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Text messages spreading false rumors helped spark postelection violence in 2007. This time, monitors will keep an eye on social media and will be in touch with government officials in a bid to prevent bloodshed.

The center-left was favored, but there was no clear winner as the ballots were counted. Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition was not expected to do well, but was leading in the upper house of Parliament.

There's no evidence that calcium supplements help prevent bone fractures in most people, a preventive services task force says. And calcium supplements boost the risk of kidney stones, and perhaps heart disease.

It's not just the heat — it's the humidity. Health experts actually apply that principle to workers, soldiers and sportsmen who toil outside and in places that lack air conditioning. A study in Nature Climate Change says that global warming will noticeably reduce the amount of time people can spend working and playing safely outside.

Several big retailers say the return of the full payroll tax is causing consumers to curtail spending, but so far the evidence is mostly anecdotal. Some analysts argue a variety of factors, and not any specific policy, contributed to slower growth in consumer spending in January.

The debate currently raging over guns goes beyond a disagreement over policy. Advocates on both sides literally disagree on the terms of the discussion — as in, the words they use to describe it. They know that the specific phrases they use tap into deeply held values in the people who hear them.

Drone developers in upstate New York and other regions are striving to be named official testing sites for drones as the FAA creates regulations for their use.

Pope Benedict XVI leaves office this week, the second pope to resign voluntarily. The first was Celestine V, a hermit who quit in 1294, after a brief and disastrous stint. Some scholars say Dante damned Celestine as a coward in his Inferno. Yet his example, legally and spiritually, played a major role in Benedict's departure.

Natalie Stewart, best known as half of the British duo Floetry, discusses that group's breakup and her new solo album.

Also: Some authors are buying spots on bestseller lists; the legacy of Philip Roth; and details of Thomas Pynchon's next novel.