I want to jump the queue here to get ahead of all the annual stories about what a wonderful sports year it was.

Please understand: In sports, it is always one fabulous year.

That's because, in all sports years there are myriad games, so therefore there must be lots of winners. Ergo: What a great year we had, sports fans!

The fact is, though, that (a) 2010 was a lousy sports year overall, (b) a really terrible sports year for the United States, and (c) 2011 looks like even more of a bummer.

President Barack Obama locked up enough Republican votes Tuesday to ratify a new arms control treaty with Russia that would cap nuclear warheads for both former Cold War foes and restart on-site weapons inspections.

Eleven Senate Republicans joined Democrats in a 67-28 proxy vote to wind up the debate and hold a final tally on Wednesday. They broke ranks with the Senate's top two Republicans and were poised to give Obama a victory on his top foreign policy priority.

As we near the end of the year, we're catching up on music we missed, and that includes the release from trumpeter Maurice Brown, The Cycle of Love.

It's rarely easy for a musician to put into words what his music is supposed to mean, but Brown tries. His liner notes suggest that each song represents a different moment in life.

"Well, The Cycle of Love for me," he says, "is my interpretation of the different stages we go through on our quest for true happiness, you know?"

The wider use of a cheap blood test could help cut the number of new HIV infections by more than 80,000 in the United States over 20 years.

The test only costs a few dollars. But the researchers say screening everyone at least once and people more likely to get the disease, such as gay men, every year would be a cost-effective. Still, even that considerable effort would cut the expected 1.23 million new HIV infections over the next couple decades by a modest 7 percent.

For the parents who have been wondering, "Why is it that my daughter plays with dolls and my son just wants a toy fire truck?" scientists reported this week that they've seen something similar among chimpanzees in a forest in Uganda. The scientists say they've observed young, female chimps playing with sticks and logs as though they were dolls.