Datasets:

jxm

/

trec-news__gtr_base__dpr

like 0

The Collingwood Group, a District-based financial advisory firm,has acquired GWN Consulting, a Herndon firm specializing in Federal Housing Administration and Ginnie Mae risk management and quality control. The acquisition comes as heightened regulatory scrutiny of mortgage lenders has resulted in a rise in enforcement actions, compliance litigation and claims disputes. Lenders looking to avoid tangling with regulators are turning to consultants for a preemptive review of their operations, which made GWN an attractive asset, according to Brian Montgomery, vice chairman and managing director of Collingwood. Montgomery, who would not disclose the financial terms of the agreement, said he was impressed with the breadth of experience at GWN, having partnered with the company on a number of projects. All five members of GWN’s management team have held senior positions tied to FHA lending at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Collingwood will retain all of GWN’s consultants for a combined staff of 25 employees. GWN founder and president Karen Garner will continue to manage the business, which will operate as part of Collingwood’s Risk Management & Compliance Division. “Karen and her colleague’s expertise was a good match for us,” said Montgomery, a former FHA commissioner himself, who co-founded Collingwood with Joe Murin, former president and chief executive for Ginnie Mae. Garner said joining Collingwood will provide her team with resources and products that complement GWN’s existing platform. “If a lender called me, I would say I could do A,B and C. But now if someone calls, I can do three-fourths of the alphabet, or at least half,” she said. While Garner has seen an increase in business from lenders facing audits or enforcements, there has been more demand from those hoping to prevent any actions. Montgomery said a few high-profile cases last year raised alarms in the lending community, namely the Justice Department lawsuit against Deutsche Bank in May. The DOJ accused the bank under the False Claims Act of misleading the FHA into believing mortgages issued by its subsidiary qualified for federal insurance. Violations can carry hefty civil penalties of up to $11,000 per false claim and permits the court to triple the amount of the damages. The number of enforcement actions for noncompliance with FHA requirements plummeted last year from the soaring heights of 2010. FHA’s Mortgagee Review Board took action against nearly 300 lenders in 2011, a far cry from the 1,500 sanctions a year earlier, but a significant enough number to keep lenders on their toes. FHA-insured loans skyrocketed following the collapse of the subprime market. Whereas FHA’s share of the mortgage market was around 3 percent in 2007, it surged to upwards of 25 percent in early 2009. Montgomery suspects the sheer volume of loans, coupled with new entrants into the market, contributed to more enforcement actions.

**Benjamin Young** and **Greg Coleman** don’t speak a word of Portuguese. For most Silver Spring-based upstarts, it’s not exactly a pressing skillset. But the duo has seen their fitness application for smartphones, called **Nexercise** , gain inexplicable steam in Brazil. Now they need a translator. Rápido. “I just didn’t realize that fitness in general in Brazil is really big,” Young said. “I guess with the weather and the culture, people just want to be in shape.” Young said the app has risen to the top five in Brazil’s iPhone app store and the firm has seen as many as 500 downloads a day from the South American country. Still a tiny enterprise, Nexercise has done limited marketing in the United States and absolutely none overseas or in the non-English-speaking world, Young said. But this newfound demand has prompted the founders to reconsider their opportunities. “Brazil was a very hot country for social network sites,” he said. “I think that their culture is kind of inherently latching onto technology and ... if you look at a lot of countries outside the U.S., a lot of people are accessing mobile technology.” Online education company **2tor** is officially planting its flag in the ground in the Washington region, shifting its headquarters from New York to Landover as **Chip Paucek** assumes the chief executive title. The changes are largely ceremonial. Paucek, one of the company’s co-founders, has been at the helm of day-to-day operations for much of the past two years and the bulk of the company’s 350-person staff already works from the Landover office. Co-founder **John Katzman** , formerly of The Princeton Review, will remain with the company as executive chairman. Paucek said 2tor will keep an office in New York, as well as its offices in Los Angeles, North Carolina and Hong Kong. 2tor, pronounced “tutor,” partners with universities to design online degree programs that mirror their curriculums and often use their instructors. Last year, the company partnered with Georgetown University’s nursing school to offer several online degrees, and Paucek said it now enrolls more students thatn the brick-and-mortar counterpart. But the programs come at a cost. Each can require from $10 million to $20 million in venture capital to get off the ground, Paucek said, so the firm has started only one or two a year since 2009. “We don’t need to raise additional capital for our current programs, but raising capital is a question mark every time we talk about growth,” he said. “The quicker we talk about the pace of program growth, the more capital we will consume.” The next academic disciplines on its agenda: public administration, engineering and pharmacy, among others. **Zvi Band** heads to the Silicon Valley incubator 500 Startups this week with a little extra money in his company’s coffers. ** Contactually **, an electronic tool for businesses to manage their customers and other contacts, has secured $215,000 from seed investors. ****Local financiers **Sean Glass** and **David Steinberg** are among a host of angel investors who put $165,000 into the company. 500 Startups, which makes seed investments in companies and offers them co-working space, contributed $50,000. A proponent of local entrepreneurs and co-creator of **Proudly Made in D.C.** , an online network for local start-ups, Band plans to return to Washington after several weeks at the incubator. Contactually’s co-founders include **Tony Cappaert** and **Jeff Carbonella.** **** **overlys@washpost.com**

**Pete Snyder** isn’t resting. He is catching the next wave. A month ago, the early social media pioneer was an executive at Meredith Corp., which had bought his New Media Strategies firm in 2007 — making Snyder and many NMS employees wealthy and happy. Snyder, 39, left Meredith at the end of 2011 and started **Disruptor Capital** , a seed and angel investment firm owned and run by him. “We are funding and growing disruptive technologies, ideas and entrepreneurs,” said Snyder in a phone call. Snyder is recovering from a recent surfing injury to his rotator cuff, which he first hurt as a wrestler at William & Mary. Snyder is now investing an undisclosed sum in **Potomac Research Group** , a four-year-old firm founded by media entrepreneur **David Bradley** , which provides analysis of federal legislative activities and regulatory policies to institutional investors. Although Snyder would not talk numbers, he acknowledged Disruptor will be the largest outside shareholder of PRG, which is now owned and run by former Bradley lieutenant **Suzanne Clark**. “Potomac Research Group fits the mold of a disruptive company,” said Snyder, who started NMS at age 26. “It figured out in this day and age, when transparency rules, that information is more important than influence. That is a seismic shift in how people look at Washington and this region. Markets move on that information, and that’s why PRG will flourish.” Snyder said he is looking to make five or six investments over the next 18 months. If the Google 2012 elections site looks familiar, it is because District-based **Jess3** helped design it and is now helping manage it. Jess3, which specializes in Web design, branding and social media marketing, is headquartered on L Street NW above the Farragut North Metro station. It got the Google job last June, but the site didn’t go live until the start of this year. “We have a dedicated team of 15 working on the project,” said Jess3 president **Leslie Bradshaw**. The site is built for everyone from political junkies to journalists to voters, candidates and their staffs. Entrepreneur **John Delaney** , chairman and founder of Chevy Chase-based banking and finance firm **CapitalSource** , has had the political itch for several years. Last week, Delaney pushed the button and filed papers to seek the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. He is taking a leave of absence — effective Jan. 4 — from his paid position as executive chairman, in order to pursue the seat, currently held by longtime incumbent Republican Roscoe Bartlett. (He’ll remain chairman without pay). The 6th was redistricted last year to include parts of Montgomery County. “The same people who have been running CapitalSource for the past year will continue to run it,” said Delaney, 48. “I have not run day-to-day operations for over a year.” Those duties have been shared between CapitalSource chief executive **James J. Pieczynski** and CapitalSource Bank chief executive **Tad Lowrey** in Los Angeles. Delaney, of Potomac, has started several companies in addition to CapitalSource. He is running for office because “I’ve got good leadership qualities, and I think we need that in Washington.” Georgetown-based **D.C. Community Ventures** has loaned $400,000 to Baltimore’s Catalyst IT Service, according to Community Ventures’ co-founder and managing partner **Karim Zia.** Catalyst brings candidates in and trains them for 20 weeks. The benefit: companies can hire Catalyst IT grads to do computer work for the same price, if not cheaper, of those based offshore in India and elsewhere. “The whole model of Catalyst is premised on a proprietary technology they developed that can identify people who have an aptitude for [information technology], and who are not necessarily college graduates,” Zia said. Zia last year started Community Ventures, which directs a $5 million fund, with another former Wall Streeter, **R. Candler Young**. The firm makes investments of $100,000 to $750,000 in mid- to late-stage growth companies that are profitable as well as bring economic benefit to low- and moderate- income communities. Local dentist-turned-digital inventor/entrepreneur **Minh Tran** says he is in “early” discussions with the D.C. Department of Transportation about linking the city’s computers to his **Pothole Alert** mobile phone application, which enables citizens to report potholes and other gripes. The District currently uses SeeClickFix, but Tran tells us the city is considering allowing additional apps to report to D.C. **Lisa and Ethan Opolion** — husband and wife MBAs who own the local rights to a babysitting franchise called **SeekingSitters** — are promoting a new book by the Tulsa, Okla.-based SeekingSitters parent company called “Babysitting S.T.Y.L.E. – Complete Guide for Babysitting Success.” The book is the first edition of what will become an annual guide that includes stories and crafts ideas submitted by sitters that work with the company. The book includes two sitters on the Opolion team, one of whom received a $50 scholarship for her story about her babysitting experiences. **heatht@washpost.com**

Like a painter who has reached the edge of the canvas, Anthony Lanier is running out of room. The entrepreneur made a fortune bringing high-end housing and retail to Georgetown and the West End, beginning with an M Street NW rowhouse in the 1990s. His EastBanc Inc. has built more than any other company in the two tony neighborhoods, including the Cady’s Alley shops, the Ritz Carlton and some of the most posh condominiums in the city. But now Georgetown is Georgetown: Every developer wants to be there and there are very few opportunities left. So Lanier has branched out. Sometimes far out. There is EastBanc Technologies, the custom software developer with offices in Siberia. There are Lanier’s investments in Portugal, where the Brazil native founded a real estate company not long before the country and Europe ran into financial straits. (“We have a big euro exposure now, but we’ll weather that,” Lanier says.) Lanier has soured on the future of the economy. He recently read an article describing aggressive cuts to government services by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and doesn’t think it’s out of the question that similar federal cuts could dramatically cut the need for new real estate in Washington. He doesn’t see law firms and other employers needing the space or paying the rents they once did. “What do you do if everything is flat, if there is no demand? Why are we building all these condos and office buildings if there is no demand?” he said. And yet, Lanier is as active now as perhaps he has ever been, lining up major mixed-use projects and quickly expanding his reach from the neighborhood where he lives to Capitol Hill, U Street NW, H Street NE and Rhode Island Avenue NE. The EastBanc model, what he once described as a “conveyor belt for renovation,” is coming to a District neighborhood near you. “I don’t think we need more real estate,” he said. “I think we need better real estate. I think we need different real estate.” That’s not to say EastBanc is through with Georgetown. Lanier is planning new condominiums and ground floor retail on a parking lot next to a Verizon switching station on Wisconsin Avenue NW. He has a contract to purchase the Old Georgetown Post Office, with room to build in the parking lot, and would like to redevelop a defunct heating plant on K Street NW that he has had his eye on for so long that he has an oil painting of the building in his office. He created a stir in the spring by proposing a five-story, 35-unit condo development to replace the Exxon gas station on M Street NW by the Key Bridge. Lanier backed off the initial design for the condominiums at the Exxon site, but developer Michael Darby, the principal of Monument Realty who co-hosted a holiday party with Lanier in December, said Lanier was successful in part because of his willingness to stick to his instincts for design and retail. “I truly admire Anthony because he has created his vision and has never compromised during the process,” Darby wrote in an e-mail. “His retail makes Georgetown ‘Georgetown,’ his office buildings are modern yet timeless, and his residential buildings are fun and completely livable.” EastBanc’s success is built on Lanier’s patience and tenacity in navigating the neighborhood and institutional decision makers that govern development in the District. For example: In 2007, the D.C. government issued a sole source contract to EastBanc to redevelop the West End Library and fire station with new housing on top of both. Neighborhood outcry over the deal led the D.C. Council to undo it, but three years later EastBanc won the deal and is planning 174 condominiums and 52 apartments. At a Jan. 5 zoning commission meeting, Lanier addressed complaints from residents and members of Occupy D.C. over how to include subsidized housing units. When Lanier loses out on a deal, it isn’t pretty. After he was knocked out of a deal to redevelop the Shops at Georgetown Park mall, Lanier sued his former partner, Herbert S. Miller, helping to drive the property into distress over the objection of mutual friend Jack Evans, the Ward 2 council member. And although much of the Georgetown glitterati celebrated a new neighborhood Safeway store at a 2010 gala, Lanier fumed that the grocer had rejected his plan to turn the old store into a mixed-use project that would anchor upper Wisconsin Avenue NW. The new store is not a destination, he said. “These things require that you put more effort into them to make them unique,” he said. He has been to the new store once, he said, and doubts he will be back. “It’s unpleasant. I don’t want to see a whole wall of pasta. I just want to buy the best pasta.” Safeway officials are happy with the store. “A good deal today is better than a perfect deal in the future,” said Safeway spokesman Craig Muckle. Other than Hine Junior High School, a major Capitol Hill redevelopment deal that EastBanc also won from the city, Lanier has extended beyond Georgetown quietly and now has 1.5 million square feet in the pipeline. “We want to find stuff that is not being presented to us in a book sent by CBRE and we are one of 15 guys bidding,” he said. He provides some details. He is assembling property on the south side of U Street NW right at the Metro station, where he says he has secured a contract for 1250 U Street NW, a building with D.C. government offices upstairs and a Starbucks on the ground floor. Lanier also purchased a large development site on the red hot H Street NE corridor in May, when EastBanc paid $6.1 million for what is currently a CVS and a surface parking lot at 845 Bladensburg Road NE. And Lanier says he is assembling property near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station as well; he declined to offer specifics. Do not expect Lanier to begin building the same apartment projects that others are, however. He doesn’t think that many of the thousands of new apartments under construction at the moment will succeed. “I think that we have now too many people that are doing the same stuff. And I don’t know that there’s a demand for it,” he said. Instead, as he formulates plans for the next wave of development, he says he is constantly looking for the next retailer that can help define a neighborhood. Or, as he constantly asks himself with his Georgetown storefronts: “How do I make sure that we do not look like the Leesburg shopping center?”

The largest landowner in Tysons Corner has inked three deals for hundreds of new apartments with major development partners in recent months, signaling continued and possibly growing interest in the suburban city by housing builders from around the country. Cityline Partners, a crew of veteran Tysons developers, is managing the redevelopment of the Westgate and Westpark office parks for DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners, a Credit Suisse company that bought the property in 2010. Cityline recently finalized contracts for new apartment developments with three builders that could mean hundreds of new units for the area in coming years if they are approved by the county. [View map of DLJ’s empire.] The rush to build apartments in Tysons, where four Metro stations are set to open in late 2013 or early 2014, could pave the way for the area to add 80,000 residents by 2050, a goal adopted by Faifax County in 2010. County officials anticipate that high-density development near the stations will help the area evolve from a traffic-strangled mess to a series of walkable urban neighborhoods. Already, the Georgelas Group announced that it had tapped South Carolina-based Greystar to build a 400-unit, 25-story apartment tower at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Spring Hill Road. AvalonBay is building 354 units in mid- rise buildings at its Avalon Park Crest development. Cityline’s deals to sell land to Rochester, N.Y.-based Home Properties, Irving, Texas-based JLB Partners and Houston-based Hanover Co. are part and parcel of Cityline’s strategy to acquire zoning approvals from Fairfax County — a process its executives know intimately — and then sell parcels to developers that have expertise to match, according to Thomas D. Fleury, Cityline executive vice president. “What we’re trying to do is sell what we don’t do. We’re not residential developers, we’re not hotel developers,” he said. Cityline already has sold off parts of the portfolio that have existing office buildings and lack redevelopment opportunities in the near term. Fleury said the company plans to retain sites suitable for office development. In the meantime, it has taken a leading role in figuring out the parameters of the county’s development guidelines, with Keith Turner, a Cityline senior vice president, serving as chairman of the Tysons Partnership, an advocacy group formed by Tysons employers and landowners. “At the end of the day, we’ll be left with the office parts, and that’s what we do do,” Fleury said. Officials from Cityline and its development partners declined to share some details of the deals and plans, citing confidentiality agreements governing the contracts. The plans furthest along are from Home Properties, a real estate investment trust that specializes in multifamily residential development. In December, Cityline filed a final development plan application for Home Properties with the county that calls for replacing a 75,000-square-foot office building at the intersection of Westpark and Westbranch drives with four apartment buildings totaling 669 units. All the units would be within half a mile of the planned Tysons Central 123 Metro station. Ruth Hong, Home Properties’ director of development, confirmed the plans but declined to comment. JLB Partners, a national owner, developer and manager of apartment buildings, plans to build two apartment buildings at the corner of Route 123 and Anderson Road, to replace another existing office building. Graham Brock, JLB development partner, said the first 14- or 15-story building would have 425 units and three levels of underground parking. The second building would be six stories and have 201 units. The project, Brock said, “will have everything from small studios to some larger three-bedrooms.” Hanover Co., an apartment firm whose Washington area work includes the Hanover College Park apartments, also has a deal with Cityline to build housing. Adam Harbin, acquisitions and development partner, confirmed a contract with Cityline but declined to comment further. Low vacancy rates and construction costs have driven swarms of companies to build or plan new apartments for the Washington area, prompting concerns of an apartment bubble. Builders broke ground on more than 14,000 units in 2011, according to the research firm Delta Associates, and more than 12,000 units are projected to be completed this year. Tysons Corner is one of the largest office markets in the country with more than 26 million square feet. Its attractiveness to government contractors, tech firms and Fortune 500 companies frequently make office buildings — Cityline’s speciality — the most attractive to build. Indeed, despite the slowdown of office development nationwide and relatively high office park vacancy rates still prevalent in Loudoun County and around Dulles Intertional Airport, Lerner Enterprises has begun building an 18-story, 476,000-square-foot office building with no tenants lined up to lease space there. The building is designed to meet platinum classification under the LEED environmental rating system, the greenest level available, and is to be ready for occupancy in 2014. It is one of only a handful of speculative office projects in the area. Fairfax County officials, concerned that Tysons would continue to add offices and retail but not housing, included housing requirements in the amended master plan for the area. The timing couldn’t be better. Barbara Byron, director of the Fairfax County Office of Community Revitalization and Reinvestment, said the apartment market has strengthened to the point that it is the most easily financed type of development at the moment. Suddenly, apartments are more attractive to build than office buildings in Tysons for perhaps the first time in decades. Byron said she was encouraged by the deals that Cityline and other developers were lining up. “It’s obviously so office-dominated right now that getting residential in is a very important first step for us,” she said. Byron also said she was pleased to see a mix of apartment density plans, from high-rise to garden style, depending on proximity to Metro stations. “They are consistent with what the plan envisioned for those locations,” she said.

Grocery-anchored shopping centers continue to perform reliably compared to other retail property types, according to Delta’s annual year-end survey of over 300 Washington area grocery-anchored shopping centers. Of the total retail inventory in the Washington metro area, 57.6 million square feet is located in 340 grocery-anchored shopping centers. The metropolitan area-wide vacancy rate for grocery-anchored shopping centers edged down to 5.5 percent at the end of 2011, from 5.6 percent at the end of 2010, matching the vacancy rate for the region’s overall shopping center market. The grocery-anchored shopping center vacancy rate in suburban Maryland declined to 5.6 percent at the end 2011, from 6.0 percent one year ago. Northern Virginia vacancy was 5.5 percent at year-end 2011, up from 5.3 percent one year ago. The District, Arlington and Alexandria experienced no change in vacancy compared with a year ago, remaining at 5.0 percent at the end of 2011. The large inner suburban counties of Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s experienced a slight decline of 30 basis points during 2011, to 4.8 percent. This compares favorably to outer ring areas such as Loudoun and Prince William counties, where vacancy rose to 7.9 percent. Rental rates at grocery-anchored centers increased 2.1 percent in 2011, after declining 2.4 percent in 2010. The region’s average in-line tenant rents were $31.65 a square foot at year-end 2011, compared with $31.86 for suburban Maryland and $31.15 a square foot in Northern Virginia, up 1 percent from 2010. The District, Alexandria and Arlington experienced a healthy rise in asking rates at 6.8 percent during 2011, as tenants sought to remain in the urban core, with only 200,000 square feet of available space. The inner and outer rings experienced rent increases at a less robust pace, at 2.1 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. Overall, newer grocery-anchored shopping centers outperformed market averages during 2011. Centers built after 1999 in the Washington metro area hold a 6.5 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, a 70 basis point decline during the past year. Centers built in 1999 or before hold a 5.2 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, remaining unchanged from one year ago. We expect the retail market in the Washington metro area to gradually recover during 2012. Consumer spending will be muted compared to prior expansion periods, but we expect shoppers to focus spending at wholesale merchants as economic uncertainty persists. However, luxury retailers should continue to experience steady demand, as consumers with cash are showing a renewed eagerness to spend. We expect the vacancy rate for grocery-anchored shopping centers to decline steadily during 2012, as new retailers enter the Washington market and existing retailers look to expand. We also believe property owners will continue to invest in repositioning existing under-performing assets — either upgrading or transforming shopping centers into a grocery-anchored format. Elizabeth Norton is vice president at Delta Associates. Staff at Delta Associates contributed to this article. For more information, please visit www.deltaassociates.com.

Across the U.S., commercial real estate vacancies declined in 2011. Few new buildings were delivered, so expanding businesses moved into existing spaces, driving down vacancies. In the Washington region, vacancies in industrial and retail properties declined because of the stabilizing housing and job markets. However, warehouse and flex vacancies are still well above the national average because the D.C. area does not typically attract many national distributors. Contrary to the national trend, the Washington office market softened in 2011, and vacancies increased slightly. The region benefited from the expansion of the federal government and its contractors over the past decade, but that source of demand has slowed dramatically. In the fourth quarter of 2011, vacancies increased due to some move outs in Northern Virginia related to the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC). CoStar Group expects the market to remain soft in 2012 due to weak federal spending growth. Commercial real estate development remains limited in most markets. In the Washington area, commercial construction is relatively quiet compared to the 2000s but increased slightly in 2011. Multifamily development is especially active, with nearly 11,000 market-rate units underway. Due to high levels of vacancy and low rental rates, there are very few speculative office developments underway in the U.S., but last year in the Washington region, two major projects broke ground without tenants committed. Monday Properties broke ground on 1812 N. Moore St. (580,000 square foot) in Rosslyn, and Hines began work on the first 495,000 square foot office space at its CityCenterDC mixed-use project in the East End. Construction levels will likely stabilize this year as market players anxiously await the results of the 2012 election and monitor the direction of the region’s economy. Washington remained in favor with investors last year, and commercial sales volume for all property types increased by 20 percent compared to the prior year. Multifamily properties were especially in favor, with more than $4.7 billion in transactions in 2011, a 35 percent increase in volume over the prior year. However, there are signs that investor interest is cooling. Office sales volume declined steadily from late 2010 through 2011, although there was an uptick in the fourth quarter of 2011, mostly driven by Goldman Sach’s acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ stake in 10 Rosslyn office buildings, which were valued at $1.2 billion (nearly 45 percent of total volume in the quarter). Excluding that transaction, fourth quarter volume in 2011 would be less than half that in the final quarter of 2010. Most other property types, including multifamily, saw a decline in sales volume in the final quarter of the year.

Iowa is history and New Hampshire and South Carolina are about to have their say. But election year at the Supreme Court begins Monday. In a rare afternoon session only a month after accepting the case, the court will hear a Texas redistricting dispute that is complicated in every way except its bottom line: four new congressional seats that have the potential to decide which party controls the House of Representatives. But it is only the first of the cases that will call upon the court to get involved in partisan electoral fights or revisit campaign finance decisions. On the way are challenges to the Voting Rights Act from jurisdictions that say its restrictions are outdated. The Department of Justice is promising to take a look at voter ID laws that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said hold the potential of disenfranchising the poor and minorities. And an appeal is on the way from a recent decision by the Montana Supreme Court upholding a state ban on corporate electoral spending. Those who challenged the law said the decision directly conflicts with the Supreme Court’s decision in _Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission_ , which held that corporations and unions were free to spend on behalf of candidates. But first, Texas. The state’s congressional delegation expanded from 32 to 36 because its population grew by a phenomenal 4 million people in the last decade. Now, six federal judges in two courts, in addition to the nine justices, are analyzing how Texas legislators redrew the congressional and state legislative districts to accommodate that growth. More than 65 percent of the increase was in the state’s Hispanic population. The maps drawn by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature were signed by Gov. Rick Perry (R.) But because of past discrimination, Texas is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which means any electoral changes must be approved by either the Department of Justice or a panel of federal judges in Washington. And while the case at the high court does not directly challenge Section 5, how the justices dispose of the controversy could have much to say about the continued viability of the controversial requirement. Conservatives on the court expressed great skepticism about the constitutionality of Section 5 in 2009, and it seems only a matter of time before the court considers it again. The Obama administration has made it clear it will aggressively defend Section 5, which was reauthorized by Congress in 2006. Last month, Holder called it a “critical tool to combat discrimination and safeguard the right to vote.” Until that showdown comes, the groups challenging Texas’s plans say the state is asking the court to provide a way around Section 5’s requirement that electoral maps be “pre-cleared.” A three-judge panel in Washington declined to quickly approve the legislatively drawn plan, and seems unlikely to finish its work in time for the state’s primaries, originally scheduled for March and now slated for April. In the meantime, a three-judge panel in San Antonio drew maps independent of the legislature. Texas has come to the Supreme Court to keep those maps from being used. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) said in an interview last week that the state wants the Supreme Court to defer to the “elected policymakers of the state of Texas” and use the legislatively drawn plans on an “interim” basis for the 2012 election. Nina Perales, litigation director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said such a request “flips Section 5 completely on its head.” The law requires states to prove their electoral changes do not dilute minority voting rights _before_ they can be used, she said. Texas’s request is an “attempt to get one more (election) cycle” before having to acknowledge the burgeoning minority population that has fueled the state’s growth, she said. The Obama administration, supporting the challengers, told the court it should allow the plans drawn by the San Antonio court to be used for this cycle. But that’s exactly what the justices stopped by accepting Texas’ challenge. One compromise might be to instruct the San Antonio court to rewrite its maps to give more sway to the plans passed by the state legislature. The partisan implications of the Texas case remain prominently in the background. Political analysts have said that the court-drawn congressional map would increase Democratic chances in three of the four new districts. “We believe the plaintiffs are doing this for partisan political purposes,” Abbott said in the interview, saying their objections would put Hispanic Republicans at risk. But Jose Garza, who will argue the case for the Latino groups, denied that. Discrimination against Hispanics in Texas, he said, has occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Latinos are expressing a desire to be part of the process,” he said. Read more from PostPolitics: Romney takes fire in final N.H. debate Fact checking the N.H. debates Supreme Court case tests FCC’s power over TV indecency Tony Blankley, author and former Gingrich press secretary, dies

On Wednesday, the battle for money begins. The legislative sessions in Maryland and Virginia get under way this week, and advocates in the technology and life sciences sectors have outlined priorities, many of them involving funding, they’d like to see lawmakers take up on their behalf. The industries fared well last year as a focus on job creation prompted legislators to support initiatives aimed at small businesses in high-growth sectors. It remains to be seen whether they can sustain that momentum. Last year, the Maryland General Assembly passed one of the state’s boldest measures yet for young technology firms. Called InvestMaryland, it is supposed to generate at least $70 million to invest in small businesses. Advocates at the Technology Council of Maryland, a trade group with more than 500 members, have a new set of priorities this year. TCM wants to see the amount of money set aside for tax credits to investors in biotechnology firms increased. That fund, which garnered $8 million last year, received 180 online applications from investors in just three minutes this year. “We understand the difficult economic times, but we believe there is benefit to increasing funding for the program, and we’re going to fight vigorously for it,” said Brian Levine, vice president for government relations. The organization also would like to see lawmakers double the $6 million pot of money that is currently available to companies for research and development tax credits. “Research and development is something that a lot of companies can do anywhere in the country, and we believe incentives are important when it comes to that” being done here, Levine said. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) announced a series of budget and legislative initiatives last week, including some that have been endorsed by the Virginia Biotechnology Association and Northern Virginia Technology Council. Lawmakers in Virginia passed the state’s first-ever research and development tax credit last year. The governor has proposed that the fund, which received $5 million its first year, see its funding increased over the next two years. Mark Herzog, executive director of VaBIO, and Josh Levi, NVTC’s vice president of policy, both said their organizations plan to support increased funding for the program and called it necessary to compete with other states. Herzog also praised $12 million that the governor has put in his budget over the next two years for the Commonwealth Research and Commercialization Fund and programs to match federal small-business research grants. A decline in federal spending could be particularly troublesome for Northern Virginia, which is home to many of the largest defense and information technology contractors. Levi said the governor’s proposal to spend $2.3 million over the next two years to bolster the state’s competitiveness in growth areas, specifically simulation and modeling and cybersecurity, will be needed to make up for cuts. “As we look at the impact we will see with federal spending cuts, we will see the state of Virginia is going to really need to compete for federal funding streams,” he said.

The Air Force is preparing to start a competition for a training program worth nearly seven times more than the initiative’s existing version, drawing plenty of interested contractors. There are already nearly a dozen companies winning task orders under the existing Training Systems Acquisition II, or TSA II, program now under way. But the effort, which provides a wide range of training such as instruction on how to fly various planes and how to perform maintenance, has almost reached its $3 billion ceiling, said Steven Mihalisko, a senior Air Force analyst at Deltek, which researches the government contracting market. A much larger group of Air Force programs — totaling nearly 40 — will be able to make orders using the new contract vehicle, which Mihalisko said will have a nearly $21 billion ceiling. Though the Air Force has not indicated how many contracts it plans to award, there are 11 incumbents likely to throw their hats in the ring, Mihalisko said. He said they include Boeing, CAE, Cubic, Flight Safety Services, L-3 Communications, LB&B Associates, Lockheed Martin, NCI Information Systems, Rockwell Collins, Sytronics and Textron. Mihalisko said the Air Force has streamlined the acquisition process — standardizing evaluation criteria and requesting annual capability statements to make market research move more quickly — to make sure task orders will be awarded more rapidly under the new version of the program. About 500 of the contractors who use Deltek’s services have marked the program as one they are interested in. Mihalisko said he anticipates a draft solicitation this month, a final solicitation by late March and a due date of late May. Deltek estimates an award around May 2013.

With money tight, congressional appropriators rarely insist that agencies spend money. Yet the omnibus spending bill passed Dec. 17 approved $100 million for a joint Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs effort to develop digital medical records — even though they missed deadlines for requesting the money. A recent Deltek report projects that the federal health care information technology market will grow from $4.5 billion in 2011 to $6.5 billion by 2016, far surpassing overall federal IT growth estimates. Rising health care costs, the aging population and anticipated cost reductions and efficiency gains promise to make health care IT one of only a few bright spots in federal spending over the next few years. Contractors should find opportunity at multiple agencies. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for instance, is seeking to modernize its infrastructure to make payments to providers nationwide more efficient, to increase program integrity and to reduce waste, fraud and abuse. The Defense Department and VA are leading efforts to develop electronic health records, give providers and patients access to records through wireless and mobile devices and allow patients to participate in their own care through telemedicine, bringing specialists to rural areas and the battlefield. These technologies cut across many industries, but the companies most likely to take advantage of the government’s health care IT push will be those that develop a coherent approach that speaks to both government IT buyers and the medical professionals they serve. The companies best able to meet the government’s evolving needs will be those able to synthesize several disparate requirements: **Master the medicine.** To develop effective electronic health records, companies must have health care expertise. Successful bidders should hire — or partner with — clinical subject matter experts. **Master the technology.** Most of the health care IT projects Deltek expects to see funded will require expertise in infrastructure, communications, mobility, analytics, big data, modeling and simulation. **Master the federal market.** Federal health care IT buyers have different concerns than the private market. From complex existing systems to meeting the requirements of Medicare and Medicaid, their challenge is far more complicated. **Master the scope.** Agencies will need the back-end infrastructure to handle massive amounts of bandwidth. They will need to be able to support intensive mobile data, including video and images, and to store it indefinitely. The DOD-VA effort, for instance, aims to create a single digital health record that will serve individuals from the moment they enlist as service members through the rest of their lives as veterans. **Understand the goals.** The final purchase decision will be made by a committee of IT officials, who will focus on systems that are technically workable and offer cost savings, and clinical experts, who will expect to see improved patient outcomes. The most successful contractors are likely to be those able to sell them on both. Angela Petty is senior principal research analyst at Herndon-based Deltek, which conducts research on the government contracting market.

**Alliance Contractor Team** of Leesburg won a $631.9 million contract from the Defense Department for transportation, travel and relocation services. **American Mechanical Services of Maryland** of Laurel won a $2.3 million contract from the General Services Administration for maintenance, repair and rebuilding of equipment. **ASG Federal** of Herndon won a $4.7 million contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency for general purpose information technology equipment. **Bates Trucking Co.** of Bladensburg won a $1.5 million contract from the Army for utilities and housekeeping services. **CGI Federal** of Fairfax won a $2.9 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services for information technology services, including telecommunications services. **Clifton Gunderson** of Calverton won a $4 million contract from the Defense Department for professional, administrative and management support services. **CyroExpress** of Rockville won a $2.2 million contract from the Commerce Department for miscellaneous work. **DuCom** of Silver Spring won a $1.5 million contract from the Army for professional, administrative and management support services. **Environmental Systems Analysis** of Annapolis won a $4.5 million contract from the Navy for natural resources and conservation services. **Eyak Services** of Falls Church won a $4.8 million contract from the Center for Healthcare Contracting for professional, administrative and management support services. **Federal Staffing Resources** of Annapolis, **Chesapeake Educational Services** of Vienna, **CentralCare** of Annandale, **Washington-Harris Group** of Greenbelt, **Quarterline Consulting Services** of McLean, **Saratoga Medical Center** of Fairfax, **Absolute Staffers** of Laurel, **Platinum Business** of Laurel and **Healthcare Resource Network** of Gaithersburg won a $992 million contract from the Air Force for medical services. **G2** of Annapolis Junction won a $1.2 million contract from the Commerce Department for information technology services, including telecommunications services. **Indrasoft** of Reston won a $1.9 million contract from the Transportation Department for information technology services, including telecommunications services. **Innovative Management Concepts** of Dulles won a $3.1 million contract from the Treasury Department for professional, administrative and management support services. **JRC Integrate Systems** of Vienna won a $3.1 million contract from the Navy for technical representative services. **LB &B; Associates **of Columbia won a $15.2 million contract from the Defense Department for operation of government-owned facilities. **Lockheed Martin** of Gaithersburg won a $980 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency for research and development. **Northrop Grumman Technical Services** of Herndon won a $1.4 million contract from the Air Force for architecture and engineering services. **Olive Group North America** of McLean won a $2.6 million contract from the Army for transportation, travel and relocation services. **Paragon Systems** of Herndon won an $87 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security for utility and housekeeping services. **R &R; Janitorial Painting and Building Services **of the District won a $10.7 million contract from the Justice Department for the operation of government-owned facilities. **SAP Public Services** of the District won a $1.9 million contract from NASA for general purpose information technology equipment. **Serco** of Reston won a $1 million contract from the Air Force for research and development. **TKC Global Solutions** of Herndon won a $3.7 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services for information technology services, including telecommunications services. **Torres AES** of Falls Church won a $11.4 million contract from the State Department for utilities and housekeeping services. **— Compiled by Vanessa Small**

Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Marc Spitzer has joined Steptoe & Johnson’s energy practice in Washington. Spitzer, nominated to serve on the commission by George W. Bush and confirmed in 2006, was a four-term Arizona state senator and chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state agency that regulates public utility rate adjustments. Spitzer will be a partner in Steptoe’s electric power group, which represents electric utility companies in antitrust, mergers and acquisitions, power transactions and industry restructuring. Melissa Troiano Maalouf has left Willkie Farr & Gallagher to join the Washington boutique firm ZwillGen, which specializes in information security, privacy and cybercrime. She is slated to start today. Troiano Maalouf joined Willkie Farr in 2007, and has worked on international and domestic data privacy, data security, e-commerce and Internet law issues for media companies, financial institutions and publishers. ZwillGen is an eight-lawyer firm founded in 2010 by former Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now SNR Denton) attorneys Marc Zwillinger and Christian Genetski. Mark Joachim has joined the corporate and bankruptcy and financial restructuring practice groups at Arent Fox. Joachim, who will be based in Washington but work extensively in the firm’s New York office, was most recently at LeClairRyan in New York and previously a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani. He represents hedge funds, banks and other lenders in financing, transactions, buyouts and recapitalizations. Former Justice Department litigator David F. Askman has joined the Washington office of Hunsucker Goodstein & Nelson as senior counsel of the 17-lawyer firm focusing on environmental litigation, insurance, securities and energy. Askman was most recently a trial lawyer and senior counsel in the Justice Department’s environmental enforcement section, focusing on complex litigation of environmental matters and natural resources damages claims.

