendly felines first cozied up to humans in the Fertile Crescent at least 9,500 years ago, not in Egypt as commonly thought, an international team of researchers reported Thursday. While archaeological evidence already suggested the date for the taming of wildcats, the new study, published in the online journal Science, provides genetic evidence that confirms the Near Eastern origin of domestic cats. Farmers in what is now Saudi Arabia and Israel were probably happy to have cats around to protect stored grain from vermin.

Nine days ago, Battsetseg Tsagaan was sitting in a cafe studying for her last exam. It was easy compared to the cramming she still faced for today's Pan American collegiate chess championship in Miami. Her jobs as a mom, student, teacher and wife leave little time for her talent as one of the top college chess players in the United States. Once, she had the luxury of preparing for a tournament for a month. Now she's happy to have had at least these last few days to get back into the swing of things.

Julie Wilde, a young-adult librarian last year at the east Columbia branch, needed something to occupy neighborhood children who came in to pass the time. She tried board games -- Yahtzee, Life, Scrabble and others -- but looked for something more. As luck would have it, Scott Doughty, a longtime chess player, worked in the library's circulation department. He offered to start a chess club, and recruited his friend Battsetseg Tsaagan to help. Tsaagan, who is from Mongolia, is a women's international chess master.

IN A FEW WEEKS, Azerbaijan will junk the Russian script in favor of the Latin alphabet system. The country's renewed political independence has brought linguistic independence as well. Azerbaijan is not alone. Several former Soviet vassals have gotten rid of the Cyrillic script of their erstwhile Moscow masters. Even Mongolia is considering it. Oil-rich Azerbaijan, though, offers a poignant illustration of how language can be used as a tool in shifting political winds. For centuries, Azerbaijan's overwhelmingly Islamic population wrote its poetry, books and letters with Arabic characters.

Tonight's rambling episode of Frontline asserts that from China's teeming citizenry, one man's brief, thwarted act of defiance actually changed the world. "The Tank Man," as he is called in lieu of a confirmed identity, was the Beijing obstructionist who stood in the way of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square nearly 17 years ago. This episode (10 p.m.-11:30 p.m., MPT, Channels 22, 67), produced by the provocative filmmaker Antony Thomas, argues that although the Tank Man's gesture did not lead to his government's collapse after soldiers fired on peaceful protesters, it inspired reformers everywhere to challenge totalitarian oppressors.

Dr. Richard H. Pembroke Jr., a retired psychoanalyst who practiced at St. Joseph Medical Center for three decades and was an amateur astronomer, died of a heart attack Jan. 4 at Sinai Hospital. The Roland Park resident was 95. Born in Gassaway, W.Va., and raised in Park Hall in Southern Maryland, he was a 1928 graduate of St. Paul's School. He earned his undergraduate degree at St. John's College in Annapolis and completed his medical education at the University of Maryland. Initially trained as a pathologist, he served in the Navy during World War II and became interested in psychiatry, family members said.

TOKYO - After spending a week in Japan exploring the Aichi World Fair, courting Japanese investors and having lunch with Toyota's chairman, Vice Premier Wu Yi of China decided yesterday to fly home a few hours early, canceling a scheduled meeting with Japan's prime minister. While China's Foreign Ministry said Wu had to return home "to handle important urgent official duties," Japanese officials noted that she still planned to fly today to Mongolia. "Many people in Japan may feel it is rude," Shinzo Abe, an executive with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters, according to Kyodo News.

UNITED NATIONS - Hunger now afflicts 830 million people around the world because of natural disaster, armed conflict and a grinding poverty that consigns the poor to chronic malnutrition, the U.N. World Food Program reported yesterday. "From generation to generation, people don't have enough food to eat," Catherine Bertini, the executive director of the food agency, said at a briefing, where she distributed a map identifying "hot spots" where hunger is most severe. The map shows large swaths of sub-Sahara Africa and Asia where millions of people, most of them women and children, cannot get enough to eat. "The combination of poverty and disaster causes people to have even less possibility to build resources to end their hunger," Bertini said.

Prime-time may not look like much today, but if you're into old bones, there's some interesting dinosaur stuff on TBS this morning."Second Noah" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Borrowing a page (and a plot) from "Babe," Hannah (Ashley Gorrell) tries turning Homer the pig into a trained dog. ABC."Dark Skies" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Some interesting developments for Kimberly (Megan Ward): she meets astronaut who was abducted by aliens at the same time she was, and she relives that abduction thanks to the wonders of hypnosis.