In the run-up to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, John Maynard Keynes harrumphed that a gathering of 44 governments would amount to “the most monstrous monkey-house.” The Roosevelt administration pressed on with the conference anyway, and the result was the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the world’s most successful international economic institutions. Today, the sudden vacancy at the IMF’s helm has created a comparable moment. But the Obama administration appears to lack Franklin Roosevelt’s stomach for sidelining arrogant Europeans.

We can’t know for sure what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of the arrests Saturday of five people who were dancing in his memorial. According to reports, they were grooving in silence to protest an earlier court ruling banning dance within the Jefferson Memorial.

The arrests sparked outrage galore, complete with viral videos on YouTube of the forceful police response. But overlooked is the utter irony of outlawing dance in the name of the third president. After all, this is the man who netted this nation a dance heritage with the Louisiana Purchase.

RICHMOND — Sen. Charles J. Colgan, the longest-serving member of the Virginia Senate, said Tuesday that he will run for a 10th term in November, a move that boosts Democrats’ chances of retaining their thin majority in the legislature’s upper chamber.

Colgan (D-Prince William), who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had said a year ago that he would probably retire at the end of this year. “I’m not Strom Thurmond,” said Colgan, who was ailing from prostate cancer.

But on Tuesday, Colgan said he has beaten his cancer and is in excellent health. He had been swayed, he added, by fellow Democrats and supporters who urged him to run for another four-year term.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has broken his right collarbone in a bicycle accident near his home in Cambridge, Mass.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the 72-year-old justice took a spill over the weekend.

The mishap was not preventing Breyer from speaking in New York City Tuesday evening. Breyer was not in court Tuesday morning, but Arberg said the absence was unrelated to the accident.

Should the federal government pay employees for the time they spend on union activities?

Before you answer, consider some of the information that will be examined during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday afternoon.

The hearing marks a continuation of the House federal workforce subcommittee’s practice of targeting issues in which Republicans feel federal workers have an unfair advantage or are costing taxpayers too much money.