When Barbara Eyman left her equity partnership at Ropes & Gray to open up a two-lawyer health policy boutique, the veteran Washington lawyer suddenly found herself grappling with a series of firsts: lining up a logo designer and IT consultant, getting the phones and computers to work, and tracking down a coffee machine for the office. “It’s tending to all the administrative details I was blind to before,” Eyman said. The new firm, Eyman Associates, opened its doors in November, and has brought other big changes for Eyman, who until then had spent her 20-year legal career at large law firms — first at Powell Goldstein (now part of Bryan Cave), then at Ropes & Gray. Gone are the army of associates and staff, sprawling offices, and billing and management structure of a large institutional firm. Now Eyman, along with associate Sarah Mutinsky and office administrator Cathy Kalimon, is running the show out of a 1,300-square-foot office next to Union Station. What hasn’t changed much is Eyman’s client list. She took with her the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) — for which she is also general counsel — and several large health systems including the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, the University of Washington and the University of Arizona Health Network. The focus of her practice remains health care law and policy, which includes consulting on the impact of health care policies on hospitals and health systems, and helping clients develop policies to propose to Congress. Eyman’s main reason for branching out echoes that of many big-law-partners-turned- entrepreneurs: she was getting priced out of the kind of work she wanted to do. “This move was not about money — I probably would make more money staying at Ropes & Gray,” she said. “It was more about being able to do the kind of work I want to do, for the kind of clients I want to work for without so much worry about firm profitability.” Eyman declined to comment on specific billing arrangements, but said her fees at the new firm are “substantially lower” now, and that her firm is more flexible about using flat and blended fees. She maintains informal ties with Ropes & Gray, and they refer clients back and forth on some matters. “I had been doing lots of policy work for NAPH on a retainer basis, and it was getting harder and harder to do that work within the big law firm setting, to make the economics work out for the firm and the client,” Eyman said. “At a large firm, when the hospitals I work with are choosing to use outside counsel, they’re watching their budgets more and more closely. With lower pricing, I’d be more competitive to be involved in more projects with clients that I might’ve gotten priced out of otherwise.” Bruce Siegel, president and chief executive of NAPH, which continues to work with Ropes & Gray on some matters, said staying with Eyman was critical to the trade group’s mission, particularly in retaining her expertise in hospital financing, Medicaid and insurance law. “She is the go-to person for this,” he said. “These are very technical issues and she has a 19-year history in this area. She’s a sharp lawyer, but she has lots of policy credibility.” Eyman is entering a field already littered with many independent health consulting and policy shops. The abundance of health care-related policy work was on the upswing even before the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. Now, the market is ripe for health consultants, lawyers and lobbyists to carve out a successful niche practice, said Ivan Adler, a headhunter for lawyers and lobbyists at the McCormick Group. “Health care has really lent itself to be a robust area for solo practitioners or boutique firms,” he said. “It’s been such a robust area as far as lobbying and regulatory work in general. And there aren’t a lot of people who have a particular, high level of expertise. So if you’re a [highly specialized] solo practitioner or you have two or three people, you can do very well.” Adler added that with the Supreme Court poised to hear arguments in March on federal law requiring people to have health insurance, the demand for health policy lawyers and consultants could grow. “It’s still open for people that have a particular expertise because Lord knows what’s going to happen with Obamacare,” he said. “Depending on what comes out of [the Supreme Court], there could be even more business.”

The list of pending store closings in the Washington area is mounting, but the retail shakeout may not take the wind out of the market’s sails just yet. Analysts, brokers and economists agree that there are enough merchants on an expansion kick to lease much of the space coming available. TJ Maxx, Equinox, Modell’s Sporting Goods, Ross and Nordstrom Rack are scouting sites around town. Looking, however, doesn’t exactly equate to leasing. Consider that many of the former Borders bookstores that shuttered following the company’s bankruptcy last year remain empty. It doesn’t help that the new list of stores slated to go dark, in many cases, are more than 10,000 square feet, narrowing the pool of replacements. In the past two months alone, six retailers have announced plans to shut a total of 14 stores in the region. Just last Wednesday, Macy’s said its Bloomingdale’s at White Flint Mall and Macy’s store at Laurel Mall would close by spring. Penn Camera, on the same day, posted a notice on its Web site about filing for bankruptcy protection and the immediate closure of five of its eight locations. The week before Penn Camera’s decree, Sears said it would close up to 120 stores to raise cash, including a location in Ellicott City. In the same week, home furnishings retailer Pottery Barn sent customers an e-mail saying that its location in Friendship Heights would cease operations on Jan. 16. Meanwhile, Filene’s Basement is liquidating the remaining merchandise at its four stores in the area to cease operations by the end of this month. The sheer volume of closings is daunting, but broker Bill Miller of Transwestern Retail said the shakeout pales in comparison to vacancies during the recession. “When Linens ’n Things and Circuit City went out of business, it was bigger, there were way more locations and the market was worse,” he said. “Is what we’re going through now death and destruction? Not so much.” Delta Associates chief executive Greg Leisch echoed Miller’s sentiments. “Washington has the lowest vacancy rate, highest income and lowest development pipeline in the country,” he said. That combination of factors bodes well for the market in the face of rising vacancies. What we’re seeing, Leisch said, is a “natural structural shift” in retailing, whereby pressure from online operations is resulting in contraction of brick-and-mortar stores. “You look at Penn Camera or Borders and the goods they sell is merchandise that has thin margins and is sold widely online, so we can’t be surprised that they’re closing,” he said. Kantar Retail economist Frank Badillo said continued pressure from online merchants likely will lead to further consolidation, though that will be a long-term process. If the economy falters in its recovery, however, he anticipates the pace of consolidation will speed up. Store closings announced in the past two months by six different retailers.

Gina Dubbé went in knowing what to expect from a laser vein treatment in early 2007. But she wasn’t prepared for what her doctor did next. “She handed me a pack of peas, and I was like, ‘Seriously? Peas?,’ ” said Dubbé, a managing partner at Walker Ventures in Glenwood. “Personally I think peas are made for the dinner plate, not to be sitting on my face.” Dubbé did wind up using the peas, though. With the vegetables perched on her face, Dubbé and her doctor, Carol Balthazar, began to talk. “We were sort of lamenting that there was no new or innovative solution for cold packs,” Dubbé said. “There was nothing that could form to your face.” Four months and $10,000 later, the women had created TheraPearl, a hot-cold pack filled with squishy glycerin beads. Balthazar engineered the product and helped secure the patents. Dubbé sent samples to spas across the country. Both women kept their full-time jobs. “Our goal was very modest,” Dubbé said. “We placed our first order of 5,000 packs, and really, we just wanted to sell those.” In the four years since, TheraPearl has become profitable and has expanded to include 15 full-time employees. Revenue has grown 200 percent in the past year, according to Daniel Baumwald, a senior vice president at TheraPearl. He estimates that the company had sales between $12 million and $15 million in 2011. “We cannot believe how people have embraced the product,” Dubbé said. Along the way, the company has scrapped many of its earlier notions about TheraPearl, which was originally being marketed exclusively to spas and beauty salons. “We got the occasional mom at the spa, but for the most part the packs got lost in the hair and beauty products,” Baumwald said. “Now we’re fishing where the fish are.” TheraPearl products now are sold in 10,000 pharmacies and stores across the U.S. and Canada, including Duane Reade in New York and Meijer stores in the Midwest. Tschiffely Pharmacy on K Street in the District has been carrying the packs for about two years. “It’s pretty much one of the top sellers because it’s hot and cold, instead of just one or the other,” said Colpon Jones, a technician at the pharmacy. The line of products, which began with one rectangular pack, has evolved to include more than a dozen shapes and sizes, including neck and back wraps, eye masks and packs for nursing mothers. TheraPearl also has a children’s line that includes packs in the shape of frogs, pigs, puppies and pandas. Before he quit his job at Vitamin Water in May 2009, Baumwald stood outside the food court at Columbia Mall. He had samples of TheraPearl and spent a few hours asking passers-by what they thought of the product. “I just asked them, ‘Do you think this is cool?,’ ” Baumwald said. “And when every single person said yes, I knew this had legs.” The company is evolving. It plans to introduce shin and knee wraps this year, and hopes to expand into sporting goods stores. There are more superficial changes, too, such as changing to vertical packaging to take up less space on the shelf. “Most of us are from the beverage industry, so we’re not only learning a new brand, but we’re also learning a new industry,” Baumwald said. “But the thing is, when you think of soft drinks, you think of Coke and Pepsi. When you think of sports apparel, it’s Under Armour and Nike. When you think of hot-and-cold packs — well, it’s nothing. It’s been an asleep, mundane category for all these years. We want to bring it back to life.”

The jobs picture in the Washington region is showing signs of perking up for the first time in several months, reflecting a range of positive recent indicators pointing to steady improvement in the national economy. Unemployment in the region fell to 5.9 percent in November from 6.1 percent the month before, according to a Labor Department report released last week, after a tumultuous year during which the rate steadily shot up and then stabilized at a higher level. The improvement in the region’s unemployment rate, which had risen steadily amid the debt ceiling debacle and euro crisis, adds to a growing body of encouraging data on holiday retail sales and the housing market. The Labor Department also reported last week that the nation added more than 200,000 jobs and the U.S. unemployment rate in December dropped to 8.5 percent from 8.7 percent the month before. During the 12-month period ending in November, the Washington region added 7,400 jobs in the private sector. And after losing public sector jobs for much of the year, it gained about 3,000 state and local government jobs. Still, there are caveats: Metropolitan Washington lost 2,000 federal jobs from November 2010 to November 2011, decreasing the overall net employment gain to 1,680. Moreover, the area’s retail and information sectors experienced sizable losses. The decrease of 5,600 retail jobs could result from a “structural change” in the sector, said John McClain, deputy director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, with “people buying more online.” Overall, though, “we’re certainly headed in the right direction,” McClain said. In the national and local economies, he added, “a lot of things are positive.” One encouraging sign to analysts is the growing strength of perennially weak sectors. Local and state governments, which have been hemorrhaging jobs because of budget cuts, gained 3,000 positions from November to November, McClain said. Governments “are backfilling positions shed over the last three years,” said David Robertson, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “They are hiring for absolutely essential positions,” Robertson added. “If a more senior person making $80,000 retires, you fill it with one person making $50,000 and another making $30,000.” Construction, which lost 2,200 jobs from October to October, gained 400 in the 12-month period ending in November. “We are on an upward trend. I do see it continuing, but at a slow rate,” said Paul Mella, senior vice president of Dulles-based Dynalectric Co., noting that the firm has been hiring more electricians. “There’s been a surge in the [housing] market,” Mella added. “Young professionals are entering the market and can’t afford homes. The high-rise rental market is hot.” The Labor Department recently began providing seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for metropolitan areas, allowing for month-to-month comparisons. But the employment data is not seasonally adjusted so only year-to-year comparisons of job gains and losses can be made. The professional and business services sector was the biggest driver, posting a net gain of 7,400 positions from November to November. Job placement experts attributed the increase to employers’ increasing willingness to hire more temporary workers. “There’s a growth in contract labor — there’s no doubt about that, and I suspect we’ll see more of that in 2012,” said Paul Villella, chief executive of HireStrategy, a Reston-based recruiting firm. “We’re seeing more temp-to-permanent hiring,” Villella added. Employers are saying, “‘Let’s try it out.’ Then they’ll commit to the permanent direct employment. That was definitely up, particularly in the second half” of the year. The financial activities sector expanded by a net of 5,800 jobs. “We’re up 108 positions from December to December,” said Bernard H. Clineburg, chairman and chief executive of Cardinal Bank. He said the hiring is in response to an influx of customers transferring from larger banks. Unemployment rates dropped in 351 of the 372 metropolitan regions nationwide, according to the Labor Department. It rose in 16 areas and remained steady in five. El Centro, Calif., posted the highest rate — 27.2 percent. Bismarck, N.D., had the lowest — 2.8 percent.

Human resources manager Teisha Williams has uploaded at least 20 job listings to the State Employees Credit Union of Maryland’s Web site in the past two months. The Linthicum-based financial cooperative typically has a handful of openings at any given time, but lately there has been a greater need for financial consultants and tellers. SECU, like many other credit unions in the Washington area, experienced a surge in new accounts amid the anti-bank sentiment that swept the country last fall. That activity, coupled with branch expansion and an uptick in mortgage refinancing, has been leading institutions to beef up on staff. “There has been an increase in the volume of activity and credit unions are positioning themselves for further growth as the economy continues to improve,” said John Bratsakis, head of the Maryland & D.C. Credit Union Association, which has an aggregate list of more than 50 job openings at area institutions on its Web site. It’s unclear how many available positions there are at local credit unions as the Labor Department does not drill down that far in its job openings data. According to the Credit Union National Association, full-time employment at local credit uions dropped to 2,864 in September 2011 from 2,878 a year earlier as investments in information technology eliminated the need for some staffers. Yet industry observers say hiring picked up as credit unions experienced growth in membership throughout 2011. Last year, SECU added 14,335 customers, 28 percent of whom signed up following Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, when consumers were encouraged to move their money out of big banks to avoid fees. During the week of the event, sparked by Bank of America’s short-lived plan to levy fees on debit cards, the number of new checking accounts at the credit union rose 62 percent over the same week in 2010 and 2009. “Business is increasing because more people are switching to credit unions, so we have to have the staff to meet their needs,” Williams said. Educational Systems Federal Credit Union chief executive Chris Conway said the furor surrounding banking fees led new customers to his door. The Greenbelt-based credit union, which serves members of the education field, added 1,000 members tlast year. Conway pointed out, however, that membership and headcount have been growing steadily for years. “We’ve hired because we’re expanding a few positions each year, and have done so for the last decade,” he said, noting the credit union currently has six job openings. At NASA Federal Credit Union in Upper Marlboro, new loan originators are in demand as more members seek to refinance their mortgages, said chief executive Doug Alliman. “With rates as low as they are, we’ve seen activity pick up in that area,” he said. NASA FCU, Alliman added, has ramped up its marketing to educate consumers about their eligibility to join, contributing to a 20 percent increase in new members. A number of credit unions started such campaigns last year, which Bratsakis of the credit union association suspects contributed to industry-wide growth.

_Adapted from a recent_ online discussion _._ _Hi, Carolyn:_ _So I did something I know is wrong. During a recent visit, my mother-in-law checked her e-mail and never logged out. Instead of doing the right thing and logging it out, I read her sent mail. I had a hunch she was talking negatively about my husband and me, and unfortunately my hunch was confirmed. She is spreading some pretty nasty lies about us to our family and her friends._ _Now, I know how bad this makes me look. I will say openly that some of what she wrote was correct — I can be fussy, I can be particular — but I am always polite about it and keep those behaviors to my house only. I do things her way at her place and expect the same in return._ _I am not regretting reading the e-mails, I am actually relieved to know what she is saying, but the lady is spitting venom and has created issues since we were married. How do I move on from here?_ **No Going Back** Please know that since I don’t know you, this is not personal: You are a control freak. Here are the dots I connected: You have set ways at home and expect others to conform; this is so integral to your world view that you assume other homes come with rules, when maybe others have looser standards; you regard playing by house rules as not so much a courtesy as a quid pro quo; and you’re deeply invested in what others think of you, thus your suspicions and your willingness to violate your mother-in-law’s privacy — without regret — to confirm those suspicions. It is a hallmark of controlling people to be preoccupied with the way they appear to others, even to the point of trying to shape people’s perceptions vs. just letting them think what they’re going to think. In general, it’s helpful to see this not as a set of actions but instead a set of reactions. Wanting to have everything just so is often a reaction to a fear of chaos, or perceived helplessness against external forces. So the first step in dealing with your mother-in-law is to assess the way you deal with the world in general: Ask yourself why you’re fussy, why the house rules, why you need to know what others say about you. Understanding the source of your unease is point A. Point B is where you trust yourself enough to believe you’ll be okay, even if you’re less than vigilant where you used to be “particular.” Therapy or not is your call, but it can be very useful to have good third-party guidance in getting from A to B. The next step is mother-in-law-specific: Make a generous peace overture. Along the lines of, “I realize I have really dug in on some things, and I regret we got off to the start we did. I’m sorry.” This will go much better if it has a foundation of genuine forgiveness. Consider that her “nasty lies” probably start as truths, which she then bends to form the narrative she needs — not to tear you down so much as to build herself up. Another hunch, but, which type of person do you run across more: evil or scared? Write to Carolyn Hax , Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or tellme@washpost.com. Subscribe at www.facebook.com/carolynhax. **More fromLifestyle:** Wedding traditions you hate @Work Advice: Karla L. Miller looks at where to go when the well runs dry Ask Amy: Roomie worries about unleashing her inner Hulk

The District’s elected officials don’t seem to realize the gravity of the wound that D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) has inflicted on them. Now that Thomas has resigned and pleaded guilty to embezzlement, they behave as if a few expressions of disappointment and a pledge to do better will put the matter to rest. “Fundamentally, what is at issue here is the need of the council and government to restore the public trust,” council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) said. What trust? There is none to restore. Even if there were no more criminal investigations of elected city officials underway — and there are several doozies — Thomas’s actions alone would be enough to drain the council of every last drop of credibility. Between 2007 and 2009, during a homicide epidemic, Thomas took taxpayer money earmarked to protect children from violence and spent it on himself. And then he’d show up at crime scenes, sometimes driving a $59,000 Audi Quattro SUV that he’d bought with the ill-gotten gains, and declare that residents themselves should be doing more to stop the violence. “People in general realize it’s not just a policing issue,” Thomas said in August 2008, appealing to residents in his ward for help in catching the killer of a 13-year-old boy who had been struck by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting. Two months later, on Halloween, Thomas took $23,000 that was supposed to help fund a youth sports program and bought himself a motorcycle. From the council dais, Thomas railed against those who posed a threat to his racket, including then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and the city’s interim attorney general, Peter Nickles. Residents might rightly wonder whether those who voted with Thomas were knowingly complicit or just being played for fools. Either way, trust is destroyed. The same is true regarding those community crime forums. During one 90-minute meeting at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center in 2008, Fenty, Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes and a contingent of police officers stood with Thomas trying to assure irate residents that everything possible was being done to make them safer. Thomas made liars out of all of them. “There are ongoing feuds in this neighborhood that lead to gunplay,” Thomas said in 2007 after seven people, including three children, were wounded during a shootout at a housing complex. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of what the issues are.” A while later, he took $7,000 of children’s money, bought some suits and went on vacation in Las Vegas. During the height of the killings, D.C. government officials proposed keeping 11 recreation facilities open on Sundays and until midnight on Saturdays. Thomas was among those favoring the changes, saying, “That’s when people need them. Nights and weekends.” But he was silent when Clark Ray, then director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, told the D.C. Council that he was “scouring the budget” to find $368,000 to fund the changes. Ray should have been scouring Thomas’s pockets. All told, according to the U.S. attorney’s office, Thomas embezzled more than $350,000 in government funds. “I am deeply saddened by what has taken place,” D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown (D) said after Thomas resigned. “It is a somber day for the residents, but nothing is to be preferred before justice.” “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.” The quote is from Socrates, but Brown’s use of it is too clever by half. Why mouth the words when the great philosopher’s concept of justice would require that Brown and all the rest of the council relinquish the perks of public office — just resign, all of you — and go do some real public service for a change.

The voices of Anonymous 4 are matched with no music quite as perfectly as they are with the complexities of the 13th-century motet. The esteemed quartet’s 1994 recording of selections from this body of music, transcribed from the Montpellier Codex, was one of its best, and more than a decade later, the group still dazzles in this repertory. Its presence Friday made the Folger Consort’s New Year’s concert, an annual tradition at Washington National Cathedral, an instant musical highlight of the year to come. To unravel the medieval motet’s tangle of voices, a knot of different texts and languages, these performances often began with just one texted voice’s part, with the others layered on gradually in repetition. Crystalline intonation and clarity of diction, without fussy exaggeration of the Latin, rarefied the pieces into limpid delicacies. Four instrumentalists offered much simpler, strikingly understated performances of contemporaneous melodies, often the catchy tenors that were the basis of the motets on the program — an ingenious programming decision. The instrumental sound, including recorder, the breathy reed known as the douçaine and a charming, hand-pumped organetto, was delicate, perhaps too much so for the cathedral’s vast acoustic. Monophonic music, adaptations of chants composed by Hildegard von Bingen, provided a meditative counterweight to the first half of evening. The 12th-century abbess and mystic was considered a saint in the Middle Ages, a status that Pope Benedict XVI will make official this year by canonizing her and naming her Doctor of the Church for her contributions to theology. That is really what sets her apart, more than her chant compositions. The unison blend was not as pleasing as when the group sang polyphony, and individual voices showed some wear and tear. But overall, this was a performance worthy of the concert’s title, “Heavenly Revelations.”

It’s not an overly hectic week for economic news, but markets will probably take note of a few key indicators, particularly retail sales data for December and the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, in order to gauge whether the recent uptick in the labor market is a sign of sustained growth or just a blip. Throughout the week, analysts also are likely to pay close attention to public remarks by Fed officials outlining their views of the economy, for clues to what might happen at the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting in late January. The Fed’s Beige Book offers anecdotal evidence of economic conditions in the Fed’s 12 districts from late November through the beginning of 2012. Analysts expect the report to show slow-to-moderate growth across many parts of the country. The Commerce Department releases its data on retail and food sales for December, offering a fuller picture of economic conditions during the holiday season. The expectations are that the numbers will show healthy growth: Recent estimates by Thomson Reuters found that last month’s retail sales rose 3.4 percent over those in 2010, slightly above forecasts. Overall, however, the retail sector is still on shaky ground. Coming out at the same time, the Labor Department’s weekly release of data on claims for unemployment insurance should also be worth a look. For the past four weeks, new jobless claims have averaged 373,250 — under the crucial 400,000 mark and the lowest level since the first half of 2008. If that trend keeps up, it would be an optimistic sign for the job market. The preliminary Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index should provide clues to whether consumers are feeling any more upbeat about the U.S. economy now that the jobs market is getting better. One factor that could blunt consumer confidence is the recent increase in gasoline prices. Meanwhile, analysts expect the Commerce Department’s international trade data to show that the U.S. trade deficit widened slightly in November, due to higher imports of holiday goods and a temporary increase in petroleum prices. **Central bank officials outline their views.** **** **Commerce hopes to show whether holidays a win or a loss.**

**Recruit to Win.** This workshop covers hiring and managing employees. 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., American Bar Association Building, 740 15th Street NW, 3rd floor. Sponsor: SCORE. Cost: $30. Contact: 202-272-0390. Web site: _washingtondc.score.org_ . **Planning for 2012.** This seminar will help participants develop a clear vision and a well-developed plan. MOCA DC Galleries, 1054 31st St. NW. 7 to 9 p.m. Cost: $30. Contact: Heidi McLain, 301-498-7340. Sponsor: Professionals in the City. Web site: _www.prosinthecity.com_ . **Marketing Field Seminar.** This seminar teaches participants how to stay relevant in their career and with their customers through marketing. 10:05 a.m. to 12:05 p.m., National Museum of American History, 1400 Constitution Avenue NW. Sponsor: Never Stop Marketing. Cost: $29.79. Web site: _www.neverstopmarketing.com_ . **Why a Product Strategy is Essential.** This seminar will discuss a process to conceive, plan and market company products. 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. George Mason University Campus, 3351 Fairfax Dr., Arlington,Va. Sponsor: Capital Technology Management Hub Cost: Free. Web site: _captechmanhub.org_ . **How to Start a Business.** This workshop covers legal forms of business organizations, recordkeeping and accounting, insurance needs, marketing planning, and sources and types of business loans.9 a.m. to 4 p.m., American Bar Association Building, 740 15th Street NW, 3rd floor. Sponsor: SCORE. Cost: $50. Contact: 202-272-0390. Web site: _washingtondc.score.org_ . **Start Your Business.** This seminar will lead participants through the procedures for starting a small business. 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Comfort Suites, 80 Prosperity Avenue, Leesburg. Fee: $10 online, $15 at the door. Sponsor: Loudoun Small Business Development Center. Contact: Cathy Campbell, 703-430-7222. Web site: _loudounsbdc.eventbrite.com_ . Send potential listings to facetime@washpost.com at least two weeks in advance. Model your entry on the information above, and put the event date in the subject line.

Because of a family situation beyond my control — I fell for a sexy, omelet- making ingenue whose son is quite athletic — I have reconnected this academic year with the delights of high school basketball. (True Story: So I was being seduced by Toni, a.k.a. She Is The One, and after it became clear we were going to be Slouch & Wife, one night following another fabulous home-cooked meal, she opens the linen closet and two young kids — Isaiah and Mia — pop their heads out. I mean, she had never even mentioned children! In poker, when you take a long time before showing your winning hand — thus making your opponent think he’s got the best of it — it’s called “slow-rolling.” Well, Toni slow-rolled her kids; the dame got me hook, line and sinker. Wow.*) (* The aforementioned “true story” is not entirely true, but it’s the way I remember it.) My 15-year-old, 6-foot-4 stepson Isaiah is a sophomore reserve forward at Springbrook High in Silver Spring. The Blue Devils are pretty good. Best I can tell, Isaiah will only play in two situations this season: If Springbrook has an insurmountable lead, or if I get a court order. Naturally, in the 30 years since I last frequented high school arenas, the culture has changed. Before every Springbrook football and basketball game I’ve attended — Isaiah also is a starting wide receiver — there is some type of announcement about crowd behavior. Prior to the Springbrook-at-Blake basketball game, the P.A. guy declared, “Here at Blake, we have a zero tolerance policy. Have a good time, root for your team but — please! — don’t be a jerk.” This seems rather obvious, but apparently we now have to remind ourselves to be decent to one another; wasn’t it George Costanza who intoned, “You know, we’re living in a society!” Next thing you know, there will be a blaring announcement every time you walk into a bank reminding you not to rob it. But beyond the civility issues, the games are largely pleasurable. The entire atmosphere feels purer than, say, AT&T Center or United Center: Bandbox gyms, a sense of community, bubbly cheerleaders, $5 tickets, reasonable concessions and free parking. You’re in and out in less than two hours, which means you can get home in time to spend another hour watching the last eight minutes of a college basketball game. Best of all, most of the kids appear to be playing for the love of the game, the sheer joy of it. And at Springbrook, it’s a treat to watch 6-7 senior center Demetric Austin, whose low-post moves, outlet passes and shot-blocking skills put most Washington Wizards to shame. The Blue Devils, 8-2 this season, are largely a reflection of Coach Tom Crowell, a hard-nosed high school lifer who has spent nearly four decades coaching football and basketball. Crowell sometimes asks his players to do things they don’t want to do, but he led Springbrook to an unprecedented three consecutive Maryland Class 4A state championships from 2008 to 2010, so they might want to listen a bit more than they do. Besides, his voice demands attention. If Crowell tells you to walk barefoot into the desert, take a sip of water and walk back, you’d better be halfway to the desert before he’s even done speaking. Crowell is an old-school, old-world, old-fashioned disciplinarian: Take a bad shot and he’ll pull you out to let you think about it for a while. He’ll bend over in anguish when his team screws up. He’ll wave disgustedly at a referee after a tough call. He’ll even stomp the floor with both feet. But, hey, as a (step)parent, I’m not scared of the old coot. I don’t care if his career record at Springbrook is 144-18, all I know is this: I’m tired of driving through traffic to watch my beloved’s first-born, Isaiah Eisendorf, riding the pine every game. PLAY HIM. He’s hard to miss — he’s the tall one near the end of the bench wearing No. 25. And need I remind Coach Crowell, _I’m pretty well-connected_. If he plays his cards right with me, I could have him coaching at the University of Maryland, or, more realistically, get him a comped buffet at Caesars Palace. (Incidentally, the next time I get married, I’m going to ask about kids before my wedding night.) **Q.** Will Tom Coughlin be the first NFL coach to throw consecutive challenge flags on the same call? (John McKeown; Sussex, Wis.) **A.** Actually, when he was in Jacksonville, I think he did just that on the Bush-Gore presidential election. **Q.** If there was a contest between you and Tony Kornheiser based on writing ability, sports knowledge and good looks, who would win? (Bill Lehky; Strongsville, Ohio) **A.** I’d lose decisively on all three counts, but I believe I might beat him on human intangibles. **Q.** Do you ever “take a knee” in bowling? (Ray Bohannon; Katy, Tex.) **A.** Yes, when I drop my beer. **Q.** In ascending order, NFL injury reports go from “probable” to “questionable” to “doubtful” to “out.” How scary similar is that to your marital and poker-playing life? (John Swope; Irwin, Pa.) **A.** Pay the man, Shirley. You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just e-mail asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!

I like to build. Whether it’s a company, a software application or a high-performing team, I like to start something and build it up. This natural inclination manifested itself early in my career. I began as a software and field engineer in support of the intelligence community, but very quickly I observed that companies weren’t very good with passing down the lessons learned to make that success go across the organization. So I got involved in process engineering and change management from the operations side. My superiors saw the success in how my program was run. It always made its profit, finished on time and stayed within budget. Also my team had a very good reputation with the contracts and accounting departments. It wasn’t always this way. During one program, when we first started out, we were pretty disorganized, and I, as program manager, was part of that problem, too. But we transformed ourselves from a reactionary group to a high-performing, high-functioning team. As a leader, I learned how to lead by example, communicate the good and bad, and maximize people’s strengths while minimizing their weaknesses. I also noticed that the key to success was not getting caught up in old-boy networks or stuck in how things have always operated. I was always willing to look at a better way of doing things with an unbiased opinion. A lot of times you see organizations where the top and bottom are at odds. I didn’t get caught up in company politics or personal gain. So they decided to move me to change management on the finance side. I used what I learned in that program to train the rest of the company on how to run programs. I ended up writing a lot of the program management training courses for the company. To be a successful program manager, no matter what position I’m in, I’m always judging myself. Am I building a high performing team? Are my people skilled? Are they being trained to be able to do other people’s jobs? Am I training replacements? If I go on vacation or on business travel, how often do my people need to get a hold of me to get something done? My goal is that they’re trained and competent. I’m not one of those managers who says everything has to go through me all the time. Eventually, I began to look at companies outside of my comfort zone. That’s where Eagle Ray came in. The chief executive asked for help with the company she was starting. I joined her as a consultant and helped start a company from scratch in 2002. I was the second person; now here we are with 70 people. I used my skills in change management and process engineering to take over one of the major accounts right from the start. I was a contributor to writing proposals to win more work. In 2011, we won our first two prime contracts, tripling the size of the company in one year. Now, going forward, I want to continue to do what I love to do: build, build, build. **—Interview with Vanessa Small** __ **Position:** Chief operating officer of Eagle Ray, a consulting company headquartered in Chantilly. **Career highlights:** Vice president and account executive, Eagle Ray; vice president of contracts department, BTG; program manager of NAVAIR programs, BTG; project manager of systems and software engineer, BTG; software and field engineer, Sperry. **Age:** 51 **Education:** BS, electrical engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo; MS, technology management, George Mason University. **Personal:** Lives in Potomac Falls, Va., with his wife, Theresa.

