Blog Posts by Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News

George Lucas wants to open a museum dedicated to the art of storytelling in San Francisco. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO—George Lucas is best known for creating some of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters in history, including the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” series.

Now, several months after he sold his groundbreaking movie studio, Lucasfilm, to Disney for $4 billion and announced he was entering semiretirement, the legendary filmmaker is looking to shift into a second career: museum curator.

On Monday, Lucas will appear before the Presidio Trust in San Francisco to present his proposal for a museum dedicated to “visual storytelling,” to be built in the former military base turned national park. To be called the Lucas Cultural Art Museum, its exact site would be Crissy Field, a former U.S. Army airfield located in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. It would be filled with Lucas’ vast collection of illustrations and pop art dating back 150 years and having an estimated worth of more than $1 billion.

Lucas is one of three finalists vying for the Crissy Field spot. The other two

When photographers Alessandro Cosmelli and Gaia Light moved to Brooklyn from Italy in 2007, they quickly learned the best way to get to know their newly adopted city was to explore it by the Metro Transit bus.

For hours, they explored neighborhoods around Brooklyn—peering through the bus windows into a world that often goes unseen by visitors and even some longtime residents of New York, who have come to think of the borough as nothing more than a haven for hipsters. What they found were neighborhoods filled with diversity and vibrancy, streets that told the success of and struggle toward the American dream.

“What we saw was the soul of the city,” Cosmelli said.

Their explorations soon turned into a project called “Brooklyn Buzz,” where the two spent several hours a day riding buses through Brooklyn and photographing through the windows what they saw.

Cosmelli said he and Light had no game plan for where they went. Each photographer just picked a bus “randomly” and rode it for hours,

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker (John Moore/Getty Images)

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker is set to make official what the political world has long expected: He’ll run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Frank Lautenberg, who died Monday.

A source close to the Democratic mayor told Yahoo News Booker was expected to announce Saturday that he’ll enter the special election primary set for Aug. 13. But the source cautioned that the event could be postponed because of heavy rains and flooding from remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea that were forecast for the region over the next 24 hours. The campaign was expected to make a final call on the event later Friday.

Booker announced in December he was exploring a run for Lautenberg’s seat in 2014, and had long been considered the front-runner in that race. But the special election could complicate his plans—in part because several well-funded lawmakers have announced or expressed their interest in running in what looks to be an increasingly crowded Democratic primary. Booker would have to make up

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced on Thursday he is appointing state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa to replace Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died on Monday.

Chiesa, a longtime friend and colleague of Christie's dating to their early days as lawyers, served as chief counsel to the governor from January 2010 through December 2011, when he was nominated to be New Jersey attorney general. Christie said Chiesa, a Republican, will not run for Senate when his temporary term is over.

At a press conference on Thursday, Christie said he had been considering options for Lautenberg's seat long before Monday, given the late senator's delicate health. He met with Chiesa on Monday night and asked him to consider the position. Chiesa, he said, sent him a text on Tuesday confirming he would take the appointment.

Christie called Chiesa "the best person" for the job and praised him as a public official who has maintained friendly relationships with both Democrats and Republicans.

"There's very few

Sen. Frank Lautenberg's casket arrives at his New York City funeral. (Seth Wenig/AP)

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg was remembered during his funeral at a New York synagogue on Wednesday as a “most tenacious” man and “scrappy fighter” willing to do anything to better the lives of all Americans.

"You don't have to wait for the history books" to know the impact of Lautenberg's career, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of the Democratic lawmaker, with whom she served in the Senate. She praised her former colleague as a tireless advocate of gun control and women's rights—and recalled sitting next to Lautenberg near the back of the Senate floor in seating reserved for lawmakers with less seniority.

"As Frank said, 'It’s not where you sit that counts, it’s where you stand,'" Clinton said. "And there was no doubt where he stood."

Clinton was one of more than 40 current and former lawmakers who turned out to honor Lautenberg at a service held at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City. Among the others who attended were Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey

New Jersey Gov. Chris A poll found Christie has broad political appeal (Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images) Christie has cast himself as a lawmaker willing to buck political parties for the good of his state in his bid for a second term, and it’s a strategy that appears to be working.

A new, nationwide NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Christie enjoys “nearly equal appeal” among Democrats, Republicans and independents—a unique position in the highly polarized world of politics.

According to the poll, 43 percent of Democrats, 41 percent of independents and 40 percent of Republicans view Christie in a “positive light.” All told, 41 percent of those polled view him positively and 12 percent negatively—while 29 percent said they were “not sure.”

The survey was based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The poll found that Christie is far less polarizing than several other national officials, including President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who, like Christie, is

Barbara Buono votes in New Jersey's primary election Tuesday (Mel Evans/AP)

MONTCLAIR, N.J.—Gov. Chris Christie leads Barbara Buono in the polls by more than 30 points, sports a nearly 70 percent approval rating and has raised nearly three times as much political cash for his re-election bid than his opponent—leading many to believe he is virtually unbeatable this November.

But Buono, a Democratic state senator who officially won the nomination of her party Tuesday to face Christie on Election Day, insists none of this bothers her. She is unfazed by the declarations—even by members of her own party—that she is waging an unwinnable campaign.

“Let him be overconfident,” Buono said of Christie as she spoke to a group of young Democratic supporters at a phone bank in this tony suburb of New York City on Tuesday. “We’re coming up behind him, and he doesn’t even see us.”

But not everybody shares Buono’s optimism. The race has exposed a division among Democrats in the state—many of whom have privately questioned how the party could not have attracted a stronger,

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (Screen shot via livestream)MONTCLAIR, N.J.—Gov. Chris Christie scheduled a special election for Oct. 16 to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died on Monday. The election will be preceded by a primary on Aug. 13.

In a press conference, Christie said he will make a temporary appointment to the post, but he noted he had not yet decided who that will be. He expects to make an announcement by next week.

"This is about guaranteeing the people of New Jersey both a choice and a voice in the process and the representation that they deserve in Washington. Whoever is going to be our next United States senator should be nominated by a primary of the people and voted on by all the people of the state of New Jersey," Christie said. "And that’s why, as is clearly indicated by New Jersey law, I am calling for a special election to be held this year."

The decision is sure to spur questions about Christie’s political motives, given that some people had suggested holding the special election on Nov. 5, Election