Dancers Compound a Tradition

--More than 70 performing artists from the Soviet Union took part in a repeat of Kennedy family history when they spent a day at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass. Members of the Bolshoi Ballet and the Pokrovsky Folk Ensemble, part of the cultural exchange “Making Music Together,” were invited to the compound by Ted Kennedy Jr. and Kara Kennedy, children of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). In 1963, Robert F. Kennedy invited members of the Bolshoi to the residence. The second time around, the Soviets spent the day tossing footballs and Frisbees and coaxing revelers--including the Kennedys--into doing folk dances on the lawn.

--Nancy Reagan was one of 57 cancer survivors honored at the White House as part of a two-day celebration of the American Cancer Society’s 75th anniversary. And it was her husband who presented her with a courage award in the Rose Garden. “I’m very honored to receive this award from Ronald Reagan,” Mrs. Reagan said with a smile at her husband who was standing nearby. “I can’t say it’s an award that I dreamed of getting when I was growing up . . . but that’s what happens sometimes.” Mrs. Reagan had a cancerous breast removed last October. Other recipients of the cancer society’s courage awards included British-born actress Jill Ireland, who also suffered breast cancer, and 10-year-old Jason Gaes of Worthington, Minn., who survived lymphoma. Jason was diagnosed at age 6 and soon began writing his story. He finished “My Book for Kids With Cansur” at age 8.

--So far, restorers have spent $2.2 million on the Springfield, Ill., home that Abraham Lincoln paid just $1,500 for nearly 150 years ago. “At this point, we’re on budget, on time and on schedule,” said Richard A. Lusardi, the National Park Service’s maintenance chief for the project. A grand reopening is set for June 16. A three-year renovation of Lincoln’s two-story frame house will enter its final phase today when workers remove a vinyl polyester shroud that cloaked the structure and allowed restoration to continue through the winter. Lincoln was 35, a prosperous lawyer and a former state legislator considering a bid for Congress when he moved his family into the house in 1844. They lived there until 1861, when they moved to the White House. Restorers found a cache of documents inside a kitchen wall. The items, which will be displayed at the house, include part of an envelope addressed and signed by Lincoln, four letters to him and a printed anti-slavery speech.