Nearly a century ago, when Agatha Christie and others were pioneering the English mystery novel, to provide one corpse at the outset was considered sufficient and a second might be tolerated, but anything beyond that was thought to be in extremely poor taste. No more. My best estimate is that I’ve read 187 serial-killer novels in the past decade (and escaped, as I keep insisting, with my sanity). Most were mercifully forgettable, but I do remember a few with admiration. John Katzenbach’s “The Traveler” (1987) was inspired by Ted Bundy, whose trial Katzenbach covered as a young reporter. Thomas Harris’s “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs” introduced arguably the most memorable villain in modern popular fiction, that charming cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is at heart a serial-killer novel, even though the wondrous Lisbeth Salander steals the show. Michael Connelly’s “The Poet” was his breakthrough novel in 1996 and remains one of his best. I would add a novel I reviewed 10 years ago, the Scottish-born writer Val McDermid’s “Killing the Shadows,” which managed to make a series of killings darkly hilarious. The killer targeted celebrated crime writers and disposed of them in ways they had made famous in their novels. It was a delicious concept, neatly executed; the book made clear why McDermid had won numerous crime- fiction prizes in England and sold millions of books all over the world. That was then; now we have “The Retribution,” McDermid’s 25th novel, and a big, big disappointment. Like several of her earlier novels, it features Tony Hill, a crime profiler, and Carol Jordan, a police detective, two strange people who share a strange relationship. He’s a loner, lacking in social graces, “passing for human” but supposedly blessed with magical abilities to solve crimes. Here’s a glimpse of his razor-sharp mind at work: “Whatever had been niggling at the back of his mind since the previous murder was squirming harder now, but he still couldn’t nail it.” Carol is said to be an ace detective, but she’s burdened by a nasty temper and a weakness for gin. The two share a house but not a bed, at least in part because Tony suffers from impotence. This odd couple’s adversary is a psychopath named Jacko Vance. Jacko is presented as a colorful character in the Hannibal Lecter mold. As a young man, he was a world-class athlete. He lost an arm in a heroic attempt to save some lives but went on to gain fame and fortune as England’s most celebrated “TV presenter.” Alas, in his spare time he was secretly raping and murdering teenage girls. In an earlier novel, Tony and Carol caught him, and he was sent to prison, but now he escapes and sets out to gain revenge on our dysfunctional duo. He proceeds to slaughter their loved ones, burn down Tony’s house and set a fiendish trap to throw acid in Carol’s face when she feeds her cat. We’re told that back in his days as a TV star, Jacko would go sit by the beds of people dying of cancer — not out of sympathy, as their families thought, but because he enjoyed seeing people die. Maybe it’s the similarity in names, but Jacko’s evil exploits kept reminding me of Batman’s foil, the Joker. Jacko’s problem is that, aside from being a madman, he’s cartoonish and not very interesting. There’s another serial killer at work in these pages, slaughtering prostitutes in unspeakable ways, but he’s just there for padding. The question is whether the loathsome Jacko will inflict terrible revenge on our two heroes, and to find out, you must wade through endless inane dialogue, ridiculous plot twists and oceans of gratuitous gore. At one point, an angry Carol declares, “I didn’t come here to beat you up for letting them down.” Elsewhere, we’re told of poor, guilt-ridden, impotent Tony: “His self-disgust plumbed new depths as his rage simmered down.” These are not people we want to spend time with. I don’t know how the prize-winning novelist who wrote that excellent book 10 years ago could have produced this meandering mess. Sometimes writers get lazy; sometimes they’re trying too hard to maintain the book-a-year pace that publishers increasingly demand. In any event, McDermid’s fans are well advised to skip this one and hope for better luck next time. Anderson regularly reviews mysteries for Book World. By Val McDermid Atlantic Monthly 402 pp. $25

Embrace uncertainty. It is a motto for entrepreneurs as well as the subtitle of a book I found in my mailbox last week. The phrase caught my attention as I was preparing to write this column about Michael Holmes of Vienna. Five years ago, Holmes left a promising future with the Carlyle Group, the District-based private- equity giant, to run his father-in-law’s chainlet of 11 automobile service stations in Northern Virginia. You could argue that there wasn’t anything uncertain about his decision, given that he was going to work for his father-in-law. Besides, if he failed, his wife had a blossoming career at a big Washington law firm. But Holmes ached for a chance to run his own business. He had ideas to test. He wanted to be a frontline operator instead of crunching numbers for Carlyle real estate deals and working his way up the high-pressure — albeit lucrative — ladder of high finance. So at 27, he jumped. “I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to build a business,” said Holmes, now 32. The bouncy, six-handicap golfer is a self-described “VP in charge of everything” at Virginia Tire & Auto, founded three decades ago by his father-in-law, company president Myron Boncarosky. Works for his father-in-law? Six handicap? Hmm. I was dubious. I asked Holmes what he brings to the table, other than accounting experience and an MBA from the University of Chicago, which he earned while working full-time at Carlyle. For starters, he unified all the stores under a single brand, Virginia Tire & Auto, which is boring but tells you what the company does and gives it one identity. That also allowed for a marketing strategy. The big change came when Holmes invested $1 million to put all 11 stores on the same computer network, allowing faster delivery from suppliers, instantaneous daily reports on what was selling and what wasn’t, and better tracking of customer needs. Holmes said he failed to predict how difficult the adjustment would be to the new computer operation, but it allowed him to reduce paperwork, better allocate resources and save money. He used his finance and real estate experience from Carlyle to buy the land under three of the stores from Shell for $6.5 million. The move gave Holmes, his wife, Julie, and Boncarosky a stake in prime retail real-estate locations. It also changed the economics of the business, freeing them from frequent rent increases and enabling them to make more favorable, long-term purchase agreements on gasoline. The finance and accounting graduate of Virginia’s Washington & Lee University now commands a real estate and auto service barony that includes 403 employees and $67 million in revenue. “Myron built this up, and now we want to take it to the next level,” he said, dressed in his Virginia Tire & Auto-labeled shirt — with tie — and a winter fleece with a similar logo. Holmes thinks about things, which I like. For example, calling the tire store “a knowledge business” — because “people tell us the problem with their car, and we have to find out what is wrong and fix it.” More than 1,500 customers a day visit VT&A’s locations, from Centreville to Ashburn to Vienna. Although all of the shops are under the Virginia Tire umbrella, some have branding agreements with Goodyear, others with Bridgestone and a couple have Shell signage, making for a diverse group of names. The business is divided into gasoline sales and shop sales. Gasoline accounts for about $30 million in annual sales at four locations. Most of that money goes right back to the gasoline supplier, leaving Holmes a little more than $1 million in gross operating margin — before he pays any of his bills. The real money is in the annual $37 million in “shop” sales, which covers everything other than gas: tires, parts and auto repairs. Based on similar companies I have written about, I estimate that Virginia Tire & Auto ends up with a profit in the low, single-digit millions. Holmes wouldn’t comment on profit, saying only that he is salaried and earns a percentage on the store operations, mostly owned by Boncarosky. Holmes and his wife, however, have a small share (in addition to the stake in real estate). Holmes said the company has purchased what he calls “two A locations” in Northern Virginia and hopes to build stores on them in the next three years. The real estate aspect, which is his area of expertise, is difficult because he faces competition from fast-food chains and big drugstores, like Walgreens and CVS, for the best spots. Boncarosky lives in the same house he bought in 1979 for $136,000, although he and his wife have made a few concessions to success: They own luxury cars and a beach house. “Given what he’s built, he lives fairly modest,” Holmes said. They also own some commercial townhouse condos near George Mason University, the area where Virginia Tire & Auto’s headquarters are located. Inside is a rabbit warren of offices and conference rooms where 18 administrative employees work. The place is littered with whiteboards, on which Holmes has scrawled his ideas and diagrams for the business’s future. He points to a stack of feel-good messages that you find on those daily office calendars that sit on your desk. He points to one by McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc: “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing . . . success will be yours.”

**Argy, Wiltse & Robinson** of McLean appointed **Dan Adragna** , former chief financial officer and partner of Tatum, principal in Argy Accounting Solutions. **Eagle Ray** of Chantilly appointed **Jeanine Callahan** chief marketing officer, **Dave Uehlinger** chief financial officer, **Shelley McHenry** vice president of human resources and administration, and **Cheryl Cartwright** director of contracts. **IndiSoft** of Columbia appointed **Earl Devaney** to its advisory board. **New Energy Technologies** of Columbia appointed **Scott R. Hammond** principal scientist. **OpGen** of Gaithersburg appointed **Vadim Sapiro** chief information officer. The **Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce** appointed **Trina LaPier** chairwoman of the board of directors. The **Greater Reston Arts Center** of Reston appointed **Damian Sinclair** executive director. **CBRE** of the District appointed **Patrick W. Marr** vice chairman. **Love Funding** of the District appointed **Jonathan Camps** , former chief underwriter, managing director of production. **Sandy Spring Bank** of Olney appointed **Nina Baranchuck** vice president and chief investment officer of the bank’s investment management and fiduciary services division. **Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck** of the District appointed **David Cohen** shareholder. **Day Pitney** of the District appointed **Joseph H. Fagan** partner in the energy and utility law department. **Lerch, Early & Brewer** of Bethesda appointed **Jeremy M. Tucker** principal. **Littler Mendelson** of McLean appointed **Michael McIntosh** and **William Allen** shareholders. **McDermott Will & Emery** of the District appointed **Jay L. Eizenstat** partner in its regulatory practice group. **Miller & Chevalier** of the District appointed **Layla J. Aksakal** , **Elizabeth F. Drake** , **Lamia R. Matta** and **Daniel Patrick Wendt** members. **Perkins Coie** of the District appointed **Jacob Farber** of counsel in the licensing and technology practice. Send information about promotions, appointments and personnel moves in the Washington area to Appointments, Business News, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071-5302, or to appointments@washpost.com.

Well-established candidates have always had the edge in fundraising, but under the new rules governing money in politics, it looks as if the rich are just getting richer. The vast majority of the $14 million in spending from “super PACs,” a new type of political group, has been spent on behalf of three candidates: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman Jr., federal records show. Those are the same three candidates already most reliant on money from large donors. “It’s just proven to be a vehicle for getting around contribution limits,” said Michael Malbin, a scholar at the Campaign Finance Institute, which advocates for regulations encouraging small donors. “It’s made for people who’ve already maxed out.” Two years after the Supreme Court decided the landmark _Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission_ case, it is becoming clear that the super PACs created under the new rules will act as a counterweight to a rise in online grass-roots fundraising. The online efforts, which tend to attract small donations, have been driving unconventional contenders in the GOP field, including Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). (Bachmann dropped out of the race last week after a sixth-place finish in Iowa.) By contrast, super PACs, because they can pull in donations well above the $2,500 limit on donations to campaigns, are boosting establishment candidates who already rely on rich donors. The _Citizens United_ decision created a cascade of lower-court rulings, allowing for the creation of super PACs that can accept huge donations from individuals and corporations. Several of the groups active in this year’s race have already accepted many donations over $1 million from one person. The advantage is likely to grow as the candidates move to the next round of primaries and caucuses, where they will be competing in bigger states and relying more on television advertising to reach voters. Spending on television ads by groups independent of the campaigns is already five times what it was during the entire Republican primary season four years ago, according to estimates from Kantar Media/CMAG. Romney has received $5 million in help from the super PAC founded by three former aides from his 2008 bid. A group aiding Perry has spent $3.8 million on ads backing him, and Huntsman has benefited from $2.5 million worth of ads from a super PAC. Combined, those three candidates are receiving 80 percent of all super PAC spending. The super PACs helping Romney and Perry have spent more on television ads than the candidates themselves in recent weeks, according to Kantar’s estimates. Huntsman’s campaign just launched his first ad. Paul and Bachmann received more than 60 percent of their money from donors giving less than $200. A super PAC helping Paul has spent $735,000 on Internet advertising. And a group that initially announced it was helping Bachmann went on to run $500,000 in ads for Romney. While Newt Gingrich’s campaign was struggling in the summer, he relied more on smaller donors. As he gained steam, he received help from a super PAC founded by former aides. But the group’s late start appears to have been a problem: It has reported $1 million in spending so far. Rick Santorum has benefited from about $755,000 in spending from two super PACs backing him. Just as the Internet allowed candidates to raise money from small donors faster than they had through direct mail, the same is true for super PACs. “You make a phone call and get a million dollars,” Malbin said. The new wave of spending has also allowed some candidates to benefit from negative advertising while avoiding the blame for attacking fellow Republicans. Campaign finance regulations passed by Congress in 2002 have a “stand by your ad” provision requiring candidates to appear on screen stating their approval of the spot. But rules prevent super PACs from coordinating the campaign operations, allowing candidates to say the ads are out of their control. “It changes the dynamic for candidates who are more reliant on small donors,” said a Paul strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk freely. “You have two tiers of candidates: those with super PACs that can have negative messaging without having to take the heat for it, and those who have to do it themselves.” Read more from PostPolitics: Romney slips in second debate The Fix: Winners and losers of the N.H. debates Case tests FCC’s power over TV indecency Election year begins Monday at the Supreme Court

LOS ANGELES — Researchers at the Parents Television Council have helpful drop- down menus on their computers loaded with just about every profanity and dirty slang term imaginable. They are handy shortcuts — there are additional ones for violent and sexual content — as the nonprofit group’s headphone-wearing analysts monitor every network prime-time entertainment broadcast for offensive language, bleeped profanity, flashes of nudity, threesomes and gore. The council documents the increasing coarseness of television broadcasts to rate shows and pressure advertisers and provides a one-click process for supporters to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. More than 1.4 million complaints are pending. But the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday about whether the FCC should still have a role in policing the nation’s airwaves or whether its indecency regulations violate guarantees of free speech and due process. The networks have argued successfully in lower courts that in a revolutionized world in which they exist “side by side” with cable channels that are beyond the FCC’s regulation, singling them out is not only nonsensical but unconstitutional. “Today, broadcasting is neither uniquely pervasive nor uniquely accessible to children, yet broadcasters are still denied the same basic First Amendment freedoms as other media,” Washington lawyer Carter G. Phillips, who represents Fox and other networks **,** told the court in a brief. “To the average American viewer, broadcasting is just one source among hundreds in a media-saturated environment, a mere press of a button on the remote control away from other, fully protected sources,” he wrote. The Obama administration is defending the FCC’s powers. If anything, it told the court, the new media world requires continued federal oversight of the public airwaves to provide a haven for parents and children from the anything-goes world of cable and the Internet. “Generations of parents have relied on indecency regulation to safeguard broadcast television as a relatively safe medium for their children,” U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. wrote in the government’s brief. The “uniquely pervasive” language in Fox’s brief comes from the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in _FCC v. Pacifica Foundation_ , in which it upheld the commission’s decision that an afternoon radio broadcast of comedian George Carlin’s 1973 monologue about words that could not be said on television violated indecency standards. The court found that the FCC was within constitutional boundaries to police the radio and television airwaves during the times children would probably be listening, which was interpreted between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Parents Television Council President Tim Winter said that even though nearly nine of 10 households have cable, broadcast channels remain paramount: The lion’s share of the country’s most watched shows reside there, commanding the most money from advertisers and bringing the highest salaries to the stars and producers. With the right to the public airwaves, Winter said, come responsibilities. “If they want to be indecent, as we’ve said in the past, they can wait until 10 o’clock and be as indecent as they want,” Winter said. Few people — even inside the FCC — know more about what’s on television than Winter and his co-workers at the parents council. With satellite dishes perched outside the downtown L.A. high-rise in which it operates, the council digitally records every prime-time entertainment broadcast on network TV and basic cable. (The council doesn’t monitor news, sports or premium subscription channels such as HBO and Showtime.) Five researchers in cubicles then go about their daily mission to, as the PTC Web site says, “transcribe every offensive word, sexual innuendo, and describe sexual activity and violence in detail.” The information is fed into the council’s custom-built Entertainment Tracking System, which Winter calls the nation’s most complete repository of prime-time broadcasts. The information is used for reports such as “Habitat for Profanity,” which said prime-time profanity increased 69 percent from 2005 to 2010, with the bleeped use of the f-word up from 11 utterances in the first two weeks of the 2005 schedule to 276 uses five years later. Winter said the group’s main mission is to report to parents the content of television shows and to hold advertisers accountable for the broadcasts they sponsor, Winter said. On its Web site, each show is rated for sex, language and violence, and its descriptions are candid. For instance, about “2 Broke Girls,” a CBS comedy that airs at 8:30 p.m., the PTC reports: “Sexual jokes and references are abundant, including breast and vagina references.” The report includes a list of “foul language” used in the program that doesn’t pass the test for inclusion in a family newspaper. Winter said that the descriptions are written for adults and that specificity is important. “If you are a proctologist, you are involved with certain things in your work that might not be dining room conversation for most folks,” he said in a recent interview. “We pick our careers here at this organization because we are concerned about the impact on kids, and that means you have to get clinical.” The council was founded by L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative activist who regularly accuses the mainstream media of liberal bias. But Winter denied that the PTC, which recently issued reports on the way women are portrayed in MTV reality series as well as the “sexualization” of girls on television, has a partisan or political agenda. “We all come at it from remarkably different perspectives,” said Winter, a former NBC financial executive. “I’m a lifelong Democrat; I haven’t checked a Republican box on a presidential ballot since 1984.” Still, the council is best known for its feuds with television producers, issuing news releases about provocative Miley Cyrus videos and providing the expected scornful response when “America’s Got Talent” picked radio shock jock Howard Stern as its new judge. It is not the best of times for the council. The PTC’s staff is half what it once was because of a decline in funding, which Winter said is a fate shared by most nonprofits. Courts are reversing the actions that the council had encouraged the FCC to take. The PTC’s ability to generate complaints to the FCC, even from those who never saw the allegedly offensive content, has made it the scourge of networks and producers. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court, former FCC officials said that because of the PTC and other family groups, the agency launched a “Victorian crusade” in the past decade that went far beyond what either the agency or the Supreme Court anticipated in the Pacifica case. “The commission’s complaints policy has become so artificial that it naturally prompts the question, why does the Commission not simply turn the monitoring function over to the Parents Television Council?” wrote the officials, who include former chairmen Mark Fowler and Newton Minow. “The answer is simple: it already has.” The cases before the Supreme Court concern the FCC’s role in policing the airwaves for material that describes or depicts “sexual or excretory organs or activities” and is “patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.” After Fox broadcast award shows in which Cher told her critics “F--- ’ em” and Nicole Richie referred to “cow s---” and uttered a variation of the f-word, the FCC announced in 2004 that it was changing its policy so that even one-time utterances of profanity could be penalized. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in 2009 that the agency was within its rights as a matter of administrative law to change its policy to protect the public against what Justice Antonin Scalia called “foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood.” But justices sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York to determine whether there were constitutional problems with the agency’s actions. That court agreed that there were. It said the agency’s context-heavy determinations about indecency mean that broadcasters “are left to guess” when profanity and nudity might be deemed appropriate or punishable. For example, the FCC allowed the profanity in an ABC broadcast of the movie “Saving Private Ryan” but disallowed some of the same words in a PBS documentary on blues singers. So the Fox profanity cases are back at the Supreme Court, along with ABC’s challenge of an FCC decision that a seven-second camera pan of an actress’s bare buttocks in a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” violated the indecency standards. That resulted in a $1.2 million fine for 40 ABC affiliates that aired the show (including a Texas station owned by a subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.). The court’s deliberations this time will focus on whether the FCC’s indecency regulations violate the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. In the 2009 case, Justice Clarence Thomas voted with the majority but said the court should reexamine the Pacifica decision. “Traditional broadcast television and radio are no longer the ‘uniquely pervasive’ media forms they once were,” he wrote. And Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent, said that when the court considers constitutional questions, “we should be mindful that words unpalatable to some may be commonplace for others.” In their briefs, the networks say worries about what they will show if the FCC’s regulations are struck down are overblown. They are free to show whatever they want after 10 p.m., and it is not comparable with what is on cable, they say. Winter said the networks “know they would not win in the court of public opinion,” but he is not as confident about the high court. “The amount of content that used to be considered too much for broadcast is now ubiquitous,” he said. “They are editing into shows the harshest profanities with bleeps. What will happen is that those bleeps will go away.” The cases are _FCC v. Fox Television Stations_ and _FCC v. ABC_.

As one of the captains of the Kennedy High swim team, David Collier already spends a lot of time at the pool. Collier is enrolled in the school’s Leadership Training Institute and faced a senior fundraising project to lead. Of the seven choices available, swim races to benefit cancer research seemed like a natural selection. In its sixth year as a project choice, seniors in the program organize a swim meet that raises money for cancer. “They started it years ago because one of the kids that was in LTI got cancer,” Collier said. “They did this for him because he was a swimmer and so the last few years they’ve kept it going.” The event has raised money for different cancers and gone by different names over the years. This year’s event, Swim to Save 2012, was held at the Olney Swim Center on Saturday with the proceeds going to the American Breast Cancer Foundation. “A lot of us have members of our family that have breast cancer,” said Collier, “and we feel very strongly about it.” The Leadership Training Institute is “about learning leadership qualities and being able to work with groups and helping out in the community,” Collier said. For three months leading up to the event Collier and his partners — fellow swimmers Cameron Ware and Chris McKneely, and lacrosse players Liam Stultz and Jack Zuckerberg — organized multiple fundraisers to cover operating costs, designed T-shirts to sell, coordinated with the pool and American Breast Cancer Foundation. Facebook, e-mail, and calls to family and friends spread the word. “This is more people that I thought was going to come,” said Collier with a sigh of relief just before the evening began. After a rocky start — no lane numbers, no event cards, and a muffled bullhorn, the event went off with out a hitch. “I had a good time after I got over all the stress,” Collier said. At the beginning “we just kind of had to wing it just because we we’re trying to get it done. The main thing we wanted to do was have people have fun.” Collier was confident that had happened. “You saw people doing flips. Starting back strokes with dives.” Younger kids swam against older kids. Brothers raced to the finish. A whole group of swimmers paused right before touching so they could all finish together. “We’ve used this phrase all the time,” Collier said. “ ‘It’s not a race to win, it’s a race to a cure.’ We didn’t want kids competing we wanted kids having fun.” Collier does have one regret about the event. Since he was organizing the event, he wasn’t able to get in the pool and race against his girlfriend. “I wanted to beat her in fly,” he whispered.

Last year was a rocky one for Falls Church-based information-technology giant CSC, and so far 2012 has not proven easier. The company, which works in both the government and commercial sectors, is the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and it is planning to record a $1.5 billion charge after running into difficulties with work it was doing for the United Kingdom. To top it off, CSC’s chairman and chief executive, Michael W. Laphen, said last year that he plans to retire by Oct. 31. By the end of 2011, the company’s shares fell to levels not seen since the mid-1990s. Last week came another setback. Standard & Poor’s lowered the company’s corporate credit rating from A- to BBB+, while Fitch Ratings placed it on “watch negative.” The SEC investigation began early last year and centers on accounting errors within the company unit that manages information-technology services for government agencies and commercial clients, particularly those in Scandinavia. The company’s audit committee launched an independent investigation in May. CSC declined to comment for this story. But in a November filing with the SEC, the company said it expanded its own investigation to include operations in Australia, where it identified accounting errors and irregularities. As a result, some personnel in Australia have been suspended. The investigation continues to grow. According to CSC’s filing, the inquiry now includes a review of the company’s accounting in its Americas outsourcing operation and some of its contracts that involve “percentage of completion” accounting methodology. At the same time, the company has been wrestling with the U.K. National Health Service to revamp a major contract to develop an electronic patient records system. Government reviews have found that the larger health system modernization effort underlying CSC’s role was too ambitious and have called for rethinking the effort, and CSC has come under criticism for delays in its work. Although CSC initially had negotiated with the NHS a new memorandum of understanding that would reduce the scope of its contract, more recent negotiations have proven unsuccessful. The company learned late last year that the government would not approve the agreement. CSC said in an SEC filing that it expected discussions to resume this month, but the proposals on the table vary significantly from the memorandum of understanding. As a result, CSC said it will have to recognize a charge later this year of about $1.5 billion, equal to its total investment in the contract as of Nov. 30, 2011. The company has withdrawn its fiscal 2012 financial guidance. The negotiations with NHS come as many governments seek to cut costs and take harder looks at existing programs, limiting the opportunities for new work. The “challenge at the NHS project just creates another set of distractions that the company needs to work through,” said Nathan Rozof, vice president for research at Morgan Stanley, which has a business relationship with CSC. Although the program represents a small percentage of CSC’s total revenue, he said it was expected to provide above-average profitability. Still, Rozof and David Grossman, a managing director at Stifel Nicolaus, which also has a business relationship with CSC, said the larger problem is the confluence of difficulties the company is facing. “The SEC thing is an open-ended thing,” Grossman said. “None of us know what the outcome’s going to be.” To reassure investors, Rozof said CSC will need to resolve some of these issues. “They need to get a new CEO in place who can provide a vision for the company’s path forward that’s credible,” he said. “They need to conclude these accounting investigations so we can have a good sense of that issue being in the background.”

Hewlett-Packard may have to fend off more bidders to keep its largest U.S. government contract, a $1.5 billion-a-year deal to operate the Navy’s communications network. The Navy is widening the competition by reducing a key requirement on the Next Generation Enterprise Network, known as NGEN. Companies with experience operating a network with at least 40,000 computers will be allowed to bid, down from the initial minimum of 100,000, Steven A. Davis, a Navy spokesman, said in a Dec. 27 e-mail. The original threshold of the contract, valued at as much as $7.5 billion over five years, might have limited the field to no more than four eligible companies, the Navy said in October. Those companies may have included large network operators such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. By lowering its demands, the Navy may be able to attract more bidders, including smaller government contractors. “When you cut the threshold for bidding by 60 percent, it potentially changes the whole complexion of the competition,’’ said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington-based research organization. While the decision by Navy officials will give the government more options, it will “also increase the risk that they will pick a company that doesn’t have the requisite knowledge,’’ Thompson said in a Dec. 19 phone interview. The Navy is holding its first competition since 2000 to choose one or two contractors to run its intranet, which connects about 400,000 computers and other devices used by about 750,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel. In 2000, Electronic Data Systems, a Plano, Tex., company founded by Ross Perot, became the network integrator for the Navy and Marine Corps. HP, the world’s largest maker of personal computers, acquired EDS in 2008. The Navy and Marine Corps network got low marks from users and met just three of 20 performance targets in a 2006 review by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s investigative arm. “Those early years were painful, for both the Navy and EDS,’’ said Ray Bjorklund, chief knowledge officer at Deltek, a federal market analysis company based in Herndon. The contract has brought EDS and HP $9.5 billion in revenue in the past 11 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. HP received a $3.4 billion award last year to supply the services until the transition to NGEN is completed in 2014. HP, based in Palo Alto, Calif., declined to comment for this article, spokesman George Thompson said. As recently as October, though, it opposed relaxing the requirement on the bidder’s experience with large networks. “HP would agree that the bar should be set at the highest levels to ensure that whichever vendor is selected for NGEN, they have managed a network of similar size and complexity,’’ Bill Toti, HP’s vice president of Navy and Marine Corps accounts, said in an Oct. 28 e-mail to Bloomberg News. In addition to HP, two companies have said they plan to submit NGEN bids: Computer Sciences Corp., a consultant and technology services provider based in Falls Church, and Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla. The Navy’s decision to make the NGEN requirements less restrictive is “entirely appropriate,’’ Cynthia Gagnon, who leads Harris’s NGEN effort, wrote in a Dec. 27 e-mail statement. Harris, a communications equipment and services company that is a subcontractor to HP on the Navy contract, has experience managing networks of at least 100,000 devices, she said. CSC was unable to provide an immediate comment, spokeswoman Heather Williams said in an e-mail. Dell, Vion Corp. and Apptis, a unit of San Francisco-based URS Corp., are also among companies that may benefit from the Navy’s decision, said Robert Guerra, a partner at Guerra Kiviat, a federal sales consulting firm based in Potomac. He cautioned that the Navy isn’t “going to risk this thing’’ by selecting a company without network experience that’s comparable to the leading contractors. The Navy postponed releasing its request for proposals this month and now plans to begin the competition no earlier than the end of January. The delay in the network contract allows the Navy to “further solidify the requirements,’’ the Navy’s Davis said in a Dec. 15 e-mail. The Navy expects the network contract to reduce its current intranet costs of about $1.5 billion a year, most of which is spending on contractors. That estimate would bring the contract’s maximum value to $7.5 billion for five years, lower than the Navy’s October estimate of as much as $10 billion during five years.

When you’re named after one of the biggest constellations in the night sky, the pressure is on to display a little star power — and the young pianist Orion Weiss did exactly that in a high-powered and often ferocious recital Saturday afternoon at the Terrace Theater. Weiss has been racking up an impressive string of triumphs lately (he filled in at the last minute for an ailing Leon Fleischer last summer, turning in a raved-about performance with the Boston Symphony), and Saturday’s recital showed why. Just 30, the pianist has an exceptionally clean technique with virtuosity to spare. And although Saturday’s program — which revolved around a selection of demanding toccatas — sometimes fell a little flat emotionally, it showed Weiss to be a gifted musician well worth keeping an eye on. The recital (part of the Hayes Piano Series presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society) didn’t open on a particularly strong foot. Weiss’s take on Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911 can only be described as ordinary, and he didn’t seem to be particularly involved in the music, tending to just underline Bach’s phrasing rather than find real meaning in it. But the pace quickly picked up. Weiss turned in a vivid account of Liszt’s Toccata, S.197a — a little dervish of a piece that bursts into life, whirls madly for a minute, then vanishes — followed by an intriguing work written for the pianist by composer Michael Brown. Titled “Constellations and Toccata,” it contrasts a “human” perspective on the heavens with a “scientific” one; the first section proved to be a sort of spare, slowly turning nocturne from which a sweeping theme emerged, while the hard-driving toccata took an ecstatic, data-driven look into the fiery heart of stars. Weiss kept everything in perfect alignment, and Brown could not hope for a more convincing account of his work. The afternoon went on in that vein, as introspective pieces alternated with extroverted ones to varying effect. Weiss didn’t delve very deeply into five pieces from Schumann’s Bunte Blatter, Op. 99, which came off as so much Romantic mirror-gazing, but his no-holds-barred reading of the composer’s Toccata, Op. 7 more than took up the slack. And in the second half of the program, Weiss seemed to finally unleash the full reach of his talent. Brahms’s “Variations on a theme by Schumann, Op. 9” is a sort of love letter to Schumann’s wife, Clara, written when Brahms was still quite young. It’s a fascinating revelation of lovesickness and grief, emotionally subtle beyond the composer’s years, and Weiss gave it a poignant and empathetic reading. Even more impressive, though, was Bohuslav Martinu’s Fantasie and Toccata, which closed the recital. Written in 1940 as the Czech composer fled Paris ahead of the invading German army, it’s an edgy and relentlessly gripping work, as well as a pianistic tour de force — the sort of music that elbows its way into your brain and takes over for a while. It seemed to bring out the best in Weiss. Not only did he handle its virtuosic demands with ease, he made the work into a riveting and unforgettable human experience — and isn’t that what concert-going is supposed to be about? Brookes is a freelance writer.

Zuill Bailey didn’t just perform all six of Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello at Strathmore on Saturday. He treated the hugely appreciative audience to a sort of running memoir, recounting his struggles growing up with this extraordinary set. These struggles — and Bailey’s decade-long preparation for a recording, issued in 2010 — have led to an idiosyncratic understanding of the suites, which have challenged the greatest cellists of the past century, from Pablo Casals to Yo-Yo Ma. If some of Bailey’s decisions seemed glorious and others felt odd, and if, among his many feats of cello wizardry, there were moments when the magnitude of the technical challenge seemed to overwhelm his ambition, it was, nevertheless, an enormously intelligent and musically courageous performance. The Prelude to the first Suite is the one people are most likely to recognize, but Bailey launched into it with a quick and aggressive angularity that set it apart from more conventional readings and gave notice that this was not to be your grandfather’s Bach. This impression was confirmed in the Courantes of the first two Suites, which he took in full voice and at breakneck speed. The muddiness that resulted was intensified by the rich lower tones of the huge cello he plays, built in 1693 (when Bach was 8 years old). But these were chances worth taking and which, with a different instrument and in a more intimate hall, might have worked. The rest was Bach at his most lucid and intriguing. Bailey seemed to revel in both the playfulness of the Gigues that end each Suite and the sensual longing that oozed from the Sarabandes. His cello spoke in a wonderful array of subtle voices in the Allemandes and Bourées and, as a master performer, he timed the break between movements to dramatic perfection. Reinthaler is a freelance writer.

**nor-mal.** _adjective. Conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural. _ So, are you? Normal, that is. Just about every kid has worried about being weird or different and not fitting in. The reality is that in some ways, every one of us is probably pretty normal, and in other ways, we’re all pretty strange. A fun new book by Mark Shulman and from National Geographic called “Are You ‘Normal’?” devotes 176 pages to asking questions (some pretty silly) about your life. How you answer helps determine how “normal” you are. The book divides a kid’s life into categories (including home, school, friends, body, food, fun) and then asks the reader to answer questions in each category. Then, Shulman tells you how other kids answered and you get a score that allows you to rank yourself on a “weird-o-meter.” Here’s a sampling of questions: **Do you have a brother or sister?** **Yes:** 6 of 7 kids have a sibling. **No:** 1 of 7 kids is an only child. **Have you ever faked being sick to get out of school?** **Yes:** 25 percent of kids are good enough actors to pull this off. ** No: **75 percent of kids say they’ve never faked. (We can’t say what percentage of them are fibbing!) **Where do you bite the chocolate bunny first? (We warned you that some were silly.)** ** Ears: **More than half chomp from the top down. **Tails:** 1 in 25 goes for the bum. ****Any place:** ** About a third of kids said they eat any part that’s handy. **Do you like smooth or chunky peanut butter?** **Smooth:** Just more than half of kids go for smooth. **Chunky:** About a quarter of kids like the nuts in their butter. **Neither:** About 20 percent of kids won’t eat either kind of peanut butter. (And that’s no baloney.) **Do you have a TV in your bedroom?** **Yes:** 56 percent of kids watch the tube from their bed. **No:** 44 percent have to watch in another room. **Do you ever bite your fingernails?** **** **Yes:** About 50 percent of kids say they occasionally chew. Can you guess what percentage said no? **Do you ever bite your toenails?** **Yes:** One in 10 kids is flexible enough to pull off this “feat.” **No:** 90 percent of kids either can’t or won’t do this! So how “normal” or “weird” are you? The real point of the questions (and of the book) is to show that nobody is perfectly normal or perfectly weird. We’re all unique, and that’s part of what makes us special. Still, if you’re one of the 86 percent of kids who have siblings, we might suggest that you not ask your brother or sister to answer this question about you! **— Tracy Grant **

SAN JOSE —After a third day here in Northern California, the Washington Capitals searched for answers to a far too familiar riddle: Why do they continue to struggle away from Verizon Center? Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks at HP Pavillion marked the Capitals’ fourth loss in their past five road games, their seventh in the last 10. Though Washington has put forth more consistent efforts recently, the team’s inability to withstand the rigors of the road is troublesome. “I think our effort on the road isn’t quite the same as it is at home,” Troy Brouwer said. “We come out a little tougher, battle a little harder at home and that really needs to change. We have as much skill as any team, but when we’re not working — we’re getting outworked most nights on the road.” The Capitals are 7-11-1 on the road this season, 3-4-1 under Coach Dale Hunter, and know if they want to move up the Eastern Conference standings, where they sit in 10th place prior to the conclusion of Sunday’s games, they will need to find success away from home. Against San Jose, the Capitals got off to a rather strong start but couldn’t pull ahead, and they’ve failed to score in the first period of seven straight road games. The Sharks eventually took an initial lead in the second and costly errors in the form of defensive lapses and ill-timed penalties built up to undo Washington’s comeback efforts. “We’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot with little things,” said Joel Ward, who against San Jose recorded his first goal since Nov. 11. “I feel like we’re not managing the game well on the road. At times, you’ve just got to play it on a safer level, when they’re able to match and whatnot. I feel like we haven’t done a great job doing that and it’s hurt us. Sometimes, we try to push it too much, when you can get through a shift, a period then come back at it. That can be the smarter course.” Maintaining a high level of intensity while avoiding the self-inflicted wounds on the road may be even more key for the Capitals as they move forward. Washington visits Los Angeles on Monday and the team may have to face the Kings without the help of No. 1 center Nicklas Backstrom and two-time Norris Trophy finalist Mike Green. Neither Backstrom (head) nor Green (groin) skated Sunday as the Capitals practiced at HP Pavilion. Coach Dale Hunter didn’t offer any update on either player, but the rest of the roster appears to be bracing for the very real possibility that both Backstrom and Green could miss more time. Backstrom was scratched against the Sharks because of the head injury he suffered when elbowed by Calgary’s Rene Bourque earlier in the week and hasn’t skated in the past two days. It was a sharp contrast to the mood of both the center and Hunter after practice Friday morning in San Jose. At that time, both said they were optimistic that Backstrom might not even miss a game. But since those positive statements, the 24-year-old Swede has not been on the ice. The extent of Backstrom’s injury is unclear, as is whether he suffered a setback. “He’s a big part of your team,” Hunter said. “Scoring plus playmaking ability, he creates a lot out there. He’s the leading scorer but he can also play defense. Everyone talks about scoring but as a coach we’re always worried about defense. He kills penalties he knows how to play really well defensively so that hurts us too.” Green left Saturday’s game in the second period with tightness in his groin and was seen walking with a pronounced limp on Saturday. It was only the second game Green had been in the lineup for after returning from a 23-game absence because of a strained right groin muscle. Both players are traveling with the team to Los Angeles. But the Capitals understand that given the uncertainty around the status of both Backstrom and Green, there will be additional pressure on the rest of the lineup to pick up the slack.

