"I once said to Fred Astaire, 'Isn't it wonderful what the Gershwin brothers did for you at RKO?' " John Williams recalls. Astaire answered. "Yes. But Irving Berlin did more."

A little Shakespeare came to mind during a recent shift in the Boston emergency room where I work.

"Good Mercutio, let's retire," Romeo's cousin Benvolio says. "The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl."

It was hot in Boston, too, and people were brawling. The steamy summer months always seem to bring more than their fair share of violence.

But the ER was full of more than just brawlers. Heart attacks, strokes, respiratory problems — the heat appeared to make everything worse.

When Lisa and Dan Macheca bought a century-old Methodist church in St. Louis back in 2004, they didn't think much about the cost of heating the place.

Then the first heating bill arrived: $5,000 for a single month.

"I felt like crying," Lisa Macheca said. "Like, 'Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?' "

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a new student loan watchdog, and his appointment is raising questions about who is safeguarding the interests of student borrowers.

Tanya Tucker has always been a hellraiser. The 60-year-old country singer who shot to fame with Delta Dawn in 1972 at 13 has made a career out of charismatic sass, an outlaw image and a signature vocal performance to back it up. Throughout Tucker's career, there have been bestselling albums, awards and recognition including an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. There have also been bouts with drug addiction and rehabilitation.