The James Logan Courier

By Barry Wood
VOA News

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, Tuesday held short-term interest rates steady, breaking a pattern of 17 consecutive quarter point hike in rates going back over two years. The Fed is worried that more rate increases could push a slowing economy into recession.

By VOA News

The United States and France are considering possible changes to a draft United Nations resolution aimed at ending the Israel-Hezbollah fighting.

Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a novelist, playwright, essayist and statesman, recognized as the most influential Romantic writer of the 19th century. His best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Poetry was another of his vocations: among many volumes, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is often identified as the greatest French poet. His works are filled with great power, abundant imagination and beautiful words that become huge features of his works. Furthermore, the complicated as well as touching plots are also the main characteristics that captivate readers' hearts.

Read The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo, one of 27 of his works available in French and English free from Project Gutenberg.


Heroic Bust of Victor Hugo by August Rodin, cast in bronze in the 1890s.