TUCSON — Bells rang across Tucson on Sunday marking the exact time last year that the city was rocked by a shooting rampage that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gravely wounded and six people dead. The bells at 10:11 a.m., the moment of the Jan. 8, 2011, shooting, opened a day of remembrance events across Tucson for survivors of the shooting, the victims’ families and city residents. Giffords (D-Ariz.) made a unannounced visit late Saturday to the supermarket where a gunman pumped a barrage of bullets into a crowd gathered for her congressional outreach meeting. The gunfire wounded 12 people in addition to Giffords, who was shot in the head and has been recovering at a Houston hospital. About 200 people gathered at an Anglican church in north Tucson near the scene of the shooting for a service that remembered victims. “When you think on it, it’s a healing moment,” said Dick Guthrie, a longtime congregant who said he had known Giffords since she was a teenager. “I hope she continues to improve,” he said. Gary Huckleberry, whose daughter witnessed the shooting and suffered trauma, said he found the service healing. “A lot of us have come a long way since that date a year ago. For some people it will take much more time to get over it, but having this service . . . was healing,” he said. While the bells rang slowly, echoing through the empty downtown streets, a crowd of about 300 people attended a morning Mass at St. Augustine Cathedral. U.S. District Judge John Roll, Giffords’s friend who was killed in the attack, attended lunchtime Mass there every day. In a call to Giffords, President Obama praised her courage and determination in her recovery and told her that she was “an inspiration to his family and Americans across the country,” according to a White House statement. Sunday’s events include a service at St. Augustine at 1 p.m. and a tribute at 3 p.m. honoring those killed in the rampage to be held at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall. Accompanied by her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, Giffords made several unannounced visits around the city Saturday, including the stop at the Safeway store where she was shot. “Gabby just visited the Safeway for the 1st time since 1/8/11,” Kelly tweeted. “It’s been a tough year, but we’re lucky to have so many people standing w/us,” he added. Earlier in the day, Giffords hiked outside Tucson on a desert trail named for her slain aide Gabe Zimmerman and visited University of Arizona Medical Center staff who treated her and others who were wounded. “I think it’s going to be a very cathartic weekend for all of us here in Tucson to see her in her home town,” said Daniel Hernandez, an intern at Giffords’s office credited with saving her life as she lay bleeding in the Safeway parking lot. Giffords attended a candlelight vigil at the University of Arizona on Sunday evening with her husband. Also scheduled to take part in the vigil were Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Rabbi Stephanie Aaron and Peter Rhee, chief of trauma, critical care and emergency surgery at the University Medical Center, who treated Giffords and other victims. Jared Loughner, 23, was arrested at the scene of the shooting and charged with crimes including attempting to assassinate Giffords. He pleaded not guilty. Found mentally unfit to stand trial, he is being treated in a federal prison hospital in Missouri. ** — Reuters **

One proposal would give Prince George’s County its first Whole Foods Market. The other would bring a collection of high-end outlet stores to National Harbor, the largest mixed-use development in the county. Both are major development projects that would create jobs and provide the type of retail that residents say has been lacking in Prince George’s. Yet each has also been mired in controversy for months, with some residents questioning whether the locations are suitable. On Thursday, the Prince George’s County Planning Board will tackle both projects: the Cafritz family’s plan to build a mixed-use development, including the Whole Foods, off Route 1 in Riverdale Park; and the proposed Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, where Peterson Cos. would locate about 80 stores just outside the Capital Beltway. The developments are probably the most controversial considered by the board since its members were appointed by the new county executive, Rushern L. Baker III. The appearance by Cafritz family representatives before the board follows numerous intense meetings with community leaders over several months. And it comes after competing efforts to sway public opinion: on one side, a major public relations blitz by the developer, including glossy brochures and telephone calls to residents; on the other, a grass-roots campaign in which residents have gone door-to-door to express their concerns about the proposal. Some residents near the site have said the project — which includes a 120-room hotel, 168,200 square feet of retail, 22,000 square feet of office space and 995 residential units — is not smart growth or transit-friendly. The project, they said, is too far from the College Park Metro station and will exacerbate traffic on part of the Route 1 corridor that largely consists of single-family homes. “Those who oppose this, we’re very much pro-development,” said Joseph Grikis, a former Riverdale Park resident who lives in College Park. “We’re not trying to be provincial about this. There are places that are as suitable or better than the Cafritz property that already have transit-oriented infrastructure.” The developer was scheduled to ask the Planning Board to rezone the property from single-family to mixed-used development last month but requested a postponement after Riverdale Park officials demanded that the developer delay its plans or lose the town’s support. Riverdale Park Mayor Vernon Archer said Friday that Cafritz representatives and officials from Riverdale Park, University Park and College Park planned to meet over the next several days in an attempt to reach a final agreement. There have been disagreements between local officials and the developers over design, environmental standards and traffic mitigation. A major issue has been how to finance and ensure timely completion of a crossing, probably a bridge, over the CSX tracks east of the project to improve access to the development. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress,” Archer said, including a tentative agreement on funding for the bridge. He said that the developer might put up some of the money and that Riverdale Park and the county might provide the rest through a tax-increment fund that would tap revenue generated by the development. **** ********The Tanger Outlets project, meanwhile, appears to have overcome a major obstacle. Historic preservationists had raised concerns about developing the site of Salubria, a historic Oxon Hill plantation where a 14-year-old slave allegedly poisoned her master’s three children. But Peterson Cos. and preservationists agreed to find a way to address the site’s historical significance, and last week, the county’s Historic Preservation Commission agreed to remove the the site’s environmental and historic designations. “This was not a question of sprawl versus a decent historic site, but an excellent historic site confronted by an excellent economic development,” said David Turner, chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission. The commission voted to allow grading of the property if Peterson conducts a second archaeological study and reaches an agreement with two preservation groups on acknowledging the site’s historic significance. County economic development officials said last week that despite some community opposition, they are hopeful that the two projects will move forward. “I’ve come to realize that while people want these types of services and changes, a lot of them don’t want it to impact the way [they] live at home,” said Aubrey D. Thagard, a county assistant deputy chief administrative officer for economic development. “That’s the greatest challenge, to look beyond the borders of our neighborhoods and look at the impact it could be on a larger scale,” Thagard said. He said the projects “signal a new era in terms of retail development in Prince George’s County, bringing retail chains that previously were not existent.” **Read more onPostLocal.com:** Totem tells more than one story As U-Md. cuts budget, it also builds a mansion Metro riders drop their pants Squall on Md. wind farm plan worsens

When the United States invaded Iraq, it did so thinking that it could turn the country into an economic dynamo fueled on oil reserves that are among the largest in the world. “Iraq is open for business,” L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq at the time, said in 2003. But the fighting never really stopped, and the U.S. vision was never really realized. Now, with American troops gone, the question is: What can Iraq build on its own? So far — with the nation’s leaders locked in a political crisis and insurgents launching spectacular attacks — the signs are not good. A view of these obstacles, playing out on a smaller scale, can be found behind 10-foot blast walls on the floor of the city’s tiny stock exchange. Investor Saad Jaleel began the year hopeful, buying $1,600 worth of shares in the Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank. But by the third day of trading, watching the market creep down, he stopped. “People are just waiting and worried, because of the political and security situation,” said Jaleel, 52, a former stationery store owner. The stock exchange, with only 45 actively traded companies, is hampered by Iraq’s dysfunctional business climate, which, analysts say, lacks adequate laws to govern investments, taxation and property issues. Three massive generators are parked outside the building, keeping the lights running. Just showing up is an act of courage. Two blocks away are the charred remains and rubble from a Dec. 22 car bombing, which occurred outside a government anti-corruption agency and killed more than a dozen people. But Jaleel remains bullish about his country and said he will get back to trading this week. “Within three years,” he said, “we will have total change.” Iraq sits on an estimated 143 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to the World Bank, which recently projected that growing oil exports will boost the country’s gross domestic product by 12 percent this year, among the fastest rates in the world. But part of that growth reflects dramatic business activity in the country’s semiautonomous Kurdish region. And, more broadly, the challenge for Iraq is that the oil revenue passes through the government, which traditionally hasn’t spent the money well or done enough to diversify the economy, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. Iraq ranks 159 out of 227 countries in per-capita income, according to U.S. government statistics. The World Bank ranks Iraq 164 out of 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business, down five spots from the year before. Corruption rankings, according to Transparency International, are worse. But rather than try to improve the country’s standing, political leaders in recent weeks have spent their time fighting one another, trading accusations of terrorism and incompetence, moving to consolidate power and boycotting the parliament. The political drama has made it more difficult to do business, with government bureaucrats unsure not only how to process work but also who runs their agencies. “In Iraq at the moment, you’ve got no idea what is going on,” said a businessman who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. Small merchants say shoppers aren’t spending as much amid uncertainty about what the future holds. “When the crisis took place and the blasts took place, the people became conservative,” Emad al-Khafaji, a tailor in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood, said recently while taking a break from hemming a garment. Around the corner, other merchants have noticed business slowing since the political crisis and waves of bombs erupted after U.S. troops left Dec. 18. Haider al-Kwaz, 24, works in a family-run shop that sells men’s clothes. He said business has been down 50 percent in the past three weeks. “The owners are sitting in front of their stores like they are sitting in front of their houses,” Kwaz said. Violence took a sharply sectarian turn Thursday, when a suicide bomber killed 48 Shiite pilgrims walking to the holy city of Karbala and explosions killed 24 people in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. If such attacks continue, the slowdown the merchants are feeling “could become worse in a hurry,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of a recent paper titled “The Broader Crisis in Iraq.” Hussain al-Shahristani, the country’s deputy prime minister for energy affairs, said the government is committed to diversifying its oil wealth into new areas of the economy — and doing so through real democracy. “People in this part of the world have been told that they have to choose between freedom or prosperity,” Shahristani said. “In Iraq, we are determined to prove them wrong.” He said that power plants are under construction and that more oil will be exported through a tanker terminal set to open this year. As for political disputes and bombings, he said they have had little effect on foreign oil companies. “If they have complaints, it’s not about the political debate or the bombings in Baghdad or elsewhere, it’s about some bureaucracy at seaports, at custom clearances, visa applications and so on,” Shahristani said. “We have come a long way, but still the companies expect speedier procedures, and I do fully agree with them.” British insurance executive Jonathan Biles founded Iraq Gate Insurance Brokers in Baghdad in 2009, with policies that cover construction liability, kidnapping and ransom, among other areas. He takes the long view of economic development in Iraq. “If you had a one-year plan, you would never come,” he said. “If you had a three-year plan, you would be constantly weeping. If you have a five-year plan, you may just be thinking things were going OK. But with a 20-year plan, it has to work.” Still, as foreign companies weigh investing here, Biles said he worries that they will look at recent events and go elsewhere: “Money looks at the whole world, and money doesn’t like uncertainty. And, right now, you’ve got of lot of uncertainty in Iraq. Will this uncertainty hamper investment in the new Iraq? I suspect it will.” At Rabee Securities, located two blocks from the Iraq Stock Exchange, the blast last month blew out windows and caved in parts of the ceiling. One of Rabee’s traders, Tamara Hussain, lost her sister in the explosion. She worked as a lawyer for the government’s anti-corruption agency. But Hussain was back at work in the new year. “I can’t stay at home and see my mother crying all the time,” she said from her desk at Rabee’s repaired offices. “I try not to think about the bomb.” Down the hall, a half-dozen investors requested trades from Rabee brokers, who made the transactions over laptop computers. Electrical engineer Saeed Dharhi, 58, wants to buy bank shares. But as the market slipped this year, he has not purchased any stocks. “Bad news in politics and explosions,” he said. **More world news coverage:** \- Arab League extends Syria mission \- Islamists secure lead in Egypt’s parliamentary elections \- Tehran praises U.S. Navy rescue operation \- Read more headlines from around the world

I can’t believe all this suburban entitlement over charging a nickel for a plastic or paper bag [letters, Jan. 2, 4 and 6]. The Montgomery County Council has finally taken a gutsy step to discourage use of these polluting bags through the bag tax, and the public gets all upset. Plastic bags are a major polluter; they’ve never been “free.” The cost is an unhealthy environment. So is the real objection the “inconvenience” of having to remember to bring a reusable bag to the store? Is that worth helping to destroy our environment? ****Michael Tabor,** Takoma Park**

KEVIN COFFAY was incoherently drunk, stumbling into walls at a late-night party in Montgomery County on May 15, when four friends took him up on the offer of a ride. Three would not survive what law enforcement officials described as a horrific, high-speed crash that flipped and crushed the vehicle and virtually sheered off its right side. Mr. Coffay, 20, was likely saved by an air bag; he fled the crash and, according to court documents, evaded police officers for some three hours as he dodged through woods near Olney. Mr. Coffay pleaded guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter and one of failing to remain at the scene of the crash. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 40 years behind bars; all but 20 were suspended. This case has hit a nerve. Law enforcement officials believe more people attended the Coffay sentencing hearing than showed up on any given day of the trial of sniper John Allen Muhammad or of the Lululemon murder prosecution. Despite years of public-service announcements, driver’s education classes, and community and law enforcement campaigns regarding drunk driving, more still needs to be done to thwart these preventable tragedies. The criminal justice system is an important tool in that quest. Mr. Coffay’s lawyers argued for a prison term of no more than 18 months. The judge rightly rejected that as too lenient — a penalty that would have communicated crass indifference to the deaths of three young people. It also would not have been reasonable in light of Mr. Coffay’s previous run-ins with the law, including a 2010 episode in which law enforcement officials suspected he was intoxicated when he impaled his car on a brick mailbox. The car was driverless when police arrived; Mr. Coffay apparently left the scene and walked to his home, which was not far away. But did the judge go too far in the other direction by accepting prosecutors’ recommendations that Mr. Coffay be hit with 10 years for every count to which he pleaded guilty? In reality, Mr. Coffay could be released on parole in as little as five years. Had the judge imposed a lesser sentence, his chances of freedom would have arrived even sooner. Sentences should be fair and tailored to the particulars of a case. But they do not merely serve to punish defendants; they are also tools for deterrence. The Post’s Mary Pat Flaherty reported that before sentencing Mr. Coffay, Circuit Judge Theresa M. Adams implored the packed courtroom to end “the culture of recklessness.” The judge’s sentence sent an appropriate message that there will be a steep price to pay when such recklessness results in grave harm to others. ****

Although the loss to West Virginia was only their first in 12 games, it underscored a pair of trouble spots for the ninth-ranked Georgetown men’s basketball team: cold three-point shooting and uneven rebounding. The Hoyas made only 2 of 14 attempts from behind the three-point arc in Saturday’s 74-62 defeat, extending their shooting slump to three games. In all, they’re shooting 30 percent from three-point range since the start of Big East play, which ranks 12th in the conference. Georgetown (13-2, 3-1) hopes to reverse that trend when Cincinnati (12-4, 2-1) visits Verizon Center on Monday, two days after the Bearcats’ seven-game winning streak was snapped by St. John’s at the buzzer. But it doesn’t figure to be easy for the Hoyas. Cincinnati sophomore Sean Kilpatrick and his teammates rank second in the conference in three-point defense, limiting opponents to 29.2 percent. After Saturday’s loss in Morgantown, Georgetown Coach John Thompson III pointed to inadequate communication and execution on the defensive end of the floor as the primary culprit. Still, it was impossible to overlook the role three-point accuracy (or lack thereof) played in the Hoyas’ first loss since Nov. 21. They connected on only 1 of 8 attempts from long range in the second half, while the Mountaineers sank 3 of 6. Thompson said Sunday that he’s not overly concerned about the three-point slump, in part because this season’s team is better equipped to handle one. “We’re not a team that doesn’t _want_ to make threes,” he said. “In years past, some would say we lived and died by the three. But I think this team, because of our versatility and the different ways we can score, it’s not as important. . . . I just think the ball hasn’t gone in two out of those three games.” Georgetown opened the conference schedule an impressive 7 for 11 from long range at Louisville on Dec. 28. The season-best 63.6-percent performance fueled the Hoyas’ 71-68 victory. Since that signature win, though, the Georgetown has made only 11 of 49 attempts, or 22.4 percent. While junior swingman Hollis Thompson has made five of his 11 three-point attempts the past three games, senior Jason Clark is 3 for 15 and sophomore Markel Starks has made only one of his nine attempts (after sinking all four of his attempts vs. the Cardinals). The Hoyas’ three-point struggles were never more apparent than during a critical second half stretch against the Mountaineers. With the West Virginia clinging to a 41-37 lead, Clark missed from beyond the arc. At the other end of the floor, Mountaineers senior Kevin Jones sank a three-pointer 14 seconds later, making it 44-37. Starks and Greg Whittington each misfired from long range attempts on the Hoyas’ next two possessions, and the hosts pulled away. “That sequence was important,” Thompson said. “It was a stretch where, three possessions in a row, we took threes. This team doesn’t have to do that. At least two of those were not good shots. We were trying to answer them, as opposed to, ‘Let’s get the best shot.’ ” Another area where Thompson would like to see improvement is on the boards. The Hoyas have been out-rebounded in each of the past three games, including a 37-31 deficit Saturday. Georgetown has have only been out-rebounded five times; it happened in both losses. Thompson said the key to reversing that trend is getting perimeter players more involved. Freshman forward Otto Porter leads the Hoyas with 6.8 rebounds per game, while Clark and Starks, the starting back court, rank fifth and 10th on the team, respectively. The Bearcats, meantime, feature one of the conference's top rebounders in 6-foot-9, 260-pound senior Yancy Gates, who is averaging 9.1 per game to go along with 12.4 points. “A lot of times, when it comes to rebounding, the focus on the front court,” Thompson said. “We need our perimeter guys to do a much better job of getting in there and running down rebounds, to help and support the guys in box-outs down there.”

The skepticism about Rick Santorum’s decision to run for president emanated from deep inside his old inner circle, among his closest friends. He was, after all, not even five years removed from a crushing 18-percentage-point Senate reelection defeat. That, and dismal numbers in all the presidential polls, seemed to signal an end to his political career. None of Santorum’s former Senate colleagues endorsed him. And, most important, he had seven children at home, including a very sick one who needed him in ways that argued against running for president. When he had lunch last summer with his friend and ex-colleague Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the former Senate majority leader reminded Santorum that he was finally making some much-needed money and was building a successful work life away from politics. “He was going to put all that on hold,” said Lott, recalling his warning that a presidential run might be folly given Santorum’s personal circumstances and his prospects of becoming the nominee. “It was going to be an uphill battle,” said Lott, who has endorsed Mitt Romney. But just as he had done so often before, Santorum ignored the skeptics. In the passionate, determined way that has emerged as both a great asset and a great vulnerability, the former senator from Pennsylvania dove in, spending months in Iowa as an afterthought, at the bottom of most opinion polls, only to sling to the front in the past two weeks. Santorum’s resurrection is a story about the power and limits of his rare combination of ideological clarity on social issues, willingness to tweak the GOP orthodoxy on economic issues and eagerness for political confrontation. It is the same mix that has brought Santorum unexpected inspirational victories as well as heart-rending setbacks. On deeply personal issues, Santorum has a tendency “to let emotion get the better of him,” said former senator John Sununu (R-N.H.). “There’s a real sincerity there, which made it easy to work with him. That kind of sincerity is why he caught up in Iowa,” said Sununu, who has not endorsed anyone. When Gary Bauer, the conservative activist and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, endorsed Santorum on Sunday, he said in a news release that the former senator embodies “the Reagan-inspired conservatism that unites the GOP.” At the same time, Santorum was attracting legions of antagonists at rallies in New Hampshire who, in addition to not sharing his socially conservative vision of America, confronted him on it. The irony, of course, is that he is drawing huge crowds. Predicting the Santorum bubble, which seemed improbable five weeks ago, would have been impossible five years ago, after Pennsylvania voters booted out the two-term senator. “He started off down 15 points, and by the end it was a Kabuki dance,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in Pennsylvania. A Quinnipiac Poll in April 2005 showed that he trailed now-Sen. Robert Casey (D) by 14 percentage points, before Casey entered the race. The fall of 2006 was not a good time to be a Republican. But it seemed particularly bad for Santorum. The Bush White House’s popularity had cratered amid the struggles in Iraq and the fallout of the poor federal rescue effort that followed Hurricane Katrina. Still, Santorum’s troubles seemed mostly of his own making. He didn’t do himself any favors by attaching himself to the hip of the Bush White House, a move strategically intended to boost his own presidential prospects. Both publicly and privately, he scolded those Republicans who strayed from the White House line. One Republican strategist, discussing a closed-door meeting on the condition of anonymity, recalled a debate when Senate Republicans were divided on the farm bill. San­torum started yelling about party unity, with a microphone in front of him. As Santorum finished, then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) quipped: “Would somebody please turn up his microphone? I couldn’t hear him.” Strategists in both parties said Santorum’s attachment to the Bush brand was fatal. “Everything had to do with Bush, Bush, Bush, and by then Santorum equaled Bush in Pennsylvania,” said Neil Oxman, the Democratic consultant who led then-Gov. Ed Rendell’s successful 2006 reelection campaign. Santorum’s recovery, like his previous success, has been based on small shifts in tone on economic and fiscal issues, set against the bedrock clarity of his position on social issues. In a GOP field that talks about wealth largely to defend it and government largely to bash it, Santorum is something of an anomaly, but it may have been a lesson learned the hard way in Pennsylvania. Santorum calls himself a “full-spectrum” conservative, but also tries not to be limited by his conservatism. “We as Republicans have to look at those who are not doing well in our society,” he told supporters Tuesday, when he unexpectedly came close to winning the Iowa caucuses. A key Santorum talking point is that he can win support from blue-collar regions, based on his history and on the strength of his proposal to impose a zero tax rate on the manufacturing sector. “It’ll pass tomorrow. It would pass tomorrow. Why? Because industrial-state Democrats want those jobs, and they know if we put a pro-manufacturing jobs plan on the table it will pass overnight,” Santorum said during an October debate. Even though it has helped him present a new face in Iowa and New Hampshire, this is not an entirely new message for Santorum. After riding the Republican wave to win his first Senate term in 1994, Santorum went on in his reelection bid to face an underfunded Democratic congressman. He presented himself as a compassionate conservative, trumpeting tax policies that would help poor people and allow federal funds to flow to churches in low-income neighborhoods. He was reelected with almost 53 percent of the vote. That message resonated in Bucks County, the consummate swing-voter suburb just north of Philadelphia. The county has split its vote for its congressman almost evenly since 1978, favoring the GOP candidate nine times and the Democrat eight times. In 2000, Santorum swept Bucks County with 57 percent of the vote. Six years later, he had changed. He was more focused on social issues and was defending the Bush record. “His issue cluster got to be much more on social values than on economic issues,” said Nicholas, now political director of the Pennsylvania Business Council. His second term, during which he served as the No. 3 Republican leader, became increasingly focused on social-values issues, such as fighting Democratic filibusters of GOP judicial nominees and opposition to same-sex marriage. When he faced the voters again in 2006, he could muster only 41.5 percent in Bucks County. His current success on the GOP campaign trail among working-class conservatives appears to be based almost exclusively on their draw to his religious conservatism, but San­torum understands the power of marrying that message with economic populism. “If we have someone who can go out to western Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Wisconsin and Iowa and Missouri and appeal to the voters that have been left behind by a Democratic Party that wants to make them dependent instead of valuing their work, we will win this election,” he said.

AMERICA’S HALF-BAKED immigration system is riddled with unfair, arbitrary and inhumane provisions, but few are so senseless and cruel as those covering the undocumented immigrant spouses and children of U.S. citizens. Now the Obama administration is proposing a prudent rule change that would prevent thousands of pointless family separations and prompt untold numbers of illegal immigrants to seek legal status through lawful channels. Currently, undocumented spouses and children of American citizens are eligible for green cards if they return to their native countries to apply for U.S. visas. But when they do, they are automatically barred from reentering the United States for up to 10 years — the penalty for having been unlawfully present here. The way around those harsh measures is to prove that family separation would cause a U.S. citizen “extreme hardship” — for instance, by depriving him of the family income or help with child care that the immigrant spouse provided. The catch is that while U.S. immigration authorities grant thousands of such waivers annually, the process takes six months on average, and sometimes much longer, stranding spouses and children far from their families. Given the long delays and possibility of rejection — and prolonged family separations — many never bother to apply. In practice, most of those who apply for waivers are Mexicans, and the vast majority of them are successful. Of some 17,000 waiver applications filed with the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, which handles the paperwork in Mexico, about 90 percent were approved. The rule change, proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, would allow such spouses and children to remain in this country while they seek provisional waivers. Nothing else would change: Once a waiver is granted, the immigrant would still be required to return to his home country to apply for a visa. But the shift would streamline the process and cut family separations to the days or weeks it takes to issue a visa, rather than the months required for a waiver application. It’s possible that opponents of illegal immigration will cry “amnesty” — they rarely miss an opportunity — but the proposal is little more than a tweak. After all, it would favor people who are already members of American families and are overwhelmingly eligible to receive green cards anyway. Why tear them from their jobs, homes, spouses and parents for months on end? Nor is it likely to encourage phony marriages, since immigration and visa authorities would apply the same scrutiny to such arrangements as they do now. Officials hope that the proposal — a change in administrative law that does not require congressional approval — will go into effect after a comment period by the end of this year. If it does, it could help tens or hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their American families to lead normal lives, free of the burdens imposed by a dysfunctional immigration system. ****

Even China? Could the world’s economic juggernaut, having grown an average of 10 percent annually for three decades, face a slowdown or what for China would be a recession? Does it have a real estate “bubble” about to “pop”? What would be the global consequences? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visits China and Japan this week. These questions form a backdrop. With Europe’s slump andAmerica’s sluggish economy, a sizable Chinese slowdown would be bad news. China inspires ambivalence. Its policies — especially its undervalued exchange rate — are skewed to give it an advantage on world markets. This has cost jobs in the United States, Europe and developing countries. Still, China is now such a powerful economic force that an abrupt slowdown would ripple beyond its borders. Trade would suffer. China’s protectionism might intensify to offset job loss. If surpluses of steel and other commodities were dumped on world markets, prices and production elsewhere would fall. There are warning signs. Economist Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute cites three. First, Europe’s slump has weakened China’s trade; Europe buys about a fifth of its exports. Second, housing is showing signs of a bubble and is deflating. Finally, China’s government will have a harder time deploying a stimulus than during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Government debt rose from 26 percent of gross domestic product in 2007 to 43 percent of GDP in 2010. How all this affects China’s growth is controversial. “Most likely, China will have a soft landing,” says Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s chief economist. “Growth goes to 8 percent or 8.5 percent.” That’s down from about 9 percent in 2011. Government debt is still low enough to permit ample stimulus, Lin thinks. Many forecasts agree. But skepticism is mounting. The Japanese securities firm Nomura sees a one-in- three possibility of a “hard landing” — a drop in growth to 5 percent or less. To Americans, now experiencing annual economic growth around 2 percent, this may seem fabulous. But for China’s modernizing economy and huge labor force, a 5 percent growth rate would raise unemployment and social discontent. The adverse GDP swing would roughly equal the U.S. decline in the 2007-09 recession. Housing may settle who’s right. China has vastly overinvested in housing, argues Lardy in a new book (“Sustaining China’s Economic Growth After the Global Financial Crisis”). The main reason, he says, is that financial policies prevent savers from realizing adequate returns on their money. The stock market is seen as rigged. Government regulations keep interest rates on bank deposits — the main outlet for savings — low. From 2004 to 2010, they were less than inflation. Frustrated savers invest in housing, where prices are not regulated. The result seems a classic speculative bubble. People buy because they believe prices will go up; and prices go up because people buy. A 2010 survey found that 18 percent of Beijing households owned two or more properties; another 2010 survey of all cities found that 40 percent of purchases were for investment. Many units, Lardy reports, are vacant because rents in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities are low. Unfortunately, booms breed busts. Buyers ultimately recognize that rising prices reflect artificial demand. Purchases slow. Prices fall. New building declines. The process feeds on itself. With modest imbalances, the result is a correction. Otherwise, there’s a crash. Which does China face? A popped real estate bubble could exert a big drag. Housing construction exceeds 10 percent of GDP. That’s historically high, says Lardy. At a similar stage of economic development, Taiwan’s housing investment was 4.3 percent of GDP. In the recent U.S. real estate boom, housing peaked at 6 percent of GDP. In China, housing stimulates much consumer spending (furniture, appliances) and accounts for 40 percent of steel production, notes Lardy. Land sales are also a big revenue source for local governments. All would suffer from a housing bust. There are mitigating factors. Outside Beijing and Shanghai, it’s unclear that housing prices are “out of line with household income growth,” says economist Eswar Prasad of Cornell University. Chinese buyers also typically make large cash payments for their properties. Compared to United States, a housing bust is less likely to become a banking crisis as mortgages sour. Whatever happens, China’s economic model is reaching its limits, as Lardy argues. It has relied on exports, promoted through the controlled exchange rate, and investment, including housing, subsidized by cheap credit. Meanwhile, Chinese savers have been punished by the low returns on deposits. This dampens their incomes and consumption spending. The trouble is that the global slowdown threatens exports and housing’s excesses threaten investment. Unless China can switch to stronger consumption spending, its economy will slow — or it will achieve growth by becoming even more predatory toward other countries. ****

Tony Blankley, a conservative author, columnist and political observer who had been a top aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and later headed the editorial page of the Washington Times, died Jan. 7 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in the District. He was 63 and had cancer, his wife Lynda Davis said. Mr. Blankley was born in England and spoke with a trace of a British accent, but he was raised in Los Angeles. As a child, he acted in television shows such as “Lassie” and “Make Room for Daddy” before developing an interest in the law and politics as a teenager. He came to Washington early in the Reagan administration, taking a post as a press secretary to Education Secretary Terrel Bell and later joining the White House staff in the policy and speechwriting areas. After serving Gingrich as press secretary from 1990 to 1997, Mr. Blankley remained prominent as a commentator on politics and international affairs. In addition to supervising the Washington Times editorial pages from 2002 to 2007, he wrote a column for the newspaper. He was also a mainstay of television talk shows such as “The McLaughlin Group” and the radio program “Left, Right and Center.” Most recently, Mr. Blankley was a senior executive with the Edelman public relations firm. At the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, he pursued research on global public diplomacy. Mr. Blankley joined Gingrich’s staff four years before the 1994 Republican Revolution in which Gingrich became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. During his time with Gingrich, Mr. Blankley was a spokesman and close adviser and became a colorful political personality in his own right. “I happen to believe in the Newt star,” he once told the Los Angeles Times. “I think he has an extraordinary comprehension . . . of what’s right and wrong about America, and a practical way of taking steps that can make a real difference.” Describing Mr. Blankley as a “sage adviser,” Gingrich credited him in a statement with helping to “develop and communicate the Contract With America,” the far-reaching policy initiative for which Gingrich, now a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, became widely known. Mr. Blankley was described as cool and low-key under the pressures of his high-profile assignments. He made Gingrich’s case with reporters and the public during periods of great turbulence, as the speaker negotiated over welfare reform, was accused of ethical violations and was blamed in part for shutting down the federal government. As Gingrich’s spokesman, Mr. Blankley typically tried to defuse the furors that would arise over statements such as the congressman’s suggestion that women’s roles in trench warfare were limited by “biological problems.” In his boss’s defense, Mr. Blankley blamed the media for willfully neglecting Gingrich’s principal argument that an Information Age military actually offered “ ****increased roles for women.” ********In addition, media reports described Mr. Blankley as a key player among the Republican leaders who prodded the media to provide more intensive coverage of the Whitewater scandal, which came to enmesh President Bill Clinton. Anthony David Blankley was born Jan. 21, 1948, in London. He moved to the United States with his family when he was 3, later becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. His father, who had been a well-placed accountant, became a Hollywood movie executive. In addition to his television appearances as a boy, Mr. Blankley played Rod Steiger’s son in the 1956 boxing movie “The Harder They Fall.” Mr. Blankley received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California at Los Angeles and a law degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He also received a certificate of international law from the University of London. During his time in the Reagan administration, he was a strong advocate for “A Nation at Risk,” a 1983 report warning about the dangers created by inadequate public schools in the United States. He was introduced to Gingrich by Ed Rollins, a Republican campaign strategist, and was hired by Gingrich in 1990 when he was Republican whip. His books included “The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?” (2005). Survivors include his wife of 27 ****years, Lynda Davis of Great Falls; three children, Spencer Blankley, Trevor Blankley and Ana Blankley, all of Great Falls; and one sister. _Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this report._

**BCS national championship** **Who:** No. 1 Louisiana State vs. No. 2 Alabama. **When:** 8:30 p.m. **Where:** Superdome, New Orleans. **TV:** ESPN. **Radio:** WWXT (92.7 FM), WWXX (94.3 FM), WTEM (980 AM). **Tigers have options:** Alabama’s defense ranks first nationally in every major statistical category. It has given up an average of 8.8 points per game and 3.4 yards per play. Two of the headliners are ball-hawking linebackers Courtney Upshaw and Dont’a Hightower. All that said, the Crimson Tide faces a unique challenge with LSU’s offense because of the option element. Quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who replaced struggling Jarrett Lee in the first meeting between the schools, had some success with running the option in the Tigers’ victory over Alabama. LSU has a number of running backs who could contribute, including Michael Ford and Spencer Ware. “We’ve just got a lot of threats,” Jefferson said. Earlier this season, another opponent, Georgia Southern, racked up 302 rushing yards against Alabama with an option-oriented attack. **Honey Badger leads the** **way:** LSU’s defense is outstanding because of its depth and star power on the defensive line and in the secondary. It became the first school to feature two first-team all-American cornerbacks in Tyrann Mathieu and Morris Claiborne, both of whom can change the complexion of a game with a single play. LSU’s defense, namely the safeties, can home in a little more on stuffing the run because Alabama doesn’t appear to have a game- breaking wide receiver. What’s more, quarterback A.J. McCarron struggled to make some reads and missed some open receivers in the 9-6 overtime loss Nov. 5. Despite the focus on containing Alabama running back Trent Richardson, the Heisman Trophy finalist still rushed for 89 yards in that game. **Special teams are key:** One special teams play could determine the outcome. LSU has arguably the nation’s best punter in Brad Wing. LSU place kicker Drew Alleman kicked three field goals in the first meeting. Alabama’s Cade Foster and Jeremy Shelley combined to miss four field goals in that game. Mathieu is tied for first nationally with 16.2 yards per punt return. He had a 92-yard return for a score against Arkansas and a 62-yard touchdown return against Georgia. ** — Eric Prisbell **

Heather Robbins, 28, struggled to take off her pants Sunday afternoon as she held onto a pole on a Metro train, bumping along from the L’Enfant Plaza station. “Oh, are you really looking at my crotch right now?” the Annapolis resident asked a cameraman as he filmed her taking off her pants and showing off green plaid underwear to take part in the annual “No Pants Metro Ride.” “My mother’s going to be so proud. She’s pretty conservative.” Robbins wasn’t part of the Occupy D.C. movement or protest ing anything. She was one of about 200 men and women who rode the Metro without their pants. The motive: simply to have fun. And maybe get a few laughs and stares. The annual event, in its fifth year in the District, also is done in other cities, including New York and Los Angeles, said Bruce Witzenburg with Capitol Improv, the sponsor. The participants gathered — with their pants on — in a park near the L’Enfant Plaza station and boarded the Metro, dispersing throughout rail cars. Once on the train, they dropped their trousers. Other passengers stared. One woman covered her eyes with a purple scarf as a woman in hot pink panties stood in front of her, surrounded by a few men in tighty whities. Ciara McKeiver of Upper Marlboro couldn’t help but laugh as she and her three friends were quickly surrounded by people taking off their pants on the train as they headed to Friendship Heights. “It’s crazy. You gotta be bold to walk around like this,” she said, as a woman in tight Superman underwear passed her. Organizers said things were a “bit more complicated” this year because of weekend track work, which made waits longer. But milder-than-usual temperatures at least made the wait more comfortable. Organizers reminded the pantless riders to hit the tourist sites — Metro Center and Arlington Cemetery — for maximum impact. Final destination for the no-pants crowd: a bar on U Street NW. At Metro Center, Kim McGrain, wearing a Batman T-shirt and matching yellow and black Batman underwear with black rain galoshes, got a few looks as Italian tourists passed her. McGrain, who just got out of the Navy and works for a library by day, said she drove from Southern Maryland to participate in the no-pants event. “It was on my New Year’s bucket list,” she said. Ashley Houghton of Northwest Washington came from a bluegrass jam session with her banjo in tow. “We all have ridiculously intense jobs and work too hard,” she said, sporting a pair of black cotton panties from Old Navy. “And we’re wearing ill-fitting gray suits all week. “There’s merit in collective silliness,” she said. “There’s something lovely about a group of people willing to do something whimsical.” **Read more onPostLocal.com:** Totem tells more than one story As U-Md. cuts budget, it also builds a mansion Two major projects before Pr. George’s board Squall on Md. wind farm plan worsens

