user: IN: Leader: The art revival spreads beyond London
Picasso Matisse exhibition notice at Tate Modern

Now that the 20th century is safely over Britain's ever-cautious art public is free to pay homage to that century's two greatest painters, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, side by side again in a British gallery for the first time since 1945. Judging by the crowds which have flocked into Tate Modern on London's South Bank since mid-May we are now as happy to embrace modernism as we have long been willing (also after a wary delay) to queue to admire impressionism. The Tate stayed open all night on Saturday to allow the last of the 450,000 visitors to pass through at an entry rate of 500 an hour before it closed on Sunday night.

Many people came with a predisposition towards one of the two artists and emerged with that notion confirmed or confounded. They are in good company. Friendly rivals for 50 years, the French bourgeois and the Spanish Bohemian were more than each other's antithesis in colour and form. As a succession of paintings demonstrates, side by side in this show, they constantly stimulated and infuriated each other. Picasso responded to Matisse's sad 1916 portrait of his wife by painting a young woman in the Cubist style. He used Matisse's gift, a portrait of his daughter, Marguerite (on display here), as a dartboard.

That was unfair of the younger, greater man. But he was not alone. Among the many gaps in Tate Modern's collection, the result of defective purchasing policies in the mid-century, is Matisse's Red Studio, offered for £800 and turned down. It went (where else?) to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And talking of money, though the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, is delighted that her free museums policy (actually Chris Smith's) has increased attendance by 62% nationwide since December 1, it should be noted that Matisse and Picasso cost a tenner. A new gallery, a new footbridge and popular exhibitions can revive a faded riverside, as both banks of the Tyne are now proving.
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OUT: The art revival spreads beyond London.


IN: Death Valley, the driest place in North America, is now a sea of yellow flowers
Thanks to record-breaking rainfall last October, Death Valley — which is one of the driest and hottest places on Earth — currently looks like sea of yellow.

The national park, which occupies parts of California and Nevada, has more than 20 different types of wildflowers blooming there now, in what people have taken to calling a "superbloom." Flowers started breaking through the dry earth back in November, but February has seen a total transformation, according to the National Park Service.

The park averages just two inches of rain per year, but last fall, the area picked up twice that in a matter of a few weeks, setting a monthly rainfall record and causing damaging flooding. In one area of the park, more than 3 inches of rain fell in a matter of a few hours, according to the Park Service.

"I never imagined that so much life could exist here in such staggering abundance and intense beauty."

The heavy rains were related to the Southwest Monsoon season, rather than El Niño. However, El Niño-related rains this winter helped set off the bloom.

During the monsoon season, warm, moist air sneaks northward from the Gulf of California, triggering showers and thunderstorms across the desert Southwest, from California to Arizona.

The heavy rain that fell provided the impetus for millions of seeds that had been dormant in the ground to bloom several months later, which is what is happening now.

"If trends continue, there will be a ton of wildflowers here in 2016," park spokeswoman Linda Slater told the Los Angeles Times in November of last year.

Death Valley hasn't seen a phenomenon like this since the early 2000's.

"When I first came to work here in the early 1990s I kept hearing the old timers talk about super blooms as a near mythical thing – the ultimate possibility of what a desert wildflower bloom could be," Death Valley National Park Ranger Alan Van Valkenburg said in a press release.

"I saw several impressive displays of wildflowers over the years and always wondered how anything could beat them, until I saw my first super bloom in 1998. Then I understood," Van Valkenburg said.

"I never imagined that so much life could exist here in such staggering abundance and intense beauty."

By scattering seeds throughout the park, this bloom will lay the groundwork for the next one, be it one or several years from now.
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OUT: Thanks to record-breaking rains last year, one of Earth's hottest and driest spots is now awash in sea of yellow wildflowers.


IN: Breaking up just before retirement is hard to do
Read MoreFamous family business feuds

In the Seattle region, where Voit is located, it's not uncommon for clients who work for large-area employers, such as Microsoft or Boeing, to sell a home for $1 million or more. Assuming closing costs of 8 percent, a $500,000 original purchase price and $100,000 in capital improvement, a home could end up earning its owners a net profit of $320,000.

For couples, $500,000 of the capital gain is tax-free, so selling a property prior to the divorce decree might be prudent. But it might make sense post-divorce, too, Voit said. In that case, $250,000 would be tax-free for the single person and $70,000 taxed at the favorable 15 percent or 20 percent capital gains tax rate.

"From a tax perspective, that might still make sense," he said, comparing home sales to withdrawals from 401(k) plans and IRAs. The latter are taxed at the ordinary tax rate, which can run as high as 39.6 percent.
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OUT:

assistant: Divorce after 50 gets more financially complicated if couples are close to retirement. Here's why.