The political writers tell us that President Obama’s foreign affairs record will be one of his strengths with voters in the 2012 campaign. The logic is pretty simple; Obama himself summed it up in 11 words at the Pentagon last week: “We’ve ended our war in Iraq. We’ve decimated al-Qaeda’s leadership.” That may well be enough in a year when foreign policy is a low priority for voters. Of course, there could be unexpected crises; a confrontation with Iran that sends U.S. gasoline prices soaring, for example. But even some foreseeable disasters might not hurt much: Will independents in Ohio or Florida really be swayed if Iraqis go back to slaughtering one another? To those voters, Obama looks relatively good, for now, on the big problems he inherited: the wars and al-Qaeda. What could go missing is a discussion about the president’s performance on his own priorities for foreign affairs — the initiatives he chose to launch. If so, Obama will be fortunate. As he heads into the last year of his first term, the president’s biggest failures have been his own ideas. The easiest one to document — and the one most likely to draw Republican attention next fall — is the busted Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Obama arrived in office afire with the ambition to create a Palestinian state within two years. But his diplomacy was based on a twofold misunderstanding: that the key to successful negotiations was forcing Israel to stop all settlement construction — and that the United States had the leverage to make that happen. Veterans of the Middle East “peace process” shook their heads in wonderment as what at first appeared to be a rookie error evolved into a two-year standoff between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There was only one possible explanation for this persistence in futility: The president himself was fixed on it. Obama’s next big project was global nuclear arms control — an initiative so impressive to Norwegians that it won him the Nobel Peace Prize before he could act on it. Yet the results to date hardly seem prizeworthy. The New Start nuclear arms agreement with Russia merely ratifies warhead reductions already underway in Russia, while imposing a modest cut on the U.S. arsenal. More ambitious multilateral initiatives by Obama — to control nuclear materials, for example — have made little progress, despite an elaborate summit the president hosted in 2010. Here again there appears to be a disconnect between Obama’s 1970s-vintage ideas and the real world of the early 21st century. There’s nothing wrong, and modest good, in extending Cold War nuclear conventions with Russia, or extracting highly enriched uranium from Ukraine and Chile. But the most dangerous proliferation threats emanate from countries that don’t attend summits or sign international treaties, such as North Korea and Iran. In terms of nuclear capability, both are ahead of where they were in 2009. This brings us to Obama’s most distinctive — and most ill-fated — idea, and the one most identified with his 2008 campaign: the determination to “engage” with U.S. adversaries such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela. Obama promised “direct diplomacy” — even one-to-one meetings — with the likes of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong Il. More broadly he made the case that the United States could benefit by reaching out to autocratic regimes, while dropping the George W. Bush administration’s moralizing “freedom agenda.” In his first year Obama dispatched two letters to Khamenei while keeping his distance from the revolutionary Green movement. He shook hands with Hugo Chavez. He launched a “reset” of relations with Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin and dispatched envoys to reason with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. He delivered a sweeping address to the Muslim world from Cairo. The results have been meager. Khamenei spurned the U.S. outreach. Relations with Putin warmed for a time but now have grown cold again. In Egypt and across the Middle East, the president’s popularity is lower today than when he gave the Cairo address. That’s largely because, in pursuing “engagement,” Obama has mishandled the biggest international development of his presidency: the popular revolutions against autocracy. Detente with dictators can sometimes yield results, but Obama’s outreach turned out to be spectacularly ill-timed. Following the failure to back Iran’s Green movement, the strategy caused the administration to lag in supporting the popular uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere. The consequences of all this are not yet clear. To voters and maybe even to history they may be trumped by the dismantling of al-Qaeda. Taken together, what they describe is a president who has been a good counterterrorism commander, who has ended a war he promised to end — and whose signature initiatives have flopped. **_diehlj@washpost.com _ ** ****

WINDHAM, N.H. It isn’t every day that political candidates are asked whether the 10th Amendment allows states to nullify federal laws, but that was precisely the question Rick Santorum faced at a forum here a few days ago organized by a libertarian-leaning group. To his credit, Santorum did not pander to the nullifier. “We had a Civil War about nullification,” Santorum said with a smile. “I’m not sure I want to go there.” But Santorum’s experience raises a larger question about this year’s Republican primary contest: Rather than strengthening the party for the coming battle against President Obama, will it instead leave it more marginalized from the views of swing voters? Have the party’s candidates, particularly Mitt Romney, had to spend too much time and energy wooing voters far to the right of the mainstream? And something else happened during Sunday morning’s debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Front-runner Romney came under the first sustained attack from his opponents on his character, especially his core claim to be a citizen- businessman rather than a politician. The assaults were especially fierce from Santorum and Newt Gingrich. A Rubicon was crossed when Gingrich looked at Romney at one point and commented acidly: “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” Both Santorum and Gingrich argued that Romney has been in and out of campaigns since 1994 and has fabricated a misleading public persona that tried to hide just how much of a politician he really is. It was a telling charge that Obama would certainly highlight if Romney won the GOP nomination. Sunday’s raucous encounter suggested that unless Romney closes the nomination struggle quickly, he could suffer further damage. In the meantime, Jon Huntsman broke through in a way he hadn’t before when he responded to Romney’s criticism of the former Utah governor’s service as Obama’s ambassador to China. “This nation is divided . . . because of attitudes like that,” Huntsman said to applause. Primary fights can splinter and dispirit a political party, an experience Democrats had over and over from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. But they can also mobilize and energize, exactly what happened during the Democrats’ epic 2008 contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton. That confrontation brought tens of thousands of new voters into the Democratic primaries and required Obama to organize early in states such as North Carolina, Virginia and Indiana. All went his way in November. So far, the impact of this year’s Republican contest has been more negative than positive for the GOP. Most of the news from the race before the voting highlighted the shortcomings of the various contenders: Gingrich’s jewelry- buying habits, Rick Perry’s debate meltdowns, Herman Cain’s personal troubles. This was happening as the party’s image had already been dented by the unpopularity of the GOP in Congress. The ideological fervor in the party might have overcome the frailties of its candidates and mobilized the faithful anyway. But so far, this hasn’t happened. The crowds at rallies and events have been far from exceptional, and at least in the Iowa caucuses, turnout almost certainly would have been down from 2008 but for the independents and young people brought into the caucuses by Ron Paul. Many of these libertarians and peace activists will not naturally fit into the GOP, and can’t be counted on to support the party’s nominee. There have been pluses for the Republicans. Many of the criticisms of Obama over the economy from the disciplined Romney could be persuasive later to moderates and independents. Santorum has reminded Republicans of the many working-class voters who have given the party victories in the past. But while Obama has been able to make general election arguments — on behalf of the middle class, in favor of popular tax increases on the wealthy, and against Republican obstruction of his efforts to protect consumers against abuses by the financial industry — the candidates who hope to oppose him have been required to live in a very different world. They have been pushed further to the anti-government right by Paul and further to the social-issue right by Santorum than will be convenient for the GOP come November. There will be time for cleaning up from the primary fight. But Republicans have ceded Obama a head start — just as the economic news has started to look up. And for a moment at least, Romney was shaken from his pedestal. **_ejdionne@washpost.com _ ** ****

With his government increasingly isolated by sanctions and facing the U.S. Navy close to home, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew Sunday to Venezuela to meet with a like-minded leader who shares his goal of challenging the United States, President Hugo Chavez. The arrival of Ahmadinejad in the Venezuelan capital, to be followed by a swing this week through Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, allows Iran to show that it still has friends and economic partners despite sanctions designed to cripple its nuclear program.Back home, Iran’s currency, the rial, has steadily lost ground, buffeting importers, while tensions have risen over the country’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s crude oil supply passes. To be sure, in Chavez, Ahmadinejad has an enthusiastic supporter who has vocally backed Iran’s nuclear program, taken sides with Tehran against Israel and adhered to the Iranian government’s line that domestic critics of its policies are little more than CIA stooges. “What the empire does is make you laugh in its desperation to do something they will not be able to do: dominate the world,” Chavez said Sunday as he resumed his weekly television show, “Hello, Mr. President,” which had been suspended since June as he recovered from surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. “We are free,” said Chavez, who told viewers that he would meet with Ahmadinejad on Monday. “The people of Latin America will never again kneel, dominated by the imperial Yankee.” Before departing Tehran on Sunday morning, Ahmadinejad told the semiofficial Fars News Agency that strong ties with Latin America were vital toward “battling the hegemonic systems” of the United States and its European allies. “We will discuss the hegemonic system’s efforts to interfere in countries and establish its military presence there,” he told Fars, using language similar to that employed by Chavez to appeal to his most radicalized followers. Other Iranian officials also have cast the trip as a sign that sanctions had failed. Iran has not been isolated, Esmail Kowsari, a former general who serves on parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, told Fars on Sunday. He added that “one of the signs is the expansion of trade between Iran and other countries, particularly the Latin American ones.” But Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba have small economies with little to offer Tehran as it searches for a tangible way to ease the impact of American sanctions. And Venezuela imports mainly from its neighbors while exporting oil, like Iran, a fellow member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries . Ahmadinejad is not visiting Brazil, the world’s sixth-largest economy, nor the bigger countries in the region, which have diverse economies but also pragmatic diplomatic and economic ties with the United States. “There are a handful of countries, including a small number of countries in Latin America, that have been willing to establish warm relations with the Iranian government because of shared objectives,” said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, which has closely followed Iran’s diplomatic initiatives in the region. “Most of that agenda is driven by antipathy toward the United States and a desire to confront U.S. power.” The Obama administration has recently voiced concern about Iran’s efforts to increase its influence in the region. In a rare interview with a Venezuelan newspaper, El Universal, President Obama said in December: “It is up to the Venezuelan people to determine what they gain from a relationship with a country that violates universal human rights.” “Here in the Americas,” he added, “we take Iranian activities, including in Venezuela, very seriously and we will continue to monitor them.” Still, high-ranking administration officials have said that although Iran has made an effort to play a bigger role in the region, it has fallen short. Close diplomatic ties remain limited to Chavez, Cuba’s communist government and countries with little economic clout. Pledges by a cash-strapped Iran to build a range of big-ticket projects in the region, including factories, ports, refineries and dams, have failed to materialize. “We have no evidence that Iran’s efforts to enhance outreach to Latin America is gaining momentum,” a high-ranking Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely, said in a phone interview. “The record is lots of agreement on paper, little that follows through in terms of concrete results.” When it comes to Venezuela, though, it has not been for lack of trying. Chavez has visited Iran nine times since taking office in 1999, and Ahmadinejad has made five visits to Venezuela since 2005. Washington has been watching the budding relationship closely, taking what Obama told El Universal were “a number of significant and effective steps to indicate our concern to the Venezuelan government.” Those included the imposition of sanctions last year against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company after it shipped reformate, a gasoline blending component, to Iran. The Venezuelan Military Industries Co. also was sanctioned for dealings with Iran. Two years earlier, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on the subsidiary of an Iranian bank in Venezuela, saying it was helping fund Iranian weapons development. Then, on Sunday, the State Department said Venezuela’s top diplomat in Miami, Consul General Livia Acosta, has been told that she must leave the country by Tuesday. No explanation was given. But in December, a documentary on the Spanish-language Univision network presented evidence supporting allegations that Acosta and officials from Iran and Cuba were plotting a cyberattack on the United States. Venezuela has not responded to the expulsion order. “We do pay attention,” the high-ranking U.S. official said. “And the United States has not hesitated to act when there’s evidence of Iranian malfeasance. And the bar is pretty low.” Correspondent Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran contributed to this report. **More world news coverage:** \- Arab League extends Syria mission \- Islamists secure lead in Egypt’s parliamentary elections \- Tehran praises U.S. Navy rescue operation \- Read more headlines from around the world

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Tuesday will be a day of reckoning for at least one of the Republican presidential hopefuls: Jon Huntsman, whose quirky and quietly rogue candidacy hinges entirely on a strong showing in the nation’s first primary. Huntsman went for broke here, skipping Iowa and spending virtually the entire campaign in a state that seemed more receptive to his moderate views. For months, he has been trundling from town to town in New Hampshire wearing a silver belt buckle and cowboy boots, delivering mild-mannered critiques of the president and occasionally breaking into his fluent Chinese. In the final sprint, Huntsman has gained some momentum and is aiming to draw votes from Mitt Romney, the front-runner and candidate with whom Huntsman shares the most ground ideologically. In a debate Sunday, the former Utah governor drew applause when he chided Romney for criticizing his willingness to serve as ambassador to China under President Obama. “This nation is divided . . . because of attitudes like that,” Huntsman said. He sounded the same theme a few hours later, when about 250 people packed into a Hampstead coffee shop to hear the Republican hopeful’s stump speech. “I put my country first,” he said. “Apparently, Mitt Romney doesn’t believe in putting country first.” But the most recent polls show that he faces significant hurdles in the primary. Romney has a double-digit lead, with Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) a distant second. In a Suffolk University tracking poll released Sunday, Huntsman is in third place with about 11 percent and is only a few percentage points ahead of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who finished second to Romney in last week’s Iowa caucuses. When he entered the race six months ago, Huntsman’s politics and pedigree made him a candidate to watch. But critics say he committed a series of strategic errors that not only threaten his presidential bid but also could limit his future opportunities. By choosing not to run in Iowa, he gave Romney a wide berth to consolidate moderates and claim to be the field's most electable candidate. And Huntsman’s hard-to-pin-down politics alienated him from conservatives as well as moderates in the party. “Jon Huntsman’s candidacy is on life support. He has based his entire campaign on New Hampshire, but it has not come together,” said Mike Dennehy, a GOP strategist in New Hampshire who worked for the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) but is unaffiliated this year. “Frankly I don’t know if he has that much of a political future because of the way he has conducted himself.” Huntsman said he is pleased with the way he has conducted his campaign. “We’ve worked every angle. We’ve worked hard. We’ve reached out to all corners of this state,” he told reporters at a house party in Bedford. “Then you leave it to the voters of the state.” Campaign aides said his crowds have been growing larger as the primary approaches. A lot is at stake for Huntsman, who gave up a great deal to run for president and has lost some of the cachet that garnered him so much early attention. Huntsman made a splashy summer entrance into the race when he gathered his handsome family in front of the Statue of Liberty to announce his intentions. He grabbed headlines with his oddball Web videos, including one of him in motocross gear riding a dirt bike across the rugged terrain of Utah. He peppered his remarks with references to pop music, name-dropping Nirvana and talking up his own high school band, Wizard. Beneath the crowd-pleasing antics was an impeccable résumé. The son of a billionaire businessman and philanthropist, Huntsman has held stints as a chief executive for the family’s chemical company and served in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Obama administrations. He developed a reputation for bipartisanship in his two terms as governor. But Huntsman struggled to gain traction and raise money as a candidate, despite his family’s connections and wealth. He labored to explain why he was more electable than Romney, a fellow Mormon and former governor with a moderate record and a large, telegenic family. And he struggled to peg himself on the ideological spectrum, at turns calling himself a conservative alternative to Romney but also touting his moderate views on climate change, immigration and foreign policy. Over the course of his campaign, Huntsman has alienated members of both parties. He miffed the Obama administration by stepping down from his post as ambassador to take on his erstwhile boss. He has been quick to criticize his own party, accusing climate-change skeptics of being anti-science and openly ridiculing real estate magnate Donald Trump, who has been influential in the GOP primary. And he stunned observers by denigrating Iowa, remarking on CBS’s “The Early Show” last month that “they pick corn in Iowa and pick presidents here in New Hampshire” — a faux pas for a presidential candidate, or anyone contemplating a future run for the White House. Part of Huntsman’s difficulty has been his own unusual place in American politics, made all the more exotic by his international flair. The former governor of a deep red state, Huntsman instituted a flat tax for Utah residents and promoted school vouchers. More recently, he was an early backer of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) conservative budget plan, which has become something of a litmus test for GOP candidates. But his image as a conservative is undercut not only by some of his moderate views but also by an overall moderate tone. Huntsman’s language while criticizing the president is less caustic than that of his rivals. He often turns down opportunities, even when they are offered on a silver platter, to go on the attack or seize on conservative talking points. At a recent town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a voter noted that her grandfather was a Mormon. But rather than talking about his faith, he made a joke about Mormonism’s admonition against alcohol use and hinted at his own more secular attitude. “So was mine,” he said of his grandfather, “but he ran a saloon.” A couple of days later, at an evening event in the tourist town of Newport, Huntsman was asked about illegal immigration. Rather than highlighting his call for greater border security, Huntsman began his response by arguing that immigrants no longer illegally cross the border in large numbers because of the ailing U.S. economy. While his rivals tend to raise the specter of China as an economic and national security threat, Huntsman often advocates for a closer trade relationship with the Asian power. His affinity for the culture showed in Sunday’s debate, when he accused Romney of a poor understanding of U.S. policy toward China — in Mandarin.

_Ken Starr, a former special prosecutor, is president of Baylor University._ Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary looms large on the political horizon. In the midst of lively public debates over taxes, jobs, the national debt and similarly important questions related to the future vitality of our nation, a different kind of question continues to privately occupy the minds of some prospective voters: Can I vote for a Mormon? This is an important question in our constitutional democracy. Without endorsing or even praising (much less criticizing) any candidate, I strongly encourage Americans who would ask this question of themselves to consider and weigh thoughtfully our nation’s constitutional traditions. At their best, those are traditions of welcoming religious forbearance. To support this proposition, I return to the founding of our constitutional republic — boasting as we rightly do the oldest Constitution in the history of the planet. Only 27 amendments have been ratified to that basic document over our 222 years as a representative democracy. In fashioning this remarkably enduring document, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia made it absolutely clear that no religious test should ever be imposed to hold office. The Founders also made clear that religious dissenters (such as the Quakers) should not be compelled to take an oath if doing so would be a violation of conscience. Building on those twin pillars of tolerance, the Supreme Court at its finest moments has likewise vigorously defended the right of all persons to participate in the democratic process, including holding office, without the burden of religious tests or qualifications. According to the American political tradition, there are essential questions by which all office seekers are qualified, regardless of their faith journey or history. The first is: Does the candidate subscribe completely to our constitutional structure, including freedom of conscience for persons of all faiths — or no faith? A second question for the thoughtful voter is related to and flows from the first: Will the candidate subscribe, without any “mental hesitation or purpose of evasion,” to the oath to protect and defend America’s Constitution? If the answers to those closely connected questions are yes, then voters should proceed to cast their ballot on the basis of the candidate’s qualifications, platform and policy positions — not the candidate’s membership (or lack thereof) in a particular faith community. In fact, a number of great presidents have come to the White House without membership in any faith community. Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and was vigorously attacked for his religious views (or lack thereof). Abraham Lincoln, as a matter of conscience, refused to join any church. Yet our nation’s capital rightly dedicates two of its most stately monuments to those two men of unorthodox spiritual worldviews. More recently, the great cultural chasm between Catholics and Protestants was politically overcome with the election of John F. Kennedy. Similarly, then-Vice President Al Gore’s choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a practicing Jew, as his running mate in 2000 signaled the welcoming openness of America’s democratic experience to individuals who did not share the Christian faith but were honorable statesmen of steely commitment to America’s constitutional principles. In my own life, I have drawn great strength from my religious practices and, according to the teachings of my faith tradition, I intend to continue to keep in prayer those who are chosen to lead our nation. That said, the litmus for our elected leaders must not be the church they attend but the Constitution they defend. Citizens as voters do well when they pause to reflect on our nation’s history and traditions. If an unbeliever such as Jefferson or non-churchman like Lincoln can serve brilliantly as president, then America should stand — in an intolerant world characterized all too frequently by religious persecution — as a stirring example of welcoming hospitality for highly qualified men and women of good will seeking the nation’s highest office. Life experience, personal qualities and policy views are the pivotal points to guide Americans as they go to the polls in 2012. ****

NEW ORLEANS — Playmakers running free in the open field and quarterbacks unleashing quick-strike scoring drives defined the opening college football week of 2012, when teams lit up scoreboards with gaudy statistics in three of four Bowl Championship Series games. Now comes something completely different. As up-tempo, point-a-minute offenses continue to proliferate, the hallmarks of Louisiana State and Alabama, the two teams that will meet Monday for the BCS national title, are esteemed defenses so acclaimed that they seek permanent places in recent college football history. Instead of a back-and-forth shootout, the game promises to feature at least four quarters of textbook tackling in a black-and-blue battle for every inch of field position. And because of how their regular season matchup unfolded — a 9-6 overtime LSU victory on Nov. 5 — players can’t even guarantee that there will be a single offensive touchdown. “The games you have been watching, you are not going to get that here,” said Alabama running back Trent Richardson. “You are going to get a slugfest, a man-up game, and see who is the best man on the field come Monday.” The game at the Superdome is unlikely to serve as a highlight reel for an offensive player like Richardson, a Heisman Trophy finalist. And there are no electrifying wide receivers like Oklahoma State’s Justin Blackmon or West Virginia’s Tavon Austin. If both defenses battle to a virtual stalemate, the game’s most important player could well be a 6-foot-3, 184-pound Australian named Brad Wing, LSU’s accomplished punter. LSU running back Michael Ford said those high-scoring games do not necessarily reflect the true essence of football games because “we go through the trenches. I think people get tired of seeing all those points on the board. They want to see a hard-fought game.” The losing team in three of four BCS games this year scored no fewer than 33 points. In contrast, the regular season LSU-Alabama game in Tuscaloosa, Ala., produced no touchdowns and four missed field goals. In West Virginia’s 70-33 victory in the Orange Bowl, Clemson allowed the Mountaineers to score nine offensive touchdowns. Alabama’s defense has allowed nine touchdowns total in 12 games. “People, I am sure, enjoyed watching West Virginia put up 70 points in a game,” Alabama center William Vlachos said. “I know I was entertained by it. But when you look at the core of football, you look at blocking, you look at tackling, you look at rushing the ball, great defense, special teams play. That [first meeting] incorporated it all at a very high level. For a true football fan, I think they really enjoyed that game.” The defenses have dominated like few others in recent college football history. Alabama is allowing just 8.8 points per game, which would be the stingiest scoring defense since 1988 (Auburn). Quarterbacks completed just 48.3 percent of their passes against the Crimson Tide defense. It gives up just 3.4 yards per play. And just 23.3 percent of the 676 plays opponents have run on the defense went for more than five yards. LSU, which led the nation in turnover margin, became the first school to possess two first-team all-American cornerbacks in Tyrann Mathieu and Morris Claiborne. Mathieu, a Heisman finalist, forced six fumbles and intercepted two passes this year. SEC coaches voted Claiborne the league’s best defensive player. Jim McElwain, Alabama’s offensive coordinator, had one word for LSU’s cornerbacks: “Scary.” The Tigers have faced more explosive offenses than Alabama did this season, as Coach Les Miles said he’s fine with scheduling any team other than the Green Bay Packers. LSU has contended with Oregon’s so-called blur offense and West Virginia’s fast-paced spread scheme. Against Alabama, which Miles said clearly was the best team the Tigers faced, LSU allowed Richardson to rush for 89 yards and collect another 80 receiving yards. But as LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis said, “We kept him out of the end zone, which was the biggest thing. We played well when we had to.” Vlachos, the Alabama center, said it “makes you kind of sick sometimes to watch that film because there's so many little things out there that, as an offensive line, if we sustain our block for another half second, Trent’s going for 60 yards and not six.” On the other hand, Alabama’s defensive challenge is containing the option element of LSU’s offense. Jordan Jefferson replaced a struggling Jarrett Lee and had success running the option. “He is one of the reasons they changed things up and made a big play on us a couple times last game,” Alabama linebacker Dont’a Hightower said. “We can’t let him pitch the ball whenever he wants to. Make him pitch it when we want him to. We have to make him pitch it a little later so we have enough time to get all 11 of us over to the ball. Miles expects “big-boy football” Monday night. Players called the first meeting the most physical game they had ever played. Richardson felt the extent of the pounding throughout his body two days afterward. He knows what is in store. “I am not trying to say that our offense can’t score, I am not trying to say their offense can’t score,” Richardson said. “But with our two defenses and how they battle and how they hit, I don’t expect a blowout or 45 points up on the scoreboard unless we go into like five overtimes, and I highly doubt that.”

Construction crews are poised to demolish the president’s house at the University of Maryland this week and to pour the foundation for a new 14,000-square-foot on-campus mansion that carries a $7.2 million price tag. But some question why the school would build such an elaborate house at a time when the flagship university is asking donors to support students who might drop out because they can’t afford tuition. And construction will begin just weeks after President Wallace D. Loh announced that he will cut eight varsity sports teams in June to save an estimated $29 million over the next eight years. University leaders say the school has a dire need for the new facility, which is designed to woo supporters and attract major donations at a time when state funds make up less and less of the overall budget. They say the bill will be picked up by about 30 private donors — not students or taxpayers — and will pay huge dividends. It also will replace a building plagued with problems. The university will continue to pay for general upkeep and utilities for the mansion, which will be more than twice the size of the current home and will have dedicated entertaining spaces. Staci Armezzani, director of communications for the student government, said even student leaders did not know the new house was in the works. “They’re a bit confused,” said Armezzani, a senior criminology and criminal justice major from Germantown. “The big question that I’ve heard is, ‘Why is the money being used there instead of for athletics?’ ” On many campuses, the president’s house has long been a revered gathering place for students, faculty and friends of the school, especially generous friends. Most presidents in the region live in university-provided housing and host thousands of guests each year, making the space feel like a museum or bed-and-breakfast. One president likes to joke that he and his wife “live above the store.” Buying, building or renovating one of these homes is considered a sure way to ignite controversy, especially at public institutions. Last year, University of the District of Columbia President Allen Sessoms was questioned for making nearly $500,000 worth of repairs over several years to a university-owned house in Chevy Chase. In 2009, North Dakota State University’s president resigned after construction of a new home went more than $1 million over budget. “One of the first things you learn as president is, don’t renovate the house, especially the kitchen,” said former U-Md. President C.D. “Dan” Mote Jr., who used to live in the soon-to-be-razed house with his wife, Patsy. “We never complained.” Mote retired and moved out in 2010, and he now has no problem listing his complaints with the old home: temperatures that fluctuated between too hot and too cold; limited privacy, as the couple shared their kitchen with caterers and their living room with the world. The Colonial-style house was filled with asbestos, was not fully accessible to the disabled and faced away from campus. Mote called his wife a “miracle worker” for decorating the rooms and masking imperfections with elaborate flower arrangements. In their 12 years there, the Motes hosted more than 1,000 events. For small dinners, they squeezed 14 to 16 people in the dining room, another 20 in the living room, and 45 to 50 in a converted garage. Gatherings of more than 100 required pitching tents (and, in the winter, nervously watching wealthy supporters and high-ranking officials maneuver around heating lamps). “It’s a nice residence for a family, and I think that was the intent” when it was built in 1956, Mote said. But the president then “didn’t see the presidency as we see it today.” When the house was damaged by a tornado in 2001, Mote said, he contemplated a major expansion but decided doing so would attract negative attention. When he announced his retirement, the foundation that fundraises on behalf of the university decided to take on the project itself. “There’s never going to be a good time; it doesn’t matter what the economy is like,” said Brodie Remington, president of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation and a vice president at the school. “This is a good investment.” Remington said the foundation’s trustees decided it would be easier to rip down the house and start fresh. The “University House” is scheduled to open this fall and will have two distinct sections: One wing will contain a 4,000-square-foot private residence with four bedrooms that will cost about $2 million. The rest will be a 10,000-square-foot “events center” with a grand foyer, public living room, catering kitchen, office space, a formal dining room for small parties and a large hall that can seat 125. That section will cost $5.2 million. Loh currently lives in a house he purchased near campus, and it’s unclear if he will relocate. Two university spokesmen declined to make him available for an interview. “We’re not sure. That will be his choice entirely,” Remington said.“The facility is primarily for events.” Unlike other entertaining venues, Remington said visiting the president’s house can elicit emotions similar to those felt when receiving an invitation to the White House, governor’s mansion or a friend’s home. “We informally call it the ‘power of the house,’” he said. That power is being utilized on other campuses, too. Although many schools have historic homes that have sheltered a long line of presidents, others created that space more recently. Johns Hopkins University reopened its president’s house in the mid-1990s and now requires residency in employment agreements. In 2008, George Washington University transformed its alumni club into an on-campus home for its new president, Steven Knapp. And in October, St. Mary’s College of Maryland trustees took the first step toward planning to build a president’s home. In College Park, the university asked for demolition permission from the Maryland Board of Public Works on Wednesday, while students were still on winter break. This was the first time many people had heard about the project. The request was approved. One board member — Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) — voted against it and quizzed officials for about 15 minutes. “What is the cost of the project?” Franchot asked during the hearing. “Seven-point-two million dollars,” Remington told him. “Okay, and didn’t I read recently that College Park is planning to eliminate several Division I sports?” Franchot said. “That is correct,” Remington said, explaining that building the house will be a one-time expense that will have “a considerable return on investment” by attracting donations for the entire campus, including athletics. “Maybe it’s the timing, maybe it’s the bad economy . . . but this just strikes me as a really unfortunate project,” Franchot said. “I guess the wrecking ball is out there, poised, but I would urge you to reconsider this, because it doesn’t look good.” **Read more onPostLocal.com:** Totem tells more than one story Squall on Md. wind farm plan worsens Two major projects before Pr. George’s board Metro riders drop their pants

RALEIGH, N.C. — Maryland’s unbeaten romp in December did wonders for the young Terrapins’ confidence. But opponents such as Mount St. Mary’s, Radford and Samford hardly foreshadowed the physical front court and intense ball pressure Maryland faced Sunday in its ACC opener at North Carolina State. Too often in Raleigh’s wildly partisan RBC Center, Maryland lost the battle when it came to toughness — whether fighting for rebounds or simply hanging on to the ball. The result was a 79-74 defeat that snapped Maryland’s seven-game winning streak and served as a reminder of how far the Terrapins have yet to go to become a force in the conference. While 7-foot-1 freshman center Alex Len was frequently shoved around under the basket, he played a key role in paring a 14-point second-half deficit to three, mounting a furious effort on the boards and establishing a stronger inside presence as the game ground on to finish with his first double-double of the season (12 points, 11 rebounds). But in the end, Len’s effort — and a game-high 25 points by Terrell Stoglin — weren’t enough, bringing an end to Maryland’s nine-game wining streak against N.C. State (12-4, 1-0 ACC). “We never stopped competing,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said of his squad. “We played to the end, and we lost to a pretty good team on their home floor that shot the ball really well.” It was Maryland’s first game of the season in a hostile arena, and a vocal crowd of 18,057 turned out to cheer on the Wolfpack and taunt the Terrapins as if the ACC title were at stake. After taking a 6-2 lead on quick three-pointers by Sean Mosley and Stoglin, Maryland (10-4, 0-1) went three minutes without a field goal. Len snapped the drought with a jumper from 12 feet. But by then, N.C. State’s Scott Wood (19 points) and C.J. Leslie (20 points) were getting in a groove. With Len well blanketed by the Wolfpack’s 6-9, 231-pound DeShawn Painter, James Padgett muscled inside for layups to help pare a seven-point deficit. And with 2 minutes 35 seconds remaining in the first half, Len knotted the score at 30 from the free throw line after getting hammered on an inbounds play. But N.C. State closed the period with six consecutive points to take a 36-30 lead into the break, having manhandled Maryland in the paint (20-10), on the boards (21-16), on second-chance points (11-5) and fast-break points (10-3). Maryland came out swinging in the second half but mishandled a lob pass early. The deficit grew to 42-33. Stoglin hit a three-pointer, and Len led a fierce campaign to right the rebounding deficit. But on balance, Maryland squandered too many possessions on turnovers and rushed shots, while N.C. State kept banging away on its end of the court, rebounding its misses and following with easy put-backs. An elbow to the face sent Stoglin to the line for three free throws, and he sank them all to pull within three, 54-51, with a little more than 10 minutes remaining. That was as close as Maryland would get. The Terrapins paid dearly for the defensive lapse that followed, with N.C. State erupting for a 13-2 run. Stoglin made a three-pointer with four seconds left to cut the deficit to 77-74, but N.C. State held on. “Basically we weren’t getting back on defense,” Stoglin said. “Everything else was good. If we would have got back on defense, we would have won the game.”

ADEN, Yemen — Nazha Mohammed was pale and silent in her mother’s arms, on the edge of listlessness. At 2 months old, she was one of the youngest children inside a high school where several hundred Yemenis have sought refuge from conflict. “There’s no milk for her,” explained her father, Mohammed Yahya. Yemen’s populist uprising and the political crisis that followed have pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian emergency, according to the United Nations and aid agencies. And children have been hit especially hard. Malnutrition rates are rising. Children are, more than ever, vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses and diseases. They are being deployed as soldiers by all warring sides, and scores have been killed in the crossfire. Many schools have been shut down. “It’s absolutely valid to say children are bearing the biggest brunt of the political situation here,” said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF director in Yemen. Of all the countries in the Arab world altered by populist revolts last year, Yemen was by far the poorest and least developed. The country has long faced multiple crises, from a civil conflict in the north to a secessionist movement and strife in the south. That has prevented aid agencies from adequately providing assistance to many areas and plunged ordinary Yemenis into a downward spiral. Their situation has worsened over the past year, according to aid workers. The embattled government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which for years lacked authority over much of the country, was preoccupied with remaining in power. Fresh conflicts, including a raging battle between the government and Islamist militants, have disrupted basic services; water, fuel and electricity shortages affect nearly every aspect of life, from hospital operations to trash collection. Food prices are rising, and health services have collapsed. In a nation in which half the population is younger than 18, many aid workers fear that the political crisis and the problems it has spawned will be felt beyond this generation of children. “Development gains have been erased. In some areas, they have gone back five to 10 years,” Cappelaere said. “Today, we’re like a fire brigade, extinguishing one fire but never sure it will not start again tomorrow. And while we are responding to one fire, there are three other fires starting elsewhere.” Girls, especially from rural areas, face conditions that are even more dire. With rising poverty and increased displacement from the violence, many now have to take on more responsibilities, in a nation that already has the lowest school enrollment rate for girls in the Middle East. Aid workers worry about an increase in families marrying off young daughters to ease financial pressures. Many children also grapple with symptoms of social and psychological traumas, such as constant nightmares, that could hamper their development, aid workers and psychologists say. “Every time they hear a plane, they get scared and run away,” Safaa Ali, a UNICEF-funded worker who works with psychologically traumatized children, said in a report published on UNICEF’s Web site. Meanwhile, with Yemen fragmented into numerous centers of power, aid agencies are forced to get the approval of as many as 20 or 30 tribal leaders before they can provide services to a single area. In the north, one of the most devastated parts of the country, Shiite Houthi rebels control three governorates and have long been suspicious of Westerners. Cappelaere recounted an incident last year in which Houthi leaders refused to allow children to be immunized because the vaccines were made in the United States. “You may be poisoning our children,” a Houthi official told him. So UNICEF had to fly in vaccines made in India, Cappelaere said. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have come to Aden after being displaced by fighting in nearby Abyan province, where government forces are battling militants linked to al-Qaeda who have taken over large swaths of the province. The refugees are encamped in about 60 schools in this southern port city. For tens of thousands of children here, that has meant the loss of an entire school year — as it has for children in the capital, Sanaa, and other cities roiled by political unrest. In Lutfi High School, 76 families, including 150 children, reside in classrooms, as many as three families to a room. Boys, some as young as 8, are often made to wash cars or sell snacks on the streets to help provide for their families. “My children can’t sleep,” said Yahya, 31, father of the 2-month-old who needs milk. He fled with his four children from the city of Zinjibar, 35 miles to the north, last year. “I don’t know what will happen to them.” Salah Nasser Nashir, 34, fled Zinjibar in July. Last month, his pregnant wife started bleeding. When he took her to a hospital, he was told that there was a shortage of blood and that he would have to pay for a supply — or find donors quickly. So he sold some rations given to him by a local aid agency and rushed back to the hospital to save his wife. “The baby died anyway,” he said. **More world news coverage:** \- Arab League extends Syria mission \- Islamists secure lead in Egypt’s parliamentary elections \- Tehran praises U.S. Navy rescue operation \- Read more headlines from around the world

DENVER — With a smile that measured a mile wide, Denver quarterback Tim Tebow chased after his wide receiver, leaping into the crowd before taking a knee and praying. The endless debate on Tebow’s abilities as a quarterback had been drowned out by a raucous celebration, as Tebow circled the stadium, exchanging high-fives with Denver Broncos fans who were still trying to process what they’d just seen. Challenged earlier in the week by John Elway, the team’s executive vice president, to “just pull the trigger,” Tebow responded in dramatic fashion Sunday with an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first snap of overtime to lift the Broncos over the Pittsburgh Steelers, 29-23, in the opening round of the NFL playoffs. “We knew that it was win or go home,” Tebow said, “and this team wanted to fight. We wanted to play another game.” On the first play from scrimmage in overtime, Tebow hit Demaryius Thomas mid- stride at the Denver 39-yard and the wide receiver did not stop until the Broncos had knocked the defending AFC champions from the playoffs. Facing criticism and widespread skepticism about his ability, Tebow turned in the most memorable performance of his young career, throwing two touchdowns and rushing for another. Just one week after a dismal 60-yard passing performance against Kansas City, Tebow finished Sunday’s game with 10 completions in 21 passes for a career-high 316 yards, 204 of them on four receptions by Thomas. “A lot is said, a lot was written,” Denver Coach John Fox said. “A lot of critique on him, and I thought he stepped up in a huge way tonight.” Said running back Willis McGahee: “He showed he’s a quarterback in the NFL. Case closed.” The win marked the Broncos’ second postseason victory since winning Super Bowl XXXIII in 1998 and first since 2006. It was also the latest in a series of 11th-hour heroics from a 24-year-old quarterback who had been increasingly maligned in recent weeks. “They say he can’t throw, they say we wouldn’t be able to move the ball on them. We did that,” McGahee said. “I wonder what they’re going to say next week.” With the win, the Broncos advanced to the second round of the playoffs and will visit New England on Saturday. The Patriots beat the Broncos, 41-23, on Dec. 18, snapping Denver’s six-game winning streak. “We’re going to go as Tim goes,” said cornerback Chris Harris. “If Tim plays well, we’re going to keep winning. That’s how it is. The quarterback is the leader, and we’re definitely behind him.” Sunday’s contest was the first playoff game to extend beyond regulation time since the NFL revised its overtime rules in 2010. But the new rules had no effect on the outcome. Denver built a two-touchdown first-half lead, but the teams battled back and forth in the final two quarters before the Steelers took advantage of a critical Denver fumble. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger showed his own comeback artistry, hitting wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery with a 31-yard pass in the end zone to tie the game with less than four minutes remaining in regulation. Denver won the coin toss in the extra period and needed all of 11 seconds to cap a dramatic week. The team had ridden a three-game losing streak into the postseason. Oddsmakers installed the visiting Steelers as the betting favorite by more than a touchdown. In the first quarter, the Broncos’ offense managed only eight yards, all on the ground, and Tebow didn’t complete a pass. To make matters worse, on the opening play of the second quarter, Pittsburgh’s ferocious linebacker, James Harrison, knocked Denver’s leading receiver, Eric Decker, out of the game with a brutally legal leg tackle. But on the next play, Tebow hit Thomas with a 51-yard pass, and two plays later found Eddie Royal for a 30-yarder in the end zone. The momentum swung instantly, and on the Broncos’ next possession Tebow again hit Thomas deep — this time for a 58-yard pass — before running in an eight-yard touchdown that gave the Broncos a 14-6 lead. Tebow led the Broncos on four straight scoring drives. When the 15 minutes had mercifully ticked off the clock for the Steelers, the Broncos had gained 225 yards and scored 20 points in the second quarter. Tebow hadn’t thrown for more than 45 yards in the second quarter of any game this season. He had 185 Sunday. “They came out and they played hard and we played hard, and it was a great game,” Tebow said. “And I’m very thankful we were able to get the win.” **More on the Broncos’ win:** **Twitter reaction:** Lady Gaga among those impressed **Under God** : Tebow believers see John 3:16 in game stats Summary and stats: Broncos 29, Steelers 23

If Mitt Romney cruises to victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday as expected, the former Massachusetts governor will be on a glide path to the Republican presidential nomination — a path that could end as soon as the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21. If Romney wins the Palmetto State, after winning in Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the GOP field — with the exception of Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) — hanging on much beyond the end of January. That would help Republicans’ chances of beating President Obama in November, as Romney and the GOP would be able to focus their time and money on the Democratic incumbent rather than waste it on an intraparty skirmish. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. But a look back at recent presidential nomination fights suggests that the conventional wisdom may be wrong — and that the best thing for Romney and the party’s chances in the fall may be a protracted fight for the nod. “An extended primary would actually help Romney,” said Mark McKinnon, an unaligned GOP strategist. “It keeps the attention on Republicans, he looks stronger and a longer spring training means he’ll be in better shape for the regular season.” Take the past two presidential primary fights. In 2008, Sen. John McCain’s victory over Romney in the Florida primary at the end of January effectively ended the nomination fight. (Romney dropped out shortly thereafter and although former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee remained in the race, McCain was widely regarded as the nominee.) The Democratic primary fight between then-Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), on the other hand, stretched into June — an extended battle that had Democrats nervous and Republicans gleeful about what it meant for the general election. And we know how that one turned out. The 2004 presidential race teaches a similar lesson. After scoring wins in the Iowa caucuses (Jan. 19) and the New Hampshire primary (Jan. 27), Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) secured the Democratic nomination. At the time, party strategists were thrilled with the outcome — the most electable candidate (in their view) had won a quick and resounding nomination fight and was ready to take on President George W. Bush. The reality was something very different as Bush and his political team quickly pounced, defining Kerry as a wishy-washy flip-flopper before the Democratic nominee was able to get out of the general-election gate. Look further back in history and you find more evidence that longer is better than shorter when it comes to primary fights. Then-Vice President Al Gore swept to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000 only to lose to Bush. (Bush’s 2000 campaign is something of an outlier to the theory, as he effectively ended it by beating McCain in South Carolina on Feb. 19 but went on to win the general election anyway.) Former senator Robert J. Dole (Kan.) had the nomination in hand by mid-March 1996 but was outspent by far in the spring and summer and went on to lose to President Bill Clinton in the fall. Phil Musser, who helped Romney during his 2008 campaign and was intimately involved in the presidential effort of former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty this time around, said that no matter what happens, Romney won’t repeat Dole’s mistakes. “Between the [Republican National Committee], the outside groups and the very extensive Romney finance network, we’ll have the money needed to compete, so we won’t be in a handcuffed situation like 1996,” he said. Regardless of whether Romney could handle a short primary season, a longer one is likely to help more. Although more primaries mean more money spent and more time expended on a fight within one party, it also means scads of news media attention — the press would much rather cover an active race than one in which the ultimate vote won’t come for nine months or more — and the chance to run a series of real campaigns in states that will be competitive in the general election. In practical terms, Romney and his team don’t care when they win the nomination — as long as they do win it. But a look at recent presidential history suggests that a quick victory may provide short-term gain in exchange for long-term political pain. “It’s like sitting your starters in football,” Matt Bennett, who was a Clinton administration official, said of a short primary. “The rest may feel good and prevent injury, but it doesn’t steel you for the championship.” (Ask the 2009 Colts or John Kerry).

Decisions on the future of Fox dino drama “Terra Nova,” doc drama “House,” paranormal drama “Fringe,” sitcom “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” and even “X Factor” host Steve Jones are just around the corner, Fox programming chief Kevin Reilly came to Winter TV Press Tour 2012 on Sunday to reveal. On the bright side, Reilly screwed up his courage to announce the end of animated comedy “Allen Gregory.” “It’s hard to imagine the network without ‘House,’ ” Reilly told TV critics, who’d come with a laundry list of on-the-fence Fox shows their readers wanted to know about. On the other hand, Reilly admitted that “House” squeaked through to get on the schedule this season, given its skyrocketing costs and declining ratings. Steven Spielberg’s super-pricey freshman series “Terra Nova” “looked fantastic” but “creatively, it was hunting” all season, Reilly acknowledged. But, he insisted, “We made money — the studio made money” on the show. Interpretation: They’re trying to figure out a way to do the show for a lot less money. Anyway, Reilly said they won’t be able to drag their feet much longer on a decision, given the lead time needed for the show’s special effects. Simon Cowell is still off somewhere “decompressing” after the strain of doing “X Factor’s” first U.S. season. But the minute Simon returns, he will begin to “tweak” the singing competition, in answer to one critic’s questions as to whether Reilly had noticed that “America wants to vote off the host and one of the judges.” That would be, in order, Steve Jones and Nicole Scherzinger. Asked whether he was happy with the show’s ratings — it attracted about half as many viewers as Cowell had promised to deliver — Reilly began to boast that the show helped Fox improve its fall ratings by 14 percent compared with last year, when Fox’s next big thing was “Lone Star,” remember? Where we come from, that’s called “damning with faint praise.” Reilly claimed he did not know what “tweaks” Cowell had in mind for “X Factor,” but it’s a safe bet that a new host is one of them, given that Reilly said the big takeaway from the show’s first season is that hosting these live competition shows is harder than it looks and that Ryan Seacrest is a genius. At one point, Reilly said: “Whether Steve’s the guy or not.” Bye-bye, Steve Jones! “We certainly want to keep him — it’s a deal issue,” Reilly said of contract- renewal talks with “American Idol” host Seacrest. He went so far as to reveal that it’s a “tough negotiation” and that its conclusion is . . . right around the corner. Speaking of “Idol,” Reilly took a break from all these hard questions to deliver his annual “I expect ‘Idol’ will be down this season, but mostly it’s due to the fact it’s a [fill in the age]-year-old show.” Duly noted. How about that billion dollars the broadcast networks will be forking over to the NFL for football game broadcasts? At what point does football just become too expensive, one TV critic asked Reilly. “It’s very hard to imagine the network without the NFL,” Reilly said. Fox is making money, he said. Not necessarily on football — he just threw that out there, adding, “We don’t break out the cost of any individual product.” But then, when asked about the prospects for “Fringe,” Reilly said a decision was right around the corner, and added that it’s a pricey show and that the network loses money on it, and that they’re not in the business of losing money. Then, sensing he’d said too much, Reilly begged the TV critics and reporters and bloggers in the room not to tell their readers to “start the letter-writing campaign right now — I can’t take it!” The crowd was growing pretty restless, what with Reilly dodging so many of its questions about its favorite shows. One big-hearted blogger decided to lob a softball question in Reilly’s direction, asking him about the future of Fox’s barely watched Sunday animated show “Allen Gregory.” In case you were lucky enough to miss it, “Allen Gregory” stars the voice of Jonah Hill as a precocious little moppet you want to smack so hard it jolts his grandchildren. “We will not be making any more ‘Allen Gregory,’ ” Reilly said decisively, looking like a captain of industry. Wikipedia immediately updated its “Allen Gregory” listing: “The series premiered on October 30, 2011. The series was officially cancelled on January 8, 2012.” This was more like it! Encouraged, TV critics and bloggers asked him about the future of another super-low-rated new Fox comedy, the multi-camera-and-laugh-track comedy “I Hate My Teenage Daughter.” In the blink of an eye, Reilly ceased to be a captain of industry and turned into a teenage chick begging her boyfriend not to dump her. “It’s such a difficult format when it’s out of context,” Reilly pleaded. “CBS also has put on plenty of stinkers” on its Monday sitcom block, he cajoled. Multi-cam comedies such as “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory” are “at the top of the ratings heap and the top of the syndication heap,” so Fox needs to get back into that game, he said. He reminded critics they did not love “The Big Bang Theory” when it first hit the airwaves, but now they do. “So don’t pile on” the hate against “I Hate My Teenage Daughter,” and cut all those struggling new multi-cam comedies “a little bit of slack,” he begged. Speaking of begging, TV critics wanted word of “Glee” graduates Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith at the end of this season. Yes, the plan is still to graduate them, but there will be no spinoff show, as creator Ryan Murphy had once promised, Reilly said. On the other hand, he added coyly, Murphy has a “really cool idea” for the graduates that “gives us something cool to dig into next season.” “That’s all I can say about it,” he said, causing one desperate TV critic to shout from the back of the room, asking whether Michele would be back on the show next season. “Yeah, she will be . . . still part of the show — in some way,” Reilly responded. ****Martin Bohm, the character played by Kiefer Sutherland in his new Fox drama series “Touch,” is nothing like Jack Bauer, the character he played on the Fox series “24,” Sutherland told the many TV critics attending Winter Press Tour who were rabid fans of “24.” Then he told them again. And again. And again. They didn’t seem to want to hear it, so they kept asking. Finally, Sutherland gave up and announced that shooting of the “24” movie would begin in late April. It was like throwing raw meat to a piranha. In “Touch,” Sutherland plays a widower and single father who is haunted by his inability to communicate with his 11-year-old son, Jake, who has been misdiagnosed as autistic. Martin discovers that Jake has the ability to see hidden patterns that connect people around the world. “The character was so vastly different and the tone of the piece was so vastly different that that was part of its appeal,” Sutherland answered the first time he was asked. “And I had to reread it a second time to make sure that all of the emotional components I was reacting to so strongly were actually integral to me as opposed to this perspective that I was trying to create or navigate from ‘24.’ ” You can see where he went wrong — too many three-syllable words. “Kiefer, continuing on that point for a minute,” a critic said. “Jack Bauer had to keep his emotions in rein so often. . . . In this one . . . you got to do more . . . outward acting than you got to do in all the years of that. How different an experience is this for you?” Sutherland answered politely that it was a very different experience, being careful to use more words of fewer syllables. “This will hopefully become more open and more open and more open,” he said. “Kiefer, in front here, on your left: Being identified with a role is a double-edged sword, and obviously you are happy people bought into it, but you don’t want to be known only for that. So, in taking this role . . . did you feel, ‘I’ve got to get away from Jack Bauer as far as I can?’ ” Sutherland re-recited his gag about making sure the pilot affected him personally rather than just trying to manage his career, this time winding down with: “Does it happen to also be a nice diversion from ‘24’? Yes. But I believe, honestly, that the choice and the reason that I made the choice was because it spoke to me.” “I guess, in some way, you are still kind of saving the world, though on a lesser scale, indirectly through your son,” responded one critic, undaunted. “You prevent sort of an unwilling suicide bomber and a major bus wreck in the first episode.” “Unwittingly,” Sutherland shot back, like he meant it to sting. “I mean, again, the real driving force for my character is to really just simply communicate with his son.” “I’m curious if, after saving the world and running around in a TV show with a gun and a cellphone, I’m curious if one of the things that appealed to you about this role is that, presumably, you are going to have quite a few fairly quiet, intimate scenes with [child actor] David Mazouz as your son,” said another critic. Now they just sounded like they were baiting him. About the sixth — maybe it was the seventh — time a critic asked Sutherland about “24,” Sutherland began to talk about how sorry he was that “I really wasn’t very articulate when I answered this question” the FIRST time. Critics did not take the hint, though at least they started prefacing their questions with “I hate to keep going on about this ‘24’ thing.” Sutherland tried a new approach: “Touch,” he said, is a show that teaches viewers “that things happen for a reason, very much like the wildebeest that is stung by a bee in the Serengeti, and starts a stampede, and creates a dust cloud that rises and carries over two continents, and starts a storm in the Gulf — and there is a cause and effect to everything.” Well, that shut them up. After that, they wanted to know whether American TV viewers are “ready for something that is so positive.” You betcha, said the panel, which included show creator Tim Kring. Kring, in marked contrast to Sutherland, took only one question, in which he was asked whether the son character on “Touch” wasn’t really a prototype for a character on Kring’s NBC superheroes drama, “Heroes.” ****“This is not a superpower idea,” Kring said firmly. “It’s a mystical or spiritual idea.” “Alcatraz,” JJ Abrams’s new drama series for Fox, is a “thrilling new series that follows a unique trio investigating the mystifying reappearance of 302 of Alcatraz’s most notorious prisoners and guards, 50 years after they vanished.” Appearing at the Winter Press Tour on Sunday, JJ, who brought us the maddeningly convoluted series “Alias” and “Lost” and “Fringe,” promised that this time he could be believed when he promised that viewers would get lots of answers to the mystery by the end of the first season and that it would have closed-ended episodes, and no parallel universes. “This show is designed very much as an episodic show . . . a case of the week.” Hahahahaha! Oh, sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, when some TV critic noted that here we go again with another JJ Abrams show in which a team investigates a mysterious island, JJ shot back that “any land mass is an island. You could argue every show — ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ — is much like ‘Lost.’ ” Watch at your own peril.

It persists still, this myth of the small, flinty state with the politically earnest folks who insist you walk through several dozen of their white-pillared town halls before you can walk into the White House. And yes, those folks were waiting patiently to do their part the other night — an all-white town hall crowd of about 100, some in their snowflake sweaters and duck boots, sitting on folding chairs in an overheated room at a nursing home in nearby Brentwood. Rick Santorum’s state co-chair, Claira Monier, about to introduce the candidate, looked over the audience members and told them approvingly: “I see of lot of good New Hampshire people here.” Good New Hampshire people live in a good, homogenous state of low unemployment, no sales and income tax, and high SAT scores, and this is their biggest city. But Manchester is not like the rest of New Hampshire. Tough times have come, and hard, in a rush that seems to have taken the city’s residents and business leaders by surprise — just as the national magazines were declaring it a great place to live and the number of yoga studios looked as if it might catch up to the number of laundromats. A big Lowes by the new spiffy airport opened, then abruptly closed about 18 months later; maybe Wal-Mart can move in there, hopes an alderman, because everybody needs to shop at Wal-Mart now. Manchester, with a population of nearly 110,000, has had to cut firemen, cops and highway workers. Crime is up, along with evictions. But most shocking, and unmentioned in stump speeches as the Republican presidential candidates race around: One in four children here lives in poverty. Nearly half of the children in the city’s public schools can get free lunch. “We are becoming more of a true little urban center,” struggling like cities across the country, says Anna Thomas, Manchester’s deputy public health director. This state of affairs, she adds, “is not at all usual for New Hampshire.” Those with the fewest personal resources — white and minority working poor and jobless, and resettled refugees from war-torn countries — need the greatest public resources, according to demographers and social-service providers. And that has prompted some blunt and often uncomfortable talk in Manchester about who makes for good New Hampshire people. “A lot of people are a little edgy” about the new people moving into the old tenements, is how the alderman, Ed Osborne, puts it, “because we don’t have enough for ourselves, and we’ve been here all our lives.” Soldano Bilal, her hair wrapped in colorful fabric and her youngest child wrapped to her back, walks up to one of Manchester’s tenements Wednesday and disappears inside. They still call them tenements here, like it’s the Lower East Side in 1870. The poor don’t live in housing projects, or in swaths of distressed neighborhoods. Instead, the center of the city is full of freestanding, white-clapboard Victorians with curlicue wood trim, built by the grandees of the Amoskeag cotton mills on the Merrimack River that flows through Manchester. Bilal’s is the last apartment, up three flights of dark stairs, identified by its cinnamon scent. There are no names by the doorbells, and two of them are broken anyway. There’s a jumble of small sneakers on a mat outside her door. Inside her home are five little boys tumbling around a mostly empty room or doing their workbooks, and the baby and a young girl. Four belong to Bilal, 25, and three belong to her sister, Rukia, 21. Bilal has been watching the children while her sister works. She has two jobs as a nurse’s aide and is in college. Their brother, Jamal Adan, 17, is at the apartment, helping to watch the kids. He just got home from Manchester Central High School, where Mayor Ted Gatsas introduced Mitt Romney at a rally. It will be great when Romney is president, Gatsas said, because he has been fighting the Obama administration over testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. “We shouldn’t be testing those children when they haven’t had a chance to learn in their own language, let alone in English,” the mayor said. Adan, who is a junior, didn’t hear that. Only the seniors were permitted to attend the rally. He’ll take any test they give him, and yes, in English. He spoke only a Mai dialect when he came from Kenya at 10; his family lived in two refu­gee camps after fleeing Somalia, and the State Department resettled them in Manchester. He graduated from an English Language Learners program a while ago, although he still attends after-school sessions on Monday “just because it’s very interesting what they teach. You learn about important people who made change — Gandhi and Martin Luther King. And you learn how to do PowerPoint, because it is very important to make good presentations.” He does know that Gatsas asked the State Department a few months ago to stop sending refu­gees here — “he doesn’t want more people” — because the mayor argues that the city can’t provide for the 2,100 who arrived in the past decade. But this family is part of what once was celebrated, although never by everyone, as the striving immigrant class. And the fathers of the Bilal children are not in the picture, a missing piece of the family structure that has generated much dialogue in the presidential race. Adan says “it’s been great” to grow up in Manchester, where he made friends at the park playing soccer and picked up English easily. He gets As and Bs, is on the state championship soccer team, takes an AP art class and hopes to become a graphic artist after college. “What’s so great about my school is that it is so representative” of America, he says. “It is very diverse.” Adan did go to see President Obama when he came to Manchester Central right before Thanksgiving. “It’s a Republican thing” that the president hasn’t done a good job, Adan says. “He brought the troops back. He’s gonna need more time to turn this all around. He’s only been president for two years.” Rick Santorum shows up after Monier’s remarks at Brentwood Town Hall and inveighs against “the narcotic of government dependency.” Obama uses his remarks “to scare you,” Santorum says. Some audience members nod vigorously, and many listen with skepticism, their arms folded across their chests. “He wants you to be dependent” on his power, Santorum continues, because “you can’t be trusted with freedom.” He talks about how immigrants like his grandfather worked hard to seize the opportunity of America and how he watched good jobs slip out of the reach of hardworking, blue-collar Americans as manufacturing moved overseas. Restoring the country requires a new commitment to family values, he says. The slogans fly about on television commercials, either dark and gloomy in the Ron Paul ads, or can-do and confident in Romney’s. Manchester’s declaration of impatience with all of it is right there on the huge sign someone plastered on a mill wall near a crosstown bridge: “As the next possible Communicator-in-Chief communicate ‘Why You?’ in 20 words or less.” Behind the counter of her bakery on the east side of the city, in a neighborhood the old-timers call “The Hollow,” Kay Skilogianis wipes her hands on her apron and waves them in the air in aggravation. Her customers are worried about only one thing: “How are you going to get your family through everything?” Christmas was good, with the Greek Americans coming in for the traditional avgolemono soup and pork pies and sweets, but “we’re barely making it some weeks,” she says. When she’s done at night, she’s too tired to go to any town hall and hear from politicians. “They’re all hoggish there in Washington,” she says. “They’re working for their pockets, not our pockets, because they _are_ in our pockets.” Not one of the primary candidates has set foot in her store. When she needs something, she calls Osborne, her alderman. The way she sees it, Manchester got too excited over attracting affluent professionals and lost sight of developing work in honest trades — roofing, shoe repair, electrical wiring. Behind her in the kitchen, her nephew, Jamie, asks her when to put the eggs in the cake batter; she’s training him as her apprentice and hoping that he’ll take over the business someday. Her husband, Regis Chagnon, goes upstairs to evict the latest tenant who couldn’t make the rent. “I gave the guy some food and 25 bucks and wished him luck. What are you going to do?” he asks. “People are having a tough time around here.” These primary states are stages. You see a bit of them, but only what the campaign’s advance teams choose and network anchors want to broadcast. Then the political roadshow moves on. That’s politics, of course, and it’s also a way of not actually dwelling in the place. Whatever the complicated solutions are for Manchester and struggling places across America, they’re not going to come out of a week in January. ****Brandon Chaderton comes into Mill Town Market, on the city’s main street, where Jane Beaulieu sells fiddlehead cheese and sourdough bread, organic milk and fresh produce, and to-go lunch plates. He’s an AmeriCorps member who recently came to the city who’s still training his eye to see what he needs to see. “In Philadelphia,” where he went to college, “the poverty was blatant,” Chaderton says. Here, with the poor in tenements instead of housing projects, “it’s almost hidden,” he says. Beaulieu lives in an old farmhouse on the edge of the city, and she mentions she’s taken in two women who would have been homeless. The old Franco American neighborhood where she was raised now is isolated and pocked with violence, its new population of Latinos ignored. “It’s depressing there,” she says, a place of ramshackle housing and absentee landlords. “Nobody is paying attention to them, the economic development office ignores them, and the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t get it. They’re only about big business.” “You’ll see a green biodiesel bus that is awesome, and it circulates downtown. But it cut [bus] service for the rest of the city,” Beaulieu says, criticizing the city for turning away more federal money for bridge repair, transportation and police. At the same time, she’s seen Democratic state legislators cling to duplicate programs that were ineffective, “programs that were funded because there’s a need, and now there’s a need because the program is funded.” And, she adds, “The society that grew up here is so spoiled. We don’t know tough times. If you compare us to the refugees, we are not in tough times.” “Live Free or Die” is still the slogan on the state’s license plate, and good New Hampshire people are fiercely proud of their culture, their staunch independence and their antipathy to taxes. But every now and then, a car drives down the street with a plate that’s been edited. Live Free _and_ Die, it reads.

Every night, as most of her neighbors in Silver Spring are going to bed, Khawla Yusuf opens her laptop and plunges into a revolution. Using Skype or Facebook, she connects with Syrians who have been trying for 10 months to change their government. She watches footage, recorded on shaky cellphones, of protests in distant towns and listens to her countrymen describe the surreal daily life of a nation under siege. “Sometimes I tape them, because it’s a part of our history,” said the 43-year-old mother of two, who took a leave from her job as an Arabic teacher to help the uprising that began in Syria last spring and has been met with a violent crackdown. It’s a family enterprise: Her husband, Ammar Abdulhamid, 45, a longtime activist, and their children, Oula, 25, and Mouhanad, 21, also spend their nights as virtual revolutionaries. “Our Facebook pages are like media agencies,” said Yusuf, who has 7,000 Facebook followers. “Sometimes I have 10 people on a chat.” Syrians around the world have reacted to the events in their country in a variety of ways, a fact dramatized in the summer when two competing groups of Syrian demonstrators — supporters and detractors of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad — converged in front of the White House on the same day. An estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Syrian Americans live in the United States, according to Faraj Sunbuli, president of the Chicago-based Syrian American Council. They represent Syria’s complex melange of religions, and many have been here for generations. Some feel unconnected to the events in Syria. Some stand assiduously by Assad, warning that his departure would lead to chaos. Others rail against him, citing more than 5,000 deaths that human rights groups have tallied in the crackdown since March and calling on the international community to intervene. Sunbuli estimates that about 10,000 Syrian Americans are involved in helping the uprising. They lobby lawmakers and diplomats, disseminate information about arrests and killings, send money covertly into Syria and provide funding and medical supplies to refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, which border on Syria. It is a change for a diaspora community accustomed to keeping a low profile. In the United States, as in Syria, a substantial silent majority stays out of the fray. These include members of religious minorities who are unsure what their rights would be in a post-Assad Syria and many who want to travel to Syria or have families there whom they fear to endanger. Living in the United States does not provide immunity from reprisal, they say, noting the case of a Syrian pianist living in Atlanta who played at a July rally in support of the opposition. Afterward, his elderly parents in Syria were badly beaten by thugs. In October, a Syrian American from Leesburg, Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, was arrested in Virginia for compiling video and audio recordings and other information about protesters for Syrian intelligence agencies in order, the indictment said, “to silence, intimidate and potentially harm’’ opponents of the regime. Soueid also was accused of providing Syrian intelligence with phone numbers and e-mail addresses of protesters in the United States. An Amnesty International report the same month said that Syrian protesters in Europe and the Americas had been “systematically monitored and harassed by embassy officials and others . . . and that their relatives in Syria have as a result, in some cases, apparently been exposed to harassment, detention and even torture.” The Syrian Embassy in Washington has denied any association with Soueid and called the Amnesty allegations “totally fabricated.” The Abdulhamids say that they have received unsettling messages, including death threats, and that the warnings are getting more brazen. “For you and your group here in Washington we will liquidate you one after another, wait and see,” a post from an unknown sender to Yusuf’s Facebook page said recently. “Usually they send private messages,” she said, “but this was public.” The threats have not deterred the family, whose activism began years ago in Syria. In 2002, they founded a minority-rights organization in Syria that criticized the government. In 2005, after the organization accepted funding from abroad and Abdulhamid publicly called the president “an idiot and a Fredo Corleone” — a reference to the spineless middle son in “The Godfather” movies — the family fled to the United States and received political asylum. Once here, Abdulhamid worked with the State Department training Syrian citizen journalists. He is currently a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. The family has started the Syrian American Network for Activists and Dissidents (SANAD), which has raised nearly $10,000 to send to refugees and families of those arrested or killed. The Abdulhamids also have sent cameras, satellite phones and smartphones to activists in Syria. Before this year, Syrian Americans tended to see political activism as dangerous. When the uprising started in March, support here was sparse. “At one point you could count us on one finger, the ones supporting the revolution,” Abdulhamid said. But as the crackdown continued, more Syrian Americans came forward. Mazen Hamad, 56, a doctor in Raleigh, N.C., who moved to the United States 30 years ago, initially hesitated to use his name on a pro-opposition Facebook account. “But then I saw people getting killed, going to prison and disappearing, and then I felt sort of guilty or silly that people are paying a bigger price than anything that would happen if I used my name,” Hamad said. Others are still reluctant, even as they contribute money to the opposition. “I was supportive in my heart,” said another Raleigh doctor who did not want his name used. “I support them secretly.” Nazih Zarif, president of the Syrian Arab League of America, a 300-member pro-regime organization formed in Allentown, Pa., in September, says most Syrian Americans oppose the uprising. “We believe in the reforms that Bashar al-Assad is doing,” he said. “Syria will be soon a measurement for others in the Middle East for democracy.” Syrian Christians in particular have been divided about the uprising. Some fear they could be persecuted under a new regime, said Bassam Bitar, chairman of the board of trustees of the Washington-based Syrian Christians for Democracy and a co-founder of SANAD. “We try to preach to every single Christian and we try to convince them.” Recently, the Abdulhamid family sat in their home’s sunroom, where Mouhanad’s iPhone periodically burst out with the sounds of cheers, screams and whistles from a rally that day in Syria. Yusuf often speaks with people who can hear bullets outside their houses. Sometimes a regular correspondent will disappear without warning. It is, she says, hard to be so far away. “I need to be with my people, my friends,” she said. “Here in America I have no role, I’m just one person who sleeps, who eats and so on. . . . I want to be there, even if I get killed.” “Stop!” her son said. “We’ve lost enough. We’ve left everything behind. Your brothers were in prison, your father was killed [decades earlier, when Assad’s father was Syria’s president]. It’s enough. You keep saying you want to go — it’s hurting me, it’s hurting us. Please stop saying that, please!” Tears welled in his eyes. “Okay,” his mother said quietly. This was not the first time this argument had erupted. Oula, too, said she wishes she could be in Syria. Instead, she has been connecting with other young Syrian Americans via social media. She brought her face close to her laptop screen and, with a big smile, spoke to someone in Syria as if she was addressing the entire country. “Happy New Year! Hopefully we’ll get our freedom, and hopefully you’ll be fine, and

**Why the Saints can win…** Can this offense be stopped? QB Drew Brees, after setting NFL single-season records for completion percentage and passing yards during the regular season, threw for 466 yards and three TDs in a first-round playoff victory over the Lions. The Saints scored 35 second-half points and set a single-game postseason record with 626 total yards. The task becomes more difficult now. New Orleans must face the rugged 49ers defense and leave the comforts of the Superdome to play a road game outdoors. The Saints never have won a road playoff game. The defense surrendered 211 receiving yards to Lions WR Calvin Johnson. But the 49ers ranked 26th in the league in total offense during the regular season. **Why the 49ers can win…** They get to play at home, where they went 7-1 during the regular season. The formula is clear: They must run the ball on offense to control the clock and the game, and rely on their defense to slow down Brees and the New Orleans offense. The 49ers are built to do that. They ranked eighth in the league in rushing offense. They were fourth in the league in total defense and second in scoring defense, and they had an NFL-best turnover margin of plus-28. The 49ers will try to prevent a passing duel between Alex Smith and Brees. Smith was efficient during the regular season, with 17 TD passes and only five interceptions, but had 2,332 fewer passing yards than the New Orleans quarterback. _\--Mark Maske_

**Why the Texans can win…** They steadied themselves with their first-round playoff triumph over the Bengals after finishing the regular season with three straight losses. That gave the Texans a win in the first playoff game in franchise history. Now they seek their first road playoff victory. To get it, they’ll probably have to play the same way they played against the Bengals. Rookie QB T.J. Yates had a modest 159 passing yards but didn’t throw an interception. RB Arian Foster ran for 153 yards and the Houston defense did the rest. In a season filled with record-setting passing exploits, this could be an old-fashioned sort of NFL playoff game. The Texans ranked second in the league in total defense during the regular season and the Ravens were third. **Why the Ravens can win…** The Ravens went 8-0 at home during the regular season and beat the Texans, 29-14, at M&T; Bank Stadium in October. The Baltimore offense showed good balance in that game, with QB Joe Flacco throwing for 305 yards and RB Ray Rice running for 101 yards. The Texans still had Matt Schaub at QB that day but were without WR Andre Johnson, who’s now back in the lineup. The Ravens, if things go as they hope, can match the Texans’ rugged defense and reliable running game while mixing in a few big pass plays from Flacco. _\--Mark Maske_

**Why the Broncos can win…** The Broncos’ dramatic first round playoff triumph came after they lost their final three games of the regular season and got into the playoffs at 8-8. QB Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards and two TDs on only 10 completions against the Steelers, who led the league in total defense during the regular season. The Broncos started well but couldn’t keep pace with the Patriots when they lost to them in Denver, 41-23, on Dec. 18. The key this time will be to avoid turnovers. They had three of them (to none by the Patriots) in the first meeting. The coach who drafted Tebow in Denver, Josh McDaniels, rejoins the Patriots this week to work alongside soon-to-depart offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. **Why the Patriots can win…** The Patriots have lost their last three postseason games, beginning with the Super Bowl defeat to the Giants that denied them an unbeaten 2007 season. QB Tom Brady had a superb season in 2011, with 5,235 passing yards, 39 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. WR Wes Welker was second in the league with 1,569 receiving yards but, increasingly, the biggest matchup problem for opposing defenses has been TE Rob Gronkowski, who had 90 catches for 1,327 yards and 17 touchdowns in his second pro season. The issue, of course, is whether the New Englad defense will do its part. The Patriots ranked 31st in the league in pass defense and 31st in total defense during the regular season. They were better in scoring defense, ranking 15th, and had a plus-17 turnover margin. If the defense can get a few turnovers and surrender field goals instead of TDs, that probably would be enough for Brady to get the Patriots back into the postseason win column. _\--Mark Maske_

Is there such a thing as an unacceptably low college graduation rate? There is seemingly universal agreement in higher education that college completion rates aren’t high enough. Yet it’s difficult to find anyone pointing fingers at a particular college. Lawmakers lament the low graduation rates of students who receive federal Pell grants, the largest source of federal student aid to low-income students. Yet to criticize a college with a large Pell student population and a miniscule graduation rate is thought to be bad form. Washington Monthly magazine and the Education Sector analyst group broke the silence in 2010 with a report on collegiate “dropout factories,” ranking the colleges with the lowest completion rates and spotlighting a Chicago college with a graduation rate far lower than that of the Chicago Public Schools. “Show me a city with a high-school dropout factory and I will show you a college in the same city with an even lower graduation rate,” said Kevin Carey of Education Sector. “Apparently there’s no number so low that it automatically triggers loss of accreditation. There’s no number so low that it causes state leaders to consider shutting an institution down.” I spent some time in the fall looking at the bottom of the grad-rate chart in the Washington region. The research spawned a Nov. 26 story on Coppin State University, a historically black campus in Baltimore working hard to turn around its low completion rate. In this post, I want to spotlight other colleges in the District, Maryland and Virginia with unusually low completion rates. The analysis looks at an average of graduation rates from 2007 to 2009. It’s a comparatively generous six-year rate, meaning that the tally gives every student six years to finish a four-year degree. The analysis is limited to schools that reported graduation data to the feds. (The analysis does not include Kaplan University, a for-profit institution owned by The Washington Post Co., because the federal data I found for comparisons did not include six-year graduation rates for any local Kaplan campus. The data indicate that the Hagerstown, Md., Kaplan campus mostly awards two-year degrees or certificates.) **1\. University of Phoenix, Northern Virginia Campus. Graduation rate: 6 percent.** Federal lawmakers have hammered for-profit colleges for low completion rates. Of the colleges contacted for this analysis, Phoenix was the only one with recent experience fielding questions about low graduation rates. University officials say for-profit colleges don’t easily fit the criteria for federal rates. The federal rate looks only at “first-time, full-time freshmen.” Students at for-profit colleges tend to be second- , third- or even fourth-time students, and if they are doing anything full-time, it’s probably working. So the Phoenix figure covers only a fraction of the school’s students. (Fourteen percent of them, at the Northern Virginia campus.) Richard Castellano, University of Phoenix spokesman, said the rate above (and the rate below, for a campus in Maryland) “are not even in the ballpark. When you take into account all students at our Maryland and Virginia campuses, the university would not even make this list.” I asked him to provide graduation rates that account for all students at those campuses. He said he could not. But he said the university’s completion rate nationally is about 34 percent for students seeking bachelor’s degrees. **2\. University of Maryland, University College. Graduation rate: 6 percent.** Can it be that a university in the Maryland state system has a 6 percent graduation rate? Well, yes and no. UMUC is a contemporary model of the traditional night school, an institution designed for adults returning to higher education. Much like the for-profits, University College tends to take students who have been in and out of the collegiate revolving door. Thus, its federal graduation rate is based on a comparatively low number of full-time, first-time students. But no one at UMUC is claiming the school’s true completion rate is vastly higher than 6 percent. Their point is more that a traditional graduation-rate analysis simply does not work at the Adelphi campus. **3\. University of Phoenix, Maryland Campus. Graduation rate: 7 percent.** See #1, above. **4\. University of the District of Columbia. Graduation rate: 12 percent.** UDC’s struggle with low completion rates is well-documented. President Allen Sessoms spun off the UDC community college into a separate unit, partly for the purpose of improving the success rate at the four-year university. His goal for the UDC graduation rate: “at least 50 percent.” It will be several years before we know whether he has met it. **5\. Strayer University, District of Columbia. Graduation rate: 15 percent.** Strayer is a for-profit college serving a demographic similar to those of Phoenix and UMUC, above. A Strayer spokeswoman told me the university boasts a significantly higher graduation rate for its full cohort of bachelor’s students, 33 percent. Strayer reports a 50 percent graduation rate for students who arrived with more than 45 credit hours. Those who brought 90 credit hours had a 70 percent completion rate, the spokeswoman said. **6\. Baltimore International College. Graduation rate: 15 percent.** This private, nonprofit career school was in an accreditation crisis and transitioning from two-year to four-year study during the period in question, according to spokesman Kevin O’Keefe. The federal data, he said, are thus rife with errors. “The actual graduation rate was on average 56 percent for the period 2006-2009 and 67 percent for the period 2007-2009,” O’Keefe said in an e-mail, attributing those figures to school leaders. **7\. Coppin State University. Graduation rate: 16 percent.** This school serves a large number of disadvantaged students. For more context, see the Nov. 26 article on Coppin State in The Post. **8\. Saint Paul’s College. Graduation rate: 18 percent.** Saint Paul’s is a private, historically black college in Lawrenceville, Va., serving a population similar to Coppin State’s. “Although we are not happy to be amongst the list of the lowest college graduation rates in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, we are pleased to have a graduation rate that is increasing, and expect to be off of this list in the near future,” said Raymond E. Holmes, the provost and vice president for academic and student affairs. “Many factors contribute to our low graduation rate, such as: parents losing their jobs due to the economy, students’ inability to find part-time work in the community, changes in popular career choices and a cutback in financial aid.” **9\. Sojourner-Douglass College. Graduation rate: 22 percent.** Sojourner-Douglass is a private, nonprofit “Afrocentric” college in Baltimore. It falls into a category known as predominantly black institutions. President Charles Simmons told me that historically and predominantly black schools compare favorably to historically white colleges when the analysis considers students of similar demographic backgrounds. “Importantly, [historically black colleges and universities] are not only doing a better job of retaining and graduating black students than other colleges and universities, they are also doing disproportionately better at graduating blacks in the sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), in teaching professions, health professions and other growth and high needs disciplines,” Simmons wrote in an e-mail. **10\. Southern Virginia University. Graduation rate: 25 percent.** This is a private Christian institution serving a student population that is mostly white. College officials said SVU has operated in its current format, as a liberal arts school in the Latter-day Saints community, for 16 years. As such, the school lacks the “name-recognition and loyalty that older and larger institutions enjoy,” spokesman Burke Olsen said in an e-mail. Olsen said many students leave for two years to serve on church missions, which affects the graduation rate. But he said the school has shown “consistent improvement in our retention year-by-year—a trend we expect to continue.”

**Why the Giants can win…** Forget that they had the worst regular season record of the NFC’s six playoff teams, at 9-7. They’re on a roll now, beating the Jets and Cowboys in their final two games of the regular season to capture the NFC East title and winning easily at home against the Falcons in the first round of the playoffs. QB Eli Manning did the heavy lifting all season. He threw for 400 yards when the Giants gave the then-unbeaten Packers a scare but lost, 38-35, as time expired Dec. 4 at the Meadowlands. But now he’s getting help from the Giants’ running game and defense. RBs Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw jump-started the running game against the Falcons and the defense pitched a shutout. The Giants know they can play with the Packers. Now the question is whether they can do it again and find a way to finish with a win this time. **Why the Packers can win…** The defending champs are the Super Bowl favorite after their 15-1 regular season, marred only by a “How did that happen?” loss to the Chiefs. QB Aaron Rodgers had the highest passer rating ever in a season, at 122.5, and remains the MVP front-runner even with Drew Brees’s partial rewriting of the NFL record book. But there are some concerns. Rodgers hasn’t played since Christmas. The Packers looked a bit vulnerable down the stretch with injuries along the offensive line and to WR Greg Jennings. And then there’s the defense, which allowed Detroit’s Matthew Stafford to throw for 520 yards and five TDs in the final regular season game and finished the season ranked last in the league. The defense might not need to do too much, thanks to Rodgers, but it does need to contribute something if the Packers are to make another postseason run. _\--Mark Maske_

**NHL** 10:30 p.m. Washington at Los Angeles » Comcast SportsNet, WFED (820 AM, 1500 AM) **COLLEGE FOOTBALL** 8:30 p.m. BCS National Championship, LSU vs. Alabama » ESPN, WSPZ (570 AM) **MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL** 7 p.m. Oklahoma at Oklahoma State » ESPNU 7 p.m. West Virginia at Connecticut » ESPN2 9 p.m. Cincinnati at Georgetown » ESPNU, WWXT (92.7 FM), WWXX (94.3 FM), WTEM (980 AM) **GOLF** 4 p.m. PGA Tour, Tournament of Champions » Golf Channel

TEHRAN — An Iranian court sentenced a Michigan man to death on espionage charges Monday, drawing an angry response from the Obama administration and driving up the temperature in an increasingly volatile feud between the two countries. Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent, was handed a death sentence for a list of alleged crimes that included spying for the CIA, state media reported. U.S. officials said the charges were false and politically motivated, describing them as the latest in a series of provocations by Iran’s clerical rulers. “We strongly condemn this verdict,” said Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department. Iranian authorities accused Hekmati, 28, of receiving special training at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dispatched to Iran on a spy mission. Hekmati, who was born in Arizona and holds dual citizenship, was given 20 days to appeal the verdict. The court’s decision comes at a time of increasing tension between Tehran and Washington, as the United States and its allies seek to dramatically toughen economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran has sought to retaliate by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz and warning a U.S. aircraft carrier not to enter the strategic waterway. Iran has also boasted in recent days of new progress in its nuclear program, signaling that it has achieved its long-stated ambition of starting uranium enrichment at a mountain bunker, using a process that makes uranium that can be upgraded for weapons use more quickly than the country’s main stockpile. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the assertion Monday. U.S. officials and Iran experts view the charges against Hekmati as further evidence that Iranian leaders are feeling pressure and are looking for ways to regain advantage. One analyst described the former Marine as “another hostage of the U.S.-Iran cold war.” “The Iranian regime is desperate for any leverage it can get vis-a-vis the United States,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “For that reason, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll execute Mr. Hekmati, for he would then cease to be a bargaining chip.” President Obama signed a bill on the last day of 2011 that placed the Central Bank of Iran under unilateral sanctions, setting off a steep slide in the Iranian currency. Since then, Europe has indicated that it will impose stiff sanctions of its own. The signs of strain in Tehran have encouraged U.S. officials in their belief that Iran’s leaders will eventually come around to negotiations over their nuclear program. But Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, said the international action may instead be prompting Iran to become even less cooperative. “The Iranians feel a need to push back with every apparent application of pressure by the international community, for domestic political reasons and to maximize their leverage,” Thielmann, a former State Department official, said in e-mailed comments. Precisely when and where Hekmati was arrested is unclear. Iranian news reports have said that he was detained in late August or early September, according to the Associated Press. Iranian media have also reported that Hekmati was spotted by Iranian intelligence operatives while visiting Bagram air base, 35 miles north of Kabul. Hekmati’s family members, who live in Michigan, reportedly said that he was in Iran to visit his grandmother. Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said U.S. officials were working through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to obtain information about Hekmati’s case and to press for his release. The Swiss government represents U.S. interests in Iran because Tehran does not have diplomatic relations with Washington. “Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for or was sent to Iran by the CIA are simply untrue,” she said. “The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons.” Hekmati appeared on Iranian state television in December and purportedly confessed to working for the CIA. It is unclear whether the statements were made under duress. “It was their plan to first burn some useful information, give it to them [the Iranians] and let the Intelligence Ministry think that this is good material and contact me afterwards,” Hekmati said in his television appearance. He went on to say that the CIA ordered him “to become a source for [Iran’s] Intelligence Ministry” and remain in Tehran “for three weeks and feed them this information, get some money for it and come back.” The assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists and mysterious explosions at military and industrial sites in Iran in recent years have prompted Tehran to keep closer tabs on dual nationals visiting the country. The Tehran government considers Hekmati an Iranian, not an American, because Iran does not recognize dual citizenship. During Hekmati’s trial, the state prosecutor demanded “the most severe punishment” in retaliation for what he alleged was increased spy activities by the United States, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. Hekmati was convicted of working with a hostile country, belonging to the CIA and trying to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism, Fars reported. The court described him as a “mohareb,” an Islamic legal term meaning that he “waged war against God,” and a “mofsed,” or someone who “spreads corruption on the earth,” the AP reported. The judge, Abolghassem Salavati, has presided over mass trials against activists, sentencing at least three people to death after giving them similar labels. The sentence was announced as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began the first leg of a four-country tour of Latin America. After arriving in the Venezuelan capital, he received a warm welcome from President Hugo Chavez, who also considers the United States an adversary. The Venezuelan populist, standing beside the Iranian leader, sharply criticized the Obama administration and its efforts to isolate Iran. “The imperialism,” Chavez said, referring to the United States, “accuses us of being war-like. We are not. Iran has invaded no one. The Iranian Islamic revolution has invaded no one.” He said that his government’s relationship with Iran is commercial, reeling off deals with Tehran that he says have led to a range of projects, including in the housing and manufacturing sectors. Ahmadinejad, speaking through an interpreter, cast his government as one interested only in improving people’s lives. “We are not one to attack other people,” he said. “Our bombs are love and kindness toward peoples. Our fuel is the desire of liberty and independence for the peoples. Our weapon is logic, culture, human values, love, kindness and friendship.” Warrick reported from Washington. Correspondent Juan Forero in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report. **More coverage of Iran:** \- Iran looks for friends in Latin America \- In Iran, a sense of impending war \- Iran welcomes U.S. Navy rescue operation \- Read more headlines from around the world

The Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off Tuesday, but the fun really starts with Monday’s press events. The main storylines of this year’s show are power and mobility, whether companies are hawking super-light and portable ultrabook laptops, or discussing how best to upgrade vehicles to include more high-tech features. Green energy is expected to be a big trend at the show this year, particularly as more automakers take the centerstage. Top executives from Ford, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz all will make appearances in keynote speeches throughout the week, and Ford’s hybrid model, the Fusion, is the official car of the conference. Car companies are likely to focus not only on green energy, but also connectivity by exploring how drivers can use apps to monitor what’s going both in and outside their vehicles. **(For complete coverage of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, visitWashingtonPost/Technology.)** ****Gadget lovers also can expect plenty of announcements about faster, bigger smartphones as the four major mobile phone providers rush to release more 4G devices to market. Last year, Verizon introduced the HTC Thunderbolt, LG Revolution and Samsung Galaxy Tab at the show, and this year AT &T; is expected to be pushing its ever-growing 4G portfolio. Two holdover trends from last year — tablets and smart TVs — also are expected to make a big splash at the show. The tablet market is still maturing and more companies are jumping into the fray offering a variety of screen sizes and other distinguishing features, such as Pantech’s “waterproof” Element tablet. Google also will have a big show, after the company announced several more partners including LG, Samsung and Vizio. Convergence will be a major theme as companies scramble to augment TV to include search, apps and Web video. The trend that’s gotten the most mention has been the rise of ultrabooks — slim, powerful laptops that are, in some part, designed to go after the market that Apple has seized with its MacBook Air. These computers cart faster, better chips, lighter components and sleeker design, as shown by laptops such as the expected HP Spectre. The main event Monday will be the keynote address from Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer at 9:30 p.m. EST. No major announcements are expected from Ballmer — in the past he’s used the speech to introduce products such as the Xbox — but the speech will be notable because it’s his last year headlining at CES. Late last month, Microsoft said that CES no longer fit the company’s needs and does not match its product announcement cycle. Related stories: Consumer Electronics Show: Complete Coverage PHOTOS: Coolest gadgets unveiled at CES CES organizers faced with new challenges Local firms trek to tech trade show PHOTOS: Washington-area companies at CES Capital Business - CES 2012: The perils of ubiquity CES 2012: Google TV devices coming from LG, Sony and Vizio CES 2012 preview: HP releases Omni All-in-one, Pavilion Phoenix h9 PCs

QI’m afraid that my 7-year-old daughter needs a lot more emotional support than most children and that the problem is getting worse. Although she is smart and often quite independent, her many worries and fears have begun to affect her sleep and restrict her choices. I guess that’s not surprising since her father and I divorced when she was 2; her neighbor’s house caught fire when she was 4, causing us to rush outside with her in the middle of the night; and her cousin, with whom she was quite close, got sick and died when she was 5. She also saw a lot of violent arguing in the home of a family member, but I’ve made sure she will seldom, if ever, be exposed to that behavior again. Although my husband and I have tried hard to reassure our daughter, she still has strong fears, especially at night. She is scared of fires, she says, and of sirens, of “bad people” on the street and of burglars who might break into our house. She insists that we keep the light on in the hall at night and open the bedroom doors halfway. My daughter gets scared in the daytime as well and follows me wherever I go in our two-story house. She often touches me, as if doing so could keep her safe. If I have to go anywhere, she says that she needs me and that I can’t leave her with a babysitter. She’s afraid that I won’t come back or that something bad will happen to her or me. Sometimes she almost reaches a point of panic and I can’t calm her down or comfort her then, no matter how much extra love and support I give or how many times I tell her that her father and I will always take care of her. Are there any strategies I can use to help my daughter cope with her anxiety and to feel safe, secure and well-loved? Or should she see a therapist? If so, what do I look for? AIt is not a question of whether your daughter needs therapy but when. You could wait a year or two to see if the bluebird of happiness comes knocking on her door, but it would be quicker and kinder to send her to a therapist now. Your little girl is wrestling with more fears than she can handle, and the longer they last, the more they will leech the confidence right out of her bones. This will only make her more fearful, more worried and more dependent. Therapy should be your daughter’s shortcut to serenity — if she has the right therapist. It doesn’t matter whether the person is a child psychologist or a clinical social worker, or whether she uses talk therapy, play therapy or art, music or dance therapy. It only matters that she knows how to help your child deal with her fears and that she can connect with her. A therapist who is right for one client may be wrong for another. You can probably find the right therapist if you ask your friends, your minister, your child’s pediatrician or her counselor at school for recommendations and then arrange for your daughter to have a 50-minute appointment with the three most likely candidates. Let her make the choice, because she will be confiding in this therapist every week and she has to trust her implicitly. There are other things you can do as well, such as putting a flashlight next to your child’s bed so she can chase scary shadows away. But mostly she needs you to remind her about the many times she has been brave in the past, so she will be less fearful in the future. A child grows up completely only when she knows that she can rely on herself better than anyone else — even her parents. She also needs to know that everyone gets scared sometimes and that bravery takes preparation as well as practice. Just asking your daughter what she would do if she found a burglar in the house will help her realize that every bad situation has a few good options. Help her make fun of her fears, too. If she draws a picture of her imaginary burglar and hangs it on the wall, she’ll soon throw her Nerf ball at his face — and laugh about it. You can also push away her fears, subtly, if you buy “King Jack and the Dragon” by Peter Bently (Dial, $18) and “Jeremy Draws a Monster” by Peter McCarty (Henry Holt, $17). Even though they’re picture books, your child will read them and learn from them because they put fears in their place so well. **Live Q &A; Jan. 19 at noon** Join Marguerite Kelly for an online discussion about parenting at _washingtonpost.com/liveonline_ .

BEIJING — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, visiting Beijing this week, is expected to press China’s leaders to reduce the country’s oil imports from Iran. But Geithner is likely to find Beijing resistant to putting financial pressure on the government in Tehran. In a briefing for reporters Monday, Cui Tiankai, the vice foreign minister responsible for U.S. relations, said that China supports global nonproliferation efforts but that trade is separate from the Iranian nuclear issue. “The normal trade relations and energy cooperation between China and Iran have nothing to do with the nuclear issue,” Cui said. “We should not mix issues of different natures, and China’s legitimate concerns and demands should be respected.” Cui noted that some have argued that any normal business dealings with Iran provided financial support for its nuclear program, but he said, “This argument does not hold water.” “According to this logic, if the Iranians have enough money to feed their population, then they have the ability to develop nuclear programs,” Cui told reporters. “If that is the case, should we also deny Iran the opportunity to feed its population?” Energy-hungry China imported 11 percent of its oil from Iran last year, with Chinese purchases reaching a high of about 617,000 barrels a day in November. According to figures from China’s customs office, the oil purchases from Iran last year were significantly higher than those in the previous year on a month-to-month comparison. Iran sent roughly a third of its oil exports to China. But in December and so far this year, the imports appear to have slowed, primarily because of a dispute over pricing and credit terms. The January imports were roughly half of the 2011 daily average, industry analysts said. A new U.S. law would penalize foreign companies that deal with the Central Bank of Iran, which handles the country’s oil revenue. Geithner’s visit to China, to be followed by a stop in Japan later this week, is aimed at getting Iran’s main Asian oil consumers to at least reduce, if not stop, their imports of Iranian oil. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have threatened to retaliate against any efforts to curtail oil shipments by blocking the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which passes roughly 35 percent of the world’s oil shipments, or nearly 20 percent of the oil traded worldwide. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, in an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said, “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz.” The latest tension in the Persian Gulf comes as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled Sunday to Venezuela at the start of a Latin America tour aimed at showing that Iran still has supporters and economic partners in the world. Also, reports surfaced in Iran’s media over the weekend that the country has begun to enrich uranium at a new underground facility, built to withstand possible airstrikes. And Monday, Iran’s revolutionary court, in a preliminary ruling, convicted an Iranian American, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, 28, of spying and sentenced him to death, in a decision likely to ratchet up tensions with Washington. In the Monday briefing, Cui, the Chinese vice foreign minister, said China supported efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and had “upheld [U.N.] Security Council resolutions and faithfully implemented them.” “We support upholding the nonproliferation regime,” Cui said, adding that Iran had the right to develop peaceful nuclear power. “This issue cannot be resolved by sanctions alone. It must also be solved through negotiation.” He added, “We also hope to see significant progress on the negotiation track.” In the briefing, he also took issue with Republican presidential candidates in the United States who have repeatedly singled out China as a rhetorical target , accusing Beijing of keeping its currency artificially low — and costing Americans jobs — as well as stealing intellectual property, condoning computer hacking and engaging in unfair trade practices. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has been particularly tough, promising to label China a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office. “These people who keep mentioning China’s name in the presidential campaign,” Cui said, “how much knowledge do they have about the U.S.-China relationship?” “One thing is clear,” he said. “To ensure healthy and stable relations serves both China and the U.S.” He said that throughout history — beginning with President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China 40 years ago — American presidents from both parties have kept U.S.-China relations on a steadily improving path. China also took issue Monday with the Obama administration’s new military strategy, unveiled last week at the Pentagon, which shifts the focus of the U.S. armed forces to the Asia-Pacific region, to counter China’s rising influence in the region. “Although different presidents have been in office, the China policy of the administrations has been fairly consistent,” Cui said. “I see no reason we should disrupt or stop this trend.” Cui said that despite a few “hot-spot issues,” the Asia-Pacific region was, on the whole, “stable and peaceful,” and that Asian countries wanted to concentrate on their economic development. “I don’t think military alliances is what they need most.” “The U.S. has the strongest military in the world and spends more than any other country,” Cui said. “But the U.S. always feels unsafe or insecure about other countries.” He added, “I suggest the United States spend more time thinking about how to make other countries feel less worried about the United States.” Earlier Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman used a regularly scheduled briefing to criticize the new U.S. defense posture. “China’s strategic intent is clear, open and transparent,” the spokesman, Liu Weimin, told reporters. “Our national defense modernization serves the objective requirements of national security and development and also plays an active role in maintaining regional peace and stability. It will not pose any threat to any country,” Liu said. “The charges against China in this document are groundless and untrustworthy.” The Chinese Defense Ministry echoed a similar theme in comments Monday. “The accusations leveled at China by the U.S. side in this document are totally baseless,” said the Defense Ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng. **More coverage of Iran:** \- Iran sentences American to death \- Iran looks for friends in Latin America \- In Iran, a sense of impending war \- Read more headlines from around the world

LAS VEGAS — An electronics trade show without the biggest names in the industry is sort of like a concert without the headline act. That’s the problem facing the organizers of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday. More than 2,700 companies and 150,000 visitors are expected at the annual electronics show-and-tell event, but many household names won’t be among them. Instead, the exhibition floor of the world’s largest tech trade convention will be filled with smaller and mid-size companies promoting smartphones, tablet computers, Web-connected televisions and razor-thin laptops that mimic or build on hit products produced by the leading tech firms. Apple as usual won’t be at the event, but the company’s iPad and iPhone products have spawned hundreds of companies that will be hawking things such as slipcovers and ear buds at the “iLounge” exhibit. Facebook also won’t be attending, but a slew of other social-networking companies will be showing off their newest offerings. In December, Microsoft became the latest tech giant to bow out of the show, announcing this year’s appearance would be its last. The show is still essential for companies such as Intel, which has bet big this year on ultrabooks — which it hopes will compete against Apple’s popular MacBook Air. It announced its microprocessors would be in 75 new ultrabooks — many below $1,000 — that will be unveiled this week and later this year by companies including Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. But the absence of Apple and Facebook, along with Google and Amazon barely registering here, highlights a fundamental shift in how products are launched and promoted in today’s high-tech industry. Many of the products with the most buzz in 2011 — including Microsoft’s Kinect, Apple’s iPad 2 and iPhone 4s, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet — were all unveiled at their own, gadget-specific events rather than at CES or other industry conventions. “It used to be that CES was the center of the universe,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent analyst who as of last week was still deciding whether he should attend. “The popularity of these events come and go in waves, but it does feel like the real centers of the universe in tech are no longer at CES.” Part of the challenge facing CES is that companies that once came to the convention to network and brainstorm about ways to collaborate now find themselves competitors. Since the show was founded in 1967, firms that started with one or two narrowly defined businesses have morphed into massive Internet and technology conglomerates that are competing for eyeballs and dollars in similar ways. Amazon, for example, isn’t just a retailer anymore; it also makes devices and sells digital videos and songs. Search giant Google competes with wireless carriers for mobile payments and makes the Android software for phones and tablet computers. And it is using CES to promote a new Web-based TV service with partners LG, Sony, and Vizio — a product that could put it in competition with cable television. Microsoft, once known for its desktop software, leads video gaming with its XBox. Chief executive Steve Ballmer on Monday introduced new models of the Windows Phone, which will compete with Apple and Google. Organizers of CES say that despite the changes in the industry, the event remains as popular as ever with attendance expected to match the record high of last year, and companies have rented more space to display their goods. The Consumer Electronics Association, the trade group that puts on the show, said it has responded to shifts in the high-tech sector by broadening the definition of consumer electronics. The year, organizers devoted floor space for Internet-connected cars and home appliances, such as refrigerators, as well as devices and software for health, parenting and education. “As the largest tech show in the world, we don’t categorize companies or products like we used to,” said Jason Oxman, vice president of industry affairs for the association. “What we do instead is offer opportunities to participate in areas of the show called Tech Zones and let companies decide for themselves how they want to define themselves.” **Related:** Consumer Electronics Show: Complete coverage PHOTOS: Coolest gadgets unveiled at CES CES organizers faced with new challenges Local firms trek to tech trade show PHOTOS: Washington-area companies at CES

President Obama is reportedly considering releasing several senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay as an enticement to get the Taliban to the peace table. If he does so, he will do tremendous harm to American national security — and to his prospects for reelection this fall. To understand why, consider the individuals White House is considering setting free. Last year WikiLeaks released a trove of documents it dubbed the “Gitmo Files” with assessments of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees — including the five Taliban leaders reportedly under consideration for release. Here is the U.S. military’s assessment of them: **Mullah Mohammed Fazl, deputy defense minister**. Fazl is “wanted by the UN for possible war crimes while serving as a Taliban Army Chief of Staff and … was implicated in the murder of thousands of Shiites in northern Afghanistan during the Taliban reign.” He has “operational associations with significant al-Qaida and other extremist personnel,” was “involved in Taliban narcotics trafficking,” and is so senior in the Taliban hierarchy that he once threatened the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar. Military officials assess that Fazl wields “considerable influence throughout the northern region of Afghanistan and his influence continued even after his capture” adding, “If released, [Fazl] would likely rejoin the Taliban and establish ties with anti- Coalition militias (ACM) participating in hostilities against US and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.” **Abdul Haq Wasiq, deputy minister of intelligence**. Wasiq “was central to the Taliban’s efforts to form alliances with other Islamic fundamentalist groups to fight alongside the Taliban against US and Coalition forces.” He “utilized his office to support al-Qaida and to assist Taliban personnel elude capture…. arranged for al-Qaida personnel to train Taliban intelligence staff in intelligence methods” and “assigned al-Qaida members to the Taliban Ministry of Intelligence.” If released “he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” **Mullah Norullah Noori, governor-general of Afghanistan's northern zone**. Noori “is considered one of the most significant former Taliban officials detained at JTF-GTMO” who “led troops against US and Coalition forces” and “was directly subordinate to Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Omar.” He “is wanted by the UN for possible war crimes,” is “associated with members of al- Qaida,” and is assessed “to be a hardliner in his support of the Taliban philosophy.” He “continues to be a significant figure encouraging acts of aggression and his brother is currently a Taliban commander conducting operations against US and Coalition forces…. (Analyst note: Detainee would likely join his brother if released.”) **Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, Herat governor and acting interior minister**. Khairkhwa is “directly associated to Usama Bin Laden (UBL) and Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Muhammad Omar” and was “trusted and respected by both.” After 9/11 he “represented the Taliban during meetings with Iranian officials seeking to support hostilities against US and Coalition forces” and “attended a meeting at the direction of UBL, reportedly accompanied by members of HAMAS.” He is “one of the premier opium drug lords in Western Afghanistan” and was likely “associated with a militant training camp in Herat operated by deceased al-Qaida commander (in Iraq) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.” **Mohammad Nabi, multiple leadership roles**. Nabi is “a senior Taliban official” who was “a member of a joint al-Qaida/Taliban ACM cell in Khowst and was involved in attacks against US and Coalition forces.” He “held weekly meetings” with “three al-Qaida affiliated individuals” to discuss anti- coalition plans, “maintained weapons caches,” and “facilitated two al-Qaida operatives smuggling an unknown number of missiles along the highway between Jalalabad and Peshawar,” which intelligence officials believe contributed to the deaths of two Americans. All have close ties to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. All been assessed by our military as posing a “high risk” of returning to the fight if released. And we know from painful experience what happens when hardliners like these are released from Gitmo. In 2007, the Bush administration released a Taliban leader named Mullah Zakir to Afghan custody. Unlike these five, he was assessed by our military as only “medium risk” of returning to the fight. They were wrong. Today, Zakir is leading Taliban forces fighting U.S. Marines in Helmand province, and according to former intelligence officials I spoke with, he has provided the Taliban with an exponential increase in combat prowess. Releasing more like him would be disastrous for national security. And it would also be politically disastrous for Obama. His likely opponent, Mitt Romney, has already blasted the administration for even considering such releases, declaring “We do not negotiate with terrorists. The Taliban are terrorists, they are our enemy, and I do not believe in a prisoner release exchange.” If Obama goes through with these releases, expect Romney to make a major issue of it in the fall campaign. Every time the president has picked a fight over terrorist detention at Guantanamo during the past three years, he has lost. He will lose again if he raises it in 2012. The last thing Obama should want is to have Americans discussing his decision to release dangerous terrorists in November. If Obama won’t keep these brutal men locked up for the national interest, perhaps he will for his political self-interest. **_and web e-mailaddress_ ** ****

**Ballroom dancing,** this month’s featured lesson is the mambo, followed by music and dancing. 3:30-6 p.m., Candy Factory, Kellar Theater, 9419 Battle St., Manassas. Lesson and dance, $15; open dance, $10. 703-330-2787 or www.center-for-the-arts.org. **“Off the Wall” student exhibit,** art by county high school students. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 1-5 p.m. Saturdays, through Feb. 1, Center for the Arts, Caton Merchant Family Art Gallery, 9419 Battle St., Manassas. Free. 703-330-2787 or www.center-for-the-arts.org. **Monday Afternoon Book Club,** 1 p.m., Chinn Park Regional Library, 13065 Chinn Park Dr., Woodbridge. Free. 703-792-4800. **Mystery Book Club,** 7 p.m., Central Community Library, 8601 Mathis Ave., Manassas. Free. 703-361-8211. **** **Social Security information,** Julio Alvarado of the Social Security Administration discusses benefits and program resources. 1 p.m., Chinn Park Regional Library, 13065 Chinn Park Dr., Woodbridge. Free. 703-792-4800. **Writers of children’s literature,** new group members are welcome to share their writings and offer encouragement and constructive criticism. 7 p.m., Bull Run Regional Library, 8051 Ashton Ave., Manassas. Free. 703-792-4530. **English Conversation Club,** new speakers of English practice their skills. 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., Chinn Park Regional Library, 13065 Chinn Park Dr., Woodbridge. Free. 703-792-4800. **Spanish chat,** bring lunch and practice Spanish. Noon-2 p.m., Central Community Library, 8601 Mathis Ave., Manassas. Free. 703-361-8211. **“Battle of the Khe Sanh” dinner, film and discussion,** the event features a screening of the film “Unsung Heroes, the Battle of Khe Sanh,” narrated by Col. Richard Camp Jr., cocktails, dinner and a discussion, part of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s Leatherneck History Series. 5:30 p.m., National Museum of the Marine Corps, 18900 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Triangle. $35, reservations required. 703-649-2365 or obryan@marineheritage.org. **A Tempest of Teapots,** an exhibit and discussion of colonial pewter teapots on loan from Gene Seevers, a member of the Pewter Collectors’ Club of America. Bring your pewter teapots to share. Refreshments served. 7-8 p.m., Dumfries Town Hall, 17755 Main St., Dumfries. Free, reservations required. 703-221-2218. **African American Book Group,** 7 p.m., Potomac Community Library, 2201 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. Free. 703-494-8126. **Thomas Jefferson Toastmasters Club,** regular meeting. 7:30 p.m., Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 14999 Birchdale Ave., Dale City. $66 annual dues. 703-590-2926. **Toastmasters International,** Woodbridge club. 7:30 p.m., Ebenezer Baptist Church, 13020 Telegraph Rd., Woodbridge. $39 membership fee. 703-731-2120. **Universal Human Rights Day,** the Prince William County Human Rights Commission presents a breakfast program, “Speak Up, Stop Discrimination,” which includes the winners of a writing contest and the Human Rights Awards. 9 a.m., McCoart Administration Building, 1 County Complex Ct., Woodbridge. Free. 703-792-4680. **Open House,** tour the facility and learn about safety classes, maternal child health classes and diabetes services. Free blood pressure check and body fat analysis. Cholesterol tests available and require an eight-hour fast. 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Prince William Health System Wellness Center, 8640 Sudley Rd., Manassas. Free. Cholesterol test, $30. 703-369-8605. **Manassas writers group,** writers provide comments on one another’s works. 2-4 p.m., Bull Run Regional Library, 8051 Ashton Ave., Manassas. 703-792-4500. ** — Compiled by Sarah Lane ** **E-mail:** pwliving@washpost.com **Fax:** 703-392-1406 **Mail:** Community Events, Prince William Local Living, The Washington Post, 9420 Battle St., Manassas, Va. 20110. **Details:** Announcements are accepted on a space-available basis from public and nonprofit organizations only and must be received at least two weeks before the Sunday publication date. Include event name, dates, times, exact address, prices and a publishable contact phone number.

_The Consumer Electronics Association has said it expects it’s annual trade show this week to draw a crowd of about 149,000 people. What can those attendees expect to see? Venture Beat’s Devindra Hardawar and Sean Ludwigreport:_ Verizon Wireless’s LTE 4G network was all the rage at last year’s CES, having launched just a month prior, and it marked the arrival of cellular networks that could finally achieve speeds comparable to home broadband connections. While Verizon has had its run of the LTE field for the past year, this year it’ll finally have some competition from AT&T; and Sprint. At CES, AT&T; will be showing off its first run of LTE 4G phones, following the launch of its network back in September. Leading the pack for AT&T; will be the Nokia Ace, AKA the Lumia 900, which we think could turn the tide for Windows Phone. AT&T; certainly has a lot of catching up to do, and we suspect that the carrier will be making some major announcements regarding aggressive expansion of its network. Sprint, meanwhile, has said that it will have a major roll out of its LTE network in the middle of 2012, which will be followed by the arrival of LTE phones later in the year. The company was the first to launch a 4G network years ago, but it ran the slower WiMax standard. Now that LTE has proven to be faster and easier to deploy, Sprint has to jump ship from WiMax. We expect Sprint to divulge many more details about its LTE plans at CES. _Hardawar and Ludwig also write:_ This year, the race is on for quad-core chipsets that will bring to mobile computing power on par with some desktops. We’re expecting to see plenty of devices featuring quad-core chipsets from many of the above companies at CES. Qualcomm has the newSnapdragon S4, and Nvidia has Tegra 3, both of which will be able to run complex 3D games and high-definition video without a sweat. Qualcomm has one of the keynote speech slots, while Intel and Nvidia have press conferences on Monday. _Furthermore, they write:_ At CES, look out for companies showing off ways to connect your home and mobile devices with all sorts of media options. We expect cloud-based music and gaming to really get hammered into consumers heads, especially with connected TVs and mobile apps. Companies such as Verizon, Gaikai, Joyent , and Slacker will all be on CES panels discussing how to move forward with media in the cloud. _CES is bound to be a launching pad for at least a few consumer technology products. But what about the ones that don’t live up to the hype? Here are some the Associated Presssays have the potential to be flops:_ — Windows 8. Although it’s an important new product in 2012, the late-year launch means PC and tablet makers hoping for a CES boost have to wait. Windows 8 has attributes that will be good for tablet computers, but many analysts believe Microsoft has already lost this market to Apple. — Ultrabooks. These are essentially Windows versions of the MacBook Air laptop, which are lighter and thinner but also more expensive. Expectations for ultrabooks are modest, however. — Smaller, cheaper tablets. Having failed to catch the iPad wave last year with $500 tablets, some tablet makers will try to catch the Kindle Fire wave. But the profit margins are tiny at that price. _Could CES provide an opportunity for Google to kick off its “smart TV” revolution? Hayley Tsukayamareports: _ or Google, the road to the living room has been particularly rocky. Google TV has yet to take off and suffered a slight setback when partner Logitech announced that it would stop making the Google TV-enabled Revue in November. Google is planning to bounce back from that hitch in its plans, however, by expanding the number of its manufacturing partners. In a company blog post, Google announced that LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio plus chipmakers Marvell and MediaTek will show Google TV hardware prototypes at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. Announcing its partnership with several of the world’s largest television manufacturers (which also offer televisions in a range of price points) could be Google’s best shot at kicking off its smart TV revolution. More from The Washington Post: Siri doubles the volume of iPhone data use SOPA alternative is blasted by RIAA Facebook to launch Actions feature

**Al-Anon Family Group** newcomers meeting 7:15 p.m., regular meeting 8 p.m., Haymarket Baptist Church, parish hall, 14800 Washington St., Haymarket, 703-969-2726; and regular meeting 8 p.m., Bethel Lutheran Church, 8712 Plantation Lane, Manassas, 703-969-2726. **Overeaters Anonymous Manassas Hundred Pounders Meeting** 7:30 p.m., Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church, Room 105/107, 9350 Main St., Manassas. 202-437-5070 or www.oanova.org. **** **Overeaters Anonymous** 7 p.m., Bethel Lutheran Church, 8712 Plantation Lane, Manassas. 703-823-6682 or www.oanova.org. **Overeaters Anonymous sunrise meeting** 7 a.m., St. Benedict Monastery, 9535 Linton Hall Rd., Bristow. Free. 202-437-5070 or www.oanova.org. **Cancer Support Group** a meeting for cancer patients, survivors and their families. 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Prince William Hospital, Medical Building 1, Fourth Floor, Conference Room C, 8700 Sudley Rd., Manassas. 703-895-4857. **Surviving After Suicide support group** a confidential group for family members and friends who have lost a loved one to suicide. Call for location. Second and fourth Thursdays, Free. 703-368-4141. **Overeaters Anonymous Meditation and Writing meeting** 7 a.m., St. Benedict Monastery, 9535 Linton Hall Rd., Bristow. Free. 703-361-0106 or 703-754-9237 or www.oanova.org. **Grief support group** 7 p.m., Occoquan Bible Church, 3700 Old Bridge Rd., Woodbridge. Free. 703-878-4673. **Families Anonymous** a 12-step program for adults with family members with substance-abuse problems. 8 p.m., Manassas Presbyterian Church, 8201 Ashton Ave., Manassas. 703-928-9385 or www.familiesanonymousva.com. **Anxiety support group** Recovery Inc., for people who have anxiety, depression, fear or other emotional problems. 10 a.m.-noon, Cokesbury United Methodist Church, 14806 Blackburn Rd., Woodbridge. 703-441-0840. **Cocaine Anonymous meeting** 8 p.m., Hilda M. Barg Homeless Prevention Center, 14945 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Woodbridge. Free. 703-583-8990. ** — Compiled by Sarah Lane ** **TO SUBMIT AN ITEM** **E-mail:** pwliving@washpost.com **Fax:** 703-392-1406 **Mail:** Health Calendar, Prince William Local Living, The Washington Post, 9420 Battle St., Manassas, Va. 20110.

Prince William County area schools will host five information sessions for high school seniors and their parents to learn about obtaining financial aid for higher education. All sessions begin at 7 p.m.: → Wednesday, Brentsville District High School, 12109 Aden Rd., Nokesville → Thursday, Gar-Field High School, 14000 Smoketown Rd., Woodbridge → Jan. 19, Woodbridge High School, 3001 Old Bridge Rd., Woodbridge (for Woodbridge High School students and parents only) → Feb. 16, Woodbridge High School, 3001 Old Bridge Rd., Woodbridge (for Woodbridge High Schools students and parents only) → April 12, Osbourn High School, 9005 Tudor Lane, Manassas. The high school course catalogue for the 2012-13 year is available online. Over the next month, high school students and rising freshmen will meet with counselors to begin selecting their courses for next year. The catalogue can be viewed at www.pwcs.edu. Select the drop-down menu under “Students,” then choose “High School Course Catalog.” Several new courses are available, including Building Trades II; Business Law; Career Interpretation Phase II; Communication Systems; Culinary Arts II; and Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration I. **— Compiled by Mari-Jane Williams**

The Wellington Road Widening Project in Manassas finished ahead of schedule and will open with a ribbon cutting ceremony 11 a.m. Wednesday at Ashton Avenue and Wellington Road. The project widened the section of Wellington Road between Godwin Drive and Nokesville Road. It was scheduled to be completed next month and is not part of the Route 28 Bypass Project. In response to several residential fires caused by fireplaces and wood stoves, the Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue offers the following safety tips for using wood burning equipment: →Have your chimney and vents inspected and cleaned annually. → Use a sturdy fireplace screen or keep the doors on the wood stove closed to stop sparks from flying into the room. → Burn only dry, seasoned wood in fireplaces and wood stoves, and dry, seasoned wood pellets in pellet stoves. → Never start a fire with flammable liquid, kerosene or gasoline; use newspaper or kindling. → Keep anything that can burn at least three feet from the flames. → Never leave a fireplace or wood-stove fire unattended, particularly when children are present. → Allow ashes to cool for up to four days before disposing of them in a tightly covered metal container. → Douse and saturate ashes with water. → Place ash containers at least 10 feet from your home; do not store in your home, garage or other nearby buildings. For information, visit www.nfpa.org/winter, then click on “Put a Freeze on Winter Fires.” The deadline to buy a 2012 Prince William County dog license is Feb. 1. Licenses are available at the county’s Animal Control Bureau, 14807 Bristow Rd., Manassas; the James J. McCoart Administration Building, 1 County Complex Ct., Woodbridge; the Dr. A.J. Ferlazzo Building, 15948 Donald Curtis Dr., Woodbridge; and the Sudley North Government Center, 7987 Ashton Ave., Manassas. License applications are available at www.pwcgov.org/tax. A license is required for dogs 4 months and older. The fee is $10, and a current rabies vaccination certificate is required. For information, call 703-792-6710. **— Compiled by Sarah Lane**

The torrential downpour in September brought by Tropical Storm Lee turned quickly into a perilous situation for the town of Occoquan. Residents saw water gushing from Tanyard Hill Road into the town’s center, carrying garbage, debris and tree trunks along the way. It is lucky, they say, that no one was seriously hurt and that damage was minimal. Because the town sits on the Occoquan River, it has had its share of floods and scares in the past. But September’s inundation wasn’t caused by the river but by a relatively small creek called Ballywhack that overwhelmed an area culvert, flooded back yards and ran down the hill toward the town. It was a stark reminder of the perils the town faces when managing the storm water system, which has been an issue for years — and it speaks at least partly to why town officials and residents are afraid that a proposed nearby development, Oaks III, could further imperil the town. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is scheduled to take up the issue Tuesday. The Oaks III proposal isn’t a huge development. It’s a single, 32,500-square-foot office building and one house proposed for the corner of Tanyard Hill and Old Bridge roads, just outside the town. Town residents and elected officials say that they had hoped to persuade developer Ken Thompson to improve the project and that they thought he didn’t take their concerns seriously. James Phelps lives on Union Street, which becomes Tanyard Hill Road. His house was flooded badly in September, when water rushed through his yard. Although he is concerned about his property, he said, it’s the town he worries about most if the storm water situation worsens. He and others also are concerned about the traffic — described as a “nightmare” during rush hour — on Tanyard Hill, a two-lane road that goes directly into the town. “I have a deep and abiding love for this area, and I’m torn about this because I want the county to grow,” Phelps said. “But . . . this is not the right project.” If the project is approved, “I don’t believe that the town will recover,” he said. Thompson, of Ken Thompson & Associates, who has developed in the county for decades, said the advanced storm water management system he has proposed would trap water better than the natural land does. He also said an independent traffic study called for only 11 cars traveling on Tanyard Hill — most of the traffic will go to Old Bridge Road, which connects to Woodbridge and the surrounding area, he said. “When people are against something, they have to talk about something,” he said. His proposal includes rain barrels, cisterns and an underground storm water management system that exceeds the town and Chesapeake Bay requirements, he said. Further, Thompson points to the county’s long-range planning document, the Comprehensive Plan, which calls for 150,000 square feet of office space and about 40 homes on the site. His project is considerably smaller. He is promising to place about 14 acres of the site into a conservation easement with the rights held by the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, meaning that he or another landowner could not build there, he said. Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) said that he has not made a final decision but is inclined to support the project because more commercial space is good for the economy, and the project is smaller than those proposed in past years. “I think what everybody needs to understand is, it’s not a choice between this development and nothing,” Stewart said. The town and county officials also tried to persuade Thompson from going forward with the development by offering a deal. Officials said they would look to speed approvals for a parking lot Thompson wants for two other office buildings sitting adjacent to Oaks III; the lot would be located on the Oaks III site. Thompson could then place much of the rest of the property into a conservation easement, which would allow him to take advantage of state tax credits and a federal tax deduction. He could sell the land, worth less with its restricted development rights, to the county and the town, which would split the estimated $300,000 cost, under terms of the deal discussed by officials. “If this gets approved by the Board of Supervisors, they’ll be rewarding a developer for all the types of behavior the county says they’re trying to discourage,” said Mayor Earnest W. Porta. Thompson said the deal did not make “economic sense,” and although the county’s tax dollars were promised in discussions, he had no indication the county would be bound to any agreement. “I’ve looked into it and evaluated it,” Thompson said. “The project does not work.” Supervisor Michael C. May (R-Occoquan), who has been coordinating with the town and the developer, said he shares the town’s concerns but wouldn’t make a decision on the development before Tuesday’s scheduled public hearing. Gary Savage, who owns a restaurant and inn at the town’s center, said he’s been busy running his restaurant and hasn’t paid too much attention to the proposed development. But he’s aware of its perils, he said, remembering the September flood. “It looked like the Colorado River coming down here,” Savage said. “It was nuts.”

**_Originally published Feb. 11, 1988, in The Washington Post Style section_ ** New Hampshire is a fraud. Which is to say that behind that idyll of white-steepled, sleigh-belled, town-meeting, republican-with-a-small-R America lurks a much realer and hidden New Hampshire — the souvenir hustlers, backwoods cranks, motorcycle racing fans, out-of-state writers, dour French Canadians and tax-dodging Massachusetts suburbanites who have conspired as New Hampshire has conspired for two centuries to create an illusion of noble, upright, granite-charactered sentinels of liberty out of little more than a self-conscious collection of bad (if beautiful) land, summer people, second-growth woods full of junked cars and decaying aristocracy, lakes howling with speedboats, state liquor stores that are open on Sundays and the most vicious state newspaper in America — the Manchester Union Leader, which recently greeted the birthday of Martin Luther King by describing him as a Communist dupe. They sell the rest of the country maple syrup, lottery tickets and Yankee sagacity the way Indians on reservations sell moccasins, bingo and environmental wisdom. They never shut up about how closemouthed they are. They beat you rich and they beat you poor. They do this by taking a Calvinist pride in the riches from the high-tech boom in the southern part of the state, and then asssuming the smugness of Thoreau in defending the poverty of the swamp Yankees and shack people living back in the woods with yards full of mean dogs and broken snowmobiles. They exhibit the ethics of Switzerland and the shrugging shabbiness of New Jersey. Or as Emerson wrote: “The God who made New Hampshire taunted the lofty land with little men.” The question is not who they think they are, to be holding us hostage every four years with their presidential primary. Instead, who do we think they are, to let them get away with it, this white, tight and right smidgen of a place, this myth-mongering bastion of no-tax/no-spend conservatives with no minorities to speak of and a total of .43 percent of the American people? As Thomas Jefferson said, after New Hampshire town meetings had attacked his Embargo Act, “The organization of this little selfish minority enabled it to overrule the union.” By now it’s a tradition, and New Hampshirites are quick to point out that since 1952 no one has won the White House without winning their primary first. But would we have paid as much attention back then if Eisenhower had won a first primary that was held in Nevada? In Alabama? Would Reagan’s primary landslide in 1980 have counted as much in Utah? It’s possible, but this would imply that two centuries of self-promotion by New Hampshirites have counted for nothing, and that television reporters stand in front of all those white-painted Grange halls and covered bridges for nothing — even if the bridge is merely the fake one that the Wayfarer Sheraton, the media madhouse just outside Manchester, put up so that there’d be a view outside its restaurant. It would imply that the New Hampshire of a billion Christmas cards holds no place in the American mind, along with the Jeffersonian vision of yeoman New Hampshire farmers like Jabez Stone in Stephen Vincent Benet’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” or the small-town America that Thornton Wilder has summed up for a million audiences in his play set in the mythical Grover’s Corners, N.H., and called “Our Town.” In Dublin, N.H., Judson Hale, editor of Yankee magazine, says: “The image really helps.” As early as 1964, when Henry Cabot Lodge won the primary as a write-in, beating Rockefeller and Goldwater, Yankee was noting with pleasure that “the eyes of the nation — the lens of television — and the voice of the press all focused on New Hampshire’s Big Town Meeting Day.” Yankee sells a million copies a month, 65 percent of them to people who don’t live in New England. It’s a $ 22-million-a-year business that also includes The Old Farmer’s Almanac and Alaska magazine. Why publish Alaska in Dublin, N.H.? “Alaska is a region people dream about, just like New England,” Hale says. “They say, one of these days I’m going to get a cabin out in the woods, just as they say about New England that they’re going to get a little house with a picket fence by the town green.” At Dartmouth College in Hanover, historian Jere Daniell calls the dream “coffeetable New England,” and says that “the fascination with New Hampshire’s primary is one of the products of a political transformation that began in the 1930s when rural New England was reromanticized — hat’s when Yankee magazine was founded and a show called ‘Town Meeting of the Air’ went on the radio.” The image, Daniell says, got another boost in the 1960s, “with the anti-Vietnam movement and people opting for the pure life in rural New England. Now we’ve got the immigrants from Taxachusetts. It used to be the Rhode Island types who came up here with their snowmobiles. Now it’s the cross-country skiing types. Every town has to have a green now, whether they originally had one or not. If you’ve got a church with no steeple, you have to put a steeple on it.” The dream of New England hangs over the New Hampshire hills like an anesthetic gas, easing the pains of New Hampshire’s tackiness, erasing the phone wires, the mini-golf courses, the sense of chronic opportunism that lurks behind the white clapboard purity of all those houses with dates over the doors instead of street numbers. You don’t have to look very hard, though, to see the uneasy compromise of land and people that is New Hampshire. It begins before you even touch ground. From the air, at primary time, the hills of New Hampshire look like the forehead of Frankenstein’s monster, held together with a jagged stitchery of stone walls built over the centuries to divide the fields into the peaceable kingdom we hark back to in 19th-century prints of the Currier & Ives school. Now those walls are hidden by the woods that returned when the farmers finally got all the Indians killed in time for farming to collapse. In 1850, half the state was cleared. Then the railroads brought in cheaper food from the better land to the west, and the mills pulled the young people off the farms and into towns like Manchester, and the more enterprising New Hampshirites left for points west. By the end of the century, “the racier, the more adventurous, the less stable, the more exciting and excitable, had left,” says Evan Hill in his book “The Primary State.” And New Hampshire was on its way to being four-fifths woods. In 1889 the state’s Department of Agriculture published a booklet entitled “Price List of Abandoned Farms in New Hampshire.” In 1891, a woman named Kate Sanborn wrote a book called “Adopting an Abandoned Farm,” which she followed with an even more successful sequel called “Abandoning an Adopted Farm.” Was she any relation to Frank B. Sanborn, who published the classic “New Hampshire — An Epitome of Popular Government” in 1904? In a discussion of New Hampshire’s first settlers, he evokes the free spirits you find living back in those woods in their trailers and plywood shacks, the “worthy nonconformists, chiefly of the yeoman and tradesman classes, while along with such, or as a godless fringe to the pious garment, came a host of the shiftless, ne’er-do-well, or positively vicious kind, who naturally found in a new country some relief from the restraints and some respite from the fruitless toil of the fatherland.” These traits were not confined to the lower classes, according to Sanborn. “The samples of gentry that came over were often of the last-named sort, undisciplined or trained in self-indulgence.” The laureate of this sylvan depravity is Keene’s Ernest Hebert, who is finishing a five-novel cycle set in southwest New Hampshire. Driving on back roads to Keene from Hanover, home of Dartmouth College (motto: Vox Clamantis in Deserto — A Voice Crying in the Wilderness), Hebert says: “There may be more woods here now than there have ever been. The forest is transforming itself back to what it was when the white man arrived, and maybe before that — the Indians had a sort of slash-and-burn agriculture. The nature of the landscape says a lot about the people who live here. It’s a messy forest, and as a result, people have messy yards.” He has turned off the main road to illustrate his point that the candidates and the media never see what are known as the swamp Yankees. Just now, in a town called Sullivan, he is pointing out the tar-paper-and-plastic shanties with coonskins nailed to the sides. Wood smoke pumps into the air. Inhabitants stalk with ancient resignation through yards full of truck axles and boats full of snow. There is junk everywhere. There is an atmosphere that reminds you New Hampshirites drink more beer and distilled spirits per person than people in any other state. As Hebert writes in “The Dogs of March” of an unemployed millworker named Howard Elman: “Birches, a score of junk cars, a swing on a limb of a giant maple, a bathtub in the garden, a gray barn, a house sided with fading purple asphalt shingles, a washing machine riddled with bullet holes — to Howard, these things were all equal in beauty. He saw no ugliness on his property. As nature felled weak trees and scattered fallen leaves, so Howard Elman dispensed with machines that would not work. To his eye, his yard and field beyond were one.” Woods and squalor: In a debate in New England Monthly over the merits of the two states, Vermonter Richard Ketchum wrote that “New Hampshire is the one that looks like a summer camp that’s closed for the winter, the one where you drive for hours through dark pine and spruce forests without glimpse of man or beast, the one where you can’t tell if it’s night or raining or if you’re just lost in the woods.” The odd thing about the debate was that the praise of New Hampshire by poet Donald Hall made it sound worse than Ketchum’s damns. Hall wrote: “New Hampshire, my New Hampshire, is inhabited by real people who drive pickup trucks with gun racks and NRA bumper stickers ... Beginning in June, Vermont drones with the sound of string quartets, while over here, motorcycle gangs converge on Loudon. (The rest of the year in New Hampshire it’s the same noise, now performed by chain saws and snowmobiles.) ... In New Hampshire, the state supper is beans and franks, and every recipe begins with salt pork, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, and Miracle Whip.” Escape from the woods, and you find yourself back in the uneasy land of three-lane highways covered with sand and bordered with soft ice-cream stands and mini-storage warehouses (hallmarks of transient populations); portable signboards advertising Liv Bait 4 Sale; spiffy, neo-colonial shopping centers with gilt-lettered signs offering The Bear Facts, the Ped’ling Fool, Hair It Is; endless construction sites (there’s so much building going on in New Hampshire that one television station was advertising backhoes on the 11 o’clock news); and the palimpsest of 300 years of history — streams that run black in the piney gloom next to highways that run under railroads that lead to rivers that once floated logs past the mills now bearing the generic name of FOR LEASE, and of course those stone walls that wander out of the snowy woods like lost old people. In Europe, the history blends. Here, it looks raw and mechanical. Rising above all of it are the white steeples of the churches erected despite the reply of one crowd resisting an early Puritan evangelist: “Parson, we came hither to fish.” Boston’s Robert Lowell has written: _In this small town where everything_ _is known, I see His vanishing_ _emblems, His white spire and flag-_ _pole sticking out above the fog,_ _like old white china doorknobs, sad,_ _slight, useless things to calm the mad._ Nowadays, the churches also contend with the nature worship (from behind Thermopane windows) of the investment counselors, management consultants and high-techies who like the fact that living in New Hampshire entitles them to toys with moral implications: wood stoves, four-wheel-drive trucks, cross-country skis. These people constitute Nouvelle Hampshire, and they are one reason the state rose from 25th to eighth in personal income per capita in this country between 1980 and 1985. They also provoke Ernest Hebert to say that if Grace Metalious were writing her small-town New Hampshire novel again she’d title it “Pate’ Place.” New Hampshire now has restaurants with names like Foodish Thoughts, Henry David’s (A Restaurant) and Strawberry Court, where, complained the restaurant critic for New England Monthly, “our brace of quail cried out for pommes frites.” Unlike the natives, Hebert adds, the newcomers believe that wintering in New Hampshire confers virtue. In short, they believe in the myth. It’s a tradition, though, for out-of-staters to define what New Hampshire is. And why not? Like the state itself, the concept of “native” is an elusive reality — half the people who live there were born somewhere else. Early on it was artists such as Thomas (”Voyage of Life”) Cole, who arrived in the White Mountains in 1827 and called them “emblems of nature’s purity.” In 1855 George Shattuck, a Boston physician with a summer place outside of Concord, N.H., gave the land for the founding of St. Paul’s School, one of the elite boarding schools that is meant by phrases such as “old boy network” or “St. Grottlesex.” Says its rector, the Rev. Charles Clark: “Shattuck believed his children were the first to grow up with no direct association with the frontier. He thought this was wrong. So he gave his summer estate for the founding of the school. He said the woods and hills, the rocks and rills, they are all teachers.” The high WASPery of St. Paul’s also evokes what historian John Higham has called “the image of America that Anglo-Saxon intellectuals cherished. The tradition of racial nationalism had always proclaimed orderly self-government as the chief glory of the Anglo-Saxons -- an inherited capacity so unique that the future of human freedom surely rested in their hands.” That New Hampshire is 98.8 percent white links it in some minds with the tradition of English freedoms, and resonates in the darkest caverns of an America that still defines moral and political attributes in terms of race or national ancestry. In 1899 the state government instituted Old Home Week, a sort of homecoming to celebrate the rural values that had been lost not just in New Hampshire but in America. Also, the idea was to give tourists and summer people more romance to believe in and spend money on. Soon, the air fairly creaked with self-consciousness. Nowadays New Hampshirites are even self-conscious about being self-conscious — witness a history published in cooperation with the New Hampshire Historical Society that admits that “the state is somewhat culturally self-conscious, in the manner of New England states generally.” Bookstores have hefty stocks of books about New Hampshire, the picture books that show nothing of the snowmobiling gun nuts, the books with titles like “How to Talk Yankee,” and of course the collections of Yankee jokes. “Lived in this town all your life?” “Not yet.” Or: “Do you think you could vote for this candidate, Mrs. Smith?” “Don’t know — I’ve only met him three times.” Even Robert Frost, a Californian who became the state poet, acknowledged self-consciousness as a basic theme of the New Hampshire mind when he concluded his “New Hampshire” by saying: _I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmer_ _With an income in cash of say a thousand_ _(From say a publisher in New York City)._ _It’s restful to arrive at a decision,_ _And restful just to think about New Hampshire._ _At present I am living in Vermont._ At present, too, an important chunk of our future is determined every four years by a state that holds a mere four of the 538 votes cast for president in the Electoral College. Liberals wisecrack that it is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to have a handicapped child there — adding that the license plates reading “Live Free or Die” should read “Live Free and Die” instead. Taxes in New Hampshire were 8.23 percent of personal income in 1986, compared with a national average of 11.37, thanks to the fact that there is neither sales nor income tax. Teachers’ salaries are lower than in 45 other states. New Hampshire ranks last in its distribution of food stamps. Both of its representatives and both of its senators are Republican, and New Hampshire’s Washington delegation has seen to it that their state gets a consistently smaller share of federal spending than its share of the population would seem to entitle it to. Its state government is a running joke, inside the state and out, with a governor who serves two-year terms and a legislature of 424 people — “The fourth or fifth biggest in the world,” New Hampshirites like to boast, pointing out with pride that it is also one of the weakest, because of the dominance of the town-meeting system in running the state. One prominent former governor, Meldrim Thomson, wanted to arm his National Guard with nuclear weapons, and he flew the flag at half-staff at Easter. In a classic paradox, New Hampshire voted for Thomson but has driven the Seabrook nuclear power station to bankruptcy with environmental protests. As for rural virtue, less than one percent of the state’s income is from farming, and it is the fourth most industrialized state in the union. As for sympathy with the victims of a changing economy, New Hampshire fights it out with Massachusetts for the nation’s lowest unemployment rate. The state’s Democratic Party is so lifeless that in 1986 it had to dredge up a former governor of Massachusetts, Endicott Peabody, to run the required doomed race for the U.S. Senate against Warren Rudman. Since the labor strife of the 1920s and ‘30s that ended with the owners of the textile mills cashing in and taking their factories south, there has been little in the way of labor kingmakers to focus New Hampshire politics. There is no powerful bishop or veterans’ lobby or television station or major-league team to rally around. Not only is it a state where poorly funded little men and underdogs can do well because politicking is done “retail” there — handshakes and doorbell-ringing — but it is also a state where actual losers are declared winners. Does the endless legend-vending of New Hampshire inspire the media to its interpretations of primary results? The afterglow left by some of them has no more basis in fact than a lot of what we believe about the state they occurred in. For instance, one seems to recall that George McGovern beat Edmund Muskie after the famous speech when Muskie stood in front of the Manchester Union Leader and was reported as crying and emotionally distraught as he blasted publisher William Loeb as a “gutless coward.” In fact, Muskie blew past McGovern, with 43.9 percent of the total vote to McGovern’s 35.2. Most careful observers of politics are aware that Eugene McCarthy did not actually beat Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 primary that damaged Johnson so badly, but who remembers that Johnson won that election by a hefty 7 percent as a write-in? New Hampshire may be prudent and civil — it ranks 5th in motor vehicle registrations per capita, but only 31st in accidents — but who do these people think they are, that they can get such a grip on the American body politic? Long live the image of this nostalgia-ridden wasteland, even though the reality is dead. The thing is, the image has the power to attract the sort of people who can make it real. Hence a high-techie like Dean Kamen, the son of a Long Island comic-book artist, who has bought mill after gutted, window-smashed mill along the Amoskeag River in Manchester, sandblasted them down to yuppie bare-brick, then filled them with machinery, doctors, lawyers, even a museum, a helicopter company, a climate-control company, a medical equipment company, a check clearing company, a dance studio, a lot of which he owns and runs himself. Couldn’t he have done this back on Long Island? Bearded, bejeaned, denim-shirted and 36, he says: “The people I hire, the kind of work I do, up here you have access to people who can do things that are odd, and you’re not smothered in paperwork. New Hampshire, unlike most of the country, is small enough that the nature of the bureaucracy is that you can find the person responsible. Forty miles south of here is the most socialistic environment in the United States, but here is one of the most conservative. Why? I don’t know. But it’s one of the reasons I came here.” Now he has bought North Dumpling Island, part of New York State in Fisher’s Island Sound, between Connecticut and Long Island. He is attempting to secede. He is writing his own constitution, which begins: “I, the person ...” He is printing his own money, the unit being dumplings (at one cent per dumpling), and one bill being in the denomination of pi. “I wanted to have one unit of currency denominated with an irrational number,” he explains, handing over a stack of bills, some bearing his picture. How Yankee, how cranky, how New Hampshire can you get? But this is the new New Hampshire, malltown from milltown, creeping Massachusettsism. New Hampshirites complain now that the old New Hampshire can only be found north of the White Mountains, up empty roads past paint-peeling houses, the Old Man of the Mountains (possibly the least inspiring famous rock formation in America) and through Franconia Notch, past the birches and pines and maples that mix together in forests that are somehow lush and spare at the same time, up past towns so little and isolated that gift shops advertise on the radio. “Don’t forget Valentine’s Day.” Up there are towns like Littleton, with the solidity of, say, the 1950s, before television and self-consciousness had a chance to melt everything into air, and into interchangeable monuments to consumerism like the Pheasant Lane Mall down in Nashua, by the Massachusetts line. There’s a slow, heavy ease to Littleton, shoe factories and an abrasive mill, and a joint called the Coffee Pot with vinyl booths and three old guys nursing cups of coffee at a Formica counter. “Babbitt’s been here,” says Red Thompson, a retired postal worker. “Pete du Pont’s been here. We had George Bush just down the street the other day.” “It’s changed,” says Floyd Ramsey, a retired schoolteacher. “People here are starting to drive like people from the city, they pull out in front of you like Massachusetts people, when they’ve only got a block to drive.” The third old guy says nothing. He rubs five days worth of beard, he bares a small number of teeth, none of which oppose each other. A relic of the closed lumber mills? Of some backwoods trailer life? A casualty of all the changes that have made the noble, Emerson-reading Yankee farmer merely a thing of legend? Then he starts to talk, this codger of 74, whose name is Norman Danneman, and you realize you’ve been had. “You have a limited geographic area with X number of people in it,” he says, “and when you get an increase in X, you get congestion, you get a change in behavior.” Is this some kind of joke he plays on the out-of-state journalists who come through every four years? Playing the toothless old New Hampshire coot who can talk like an MIT sociologist? Beat you rich, beat you poor, beat you smart, beat you dumb. And they know they’re doing it.

In the seemingly endless turf war between Virginia and Maryland, Virginia has scored another point. The state has lured Acentia, an information technology contractor based in Silver Spring, to Fairview Park in Falls Church, also home to CSC, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, which only recently relocated from Los Angeles. Todd Stottlemyer, Acentia’s chief executive for about a year, said the company had outgrown its Silver Spring location and was seeking a location with enough space to expand. Falls Church, in particular, offered the company a chance to share space between its 60-person headquarters and the roughly 125 employees who work on a Defense Department medical and health account that will soon be based out of a new Pentagon facility at Fairview Park. The company, which makes about 75 percent of its revenue from public sector sales, has moved the nearly 200 employees into a 46,000 square-foot space spanning two floors. Stottlemyer said Acentia now has more collaborative space as well as room to grow, as it plans to add employees and to consider acquisitions. The company, which has about 400 of its 700 employees in the Washington region, has offices in Chantilly, Laurel, Lanham and in the Bailey’s Crossroads area of Fairfax. Liz Povar, director of business development at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said Acentia fits within a strategic sector Virginia is trying to attract. “This IT sector — and particularly companies that deal both with the federal government as well as private industry — is a target business for us,” she said. Though the state did not provide Acentia funding (which often comes in the form of incentive grants), the Virginia Jobs Investment Program will lend training and recruitment support, according to Povar. Acentia’s move, while smaller in scope, follows several recent victories for Virginia, which has been overtly competing against Maryland to draw and retain companies. Defense contractor Northrop, which formally opened its doors last year, was one of the most high profile. Additionally, engineering, construction and project management firm Bechtel said last year it would relocate its global operations headquarters from Frederick County to Fairfax County, adding 625 jobs. Stirring the pot further, Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell hinted on a radio program last year that state officials had reached out to Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, after a dust-up between the company and Montgomery County officials. Gerald L. Gordon, president and chief executive of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, said Acentia’s move, as well as other recent relocations, helps state and county officials attract others. “Part of our business is reality — the reality of what we sell and good neighborhoods and good schools,” he said. “Part of it is also the perceptions that we create of those benefits and so when a company like Acentia comes down here, we are now able to say to their colleagues, ‘They came to Fairfax County because they could find the labor force and be supported there.’ ” Steven A. Silverman, director of the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, said the choice often comes down to price. “In this marketplace, individual company decisions are being more and more driven by the cost of leased space than anything that has to do with the business climate,” he said. “You can’t minimize the amount of vacant space across the river.”

_Kevin Freiberg, Jackie Freiberg and Dain Dunston are co-authors of the book “Nanovation: How a Little Car Can Teach the World to Think Big & Act Bold.”_ In 1900, it wasn’t obvious that we needed a replacement for horses. After all, horses were all-terrain vehicles that got the job done. So, when car’s arrived, they were greeted with far less fanfare than, say, the iPad, and were all but dismissed as dirty, noisy and unnecessary. The shift to computers was much the same. When the machines first started hitting desktops, everyone knew at least one writer who turned up their nose and treated the phrase “word processor” like a four-letter word. These are likely the same writers who are madly texting their grandkids on their smart phones today. Paradigm shifts are like that. They’re hard to see until they’re past you, and even harder to lead. Given this, you probably haven’t noticed we’re in the middle of just such a shift today. It’s well known that the line between computers and cars is blurring. Our cars require complex diagnostic checks, make phone calls, and communicate with satellites. But, even with all of these new technological bells and whistles, our cars are still not 100-percent emission free. So, how can America best position itself to lead the clean-vehicle-technology paradigm shift? We studied the Nano — a real car built by Tata Motors that sells in India for $2,100 — to find out. Based on our findings, we see three key steps individuals and the nation need to take. Questioning the unquestionable can lead to a game-changing solution. For example, when the makers of the Nano saw entire families riding—and crashing—motor scooters in India, they didn’t ask if it was possible to ban scooters. Instead, they asked, “How can we build a safe car that sells for the price of a motor scooter?” It was an audacious question that redefined the problem, and it was a goal industry experts had deemed unachievable. Fuel efficiency makes sense. It reduces emissions, lowers consumer costs and helps reduce dependence on foreign oil. But about 80 percent of the energy you put in your gas tank goes unused. Engineers like David Foster at the University of Wisconsin are working on improving that, but they have only shown incremental improvements on that percentage. What if we had settled for only an incremental improvement in nuclear technology? The World War II history books would look very different. We need a Manhattan Project for fuel efficiency. An undertaking of this magnitude could significantly increase the amount of energy squeezed from a gallon of fuel. Less is only more when it’s better. Take Wal-Mart, for example. The company’s success is based on wringing every unnecessary cost out of the supply chain. Team Nano’s goal was even more ambitious: to take 70 percent of the cost out of every part and sub-system in the car. Suppliers got in on the act, too—from Germany’s Bosch to America’s GE, Delphi, TRW and Visteon. Together, they discovered that enforcing elegant design made everything in the car lighter, stronger and cheaper. This resulted in a new paradigm in car development and manufacturing: The horsepower wars are over and the smart wars are beginning. Lighter vehicles use less fuel, and lighter vehicles that capture more energy from a gallon of gas use even less. Land Rover, also owned by Tata Motors, just announced they’ll take 1,100 pounds out of their top-of-the-line Range Rover without reducing interior space. The lessons learned while taking weight and cost out of the world’s cheapest car let them do the same with one of the world’s most expensive. Getting 50 percent (or more) efficiency out of a gallon of fuel is beyond the capability of current technology. But think of the rate of technological change in the quarter century from the first Apple computer to the end of the Internet bubble in 2000. Then, think of the change in the eleven years since. We’ve gone through more than a quarter century of change in a decade and the changes of the next decade will dwarf the changes we’ve seen since the first PC. Most people know about Moore’s Law, which says that computing power doubsles every 18 to 24 months. Now, meet Koomey’s Law, named after Dr. Jon Koomey of Stanford University, which says the amount of electricity needed to run a computer is halved every 18 months. Project that forward a decade. Can automotive engine efficiency increase that quickly? Not yet, but that doesn’t mean the rates of change won’t still be geometric. This is a critical decade for innovation in general, but particularly when it comes to cleaning up our cars’ emissions. It will require doing more with less, and it starts with gutsy leaders willing to boldly acknowledge the oncoming paradigm shift rather than settle for the status quo.

**The big idea:** Recovering and recycling one’s own products is not only good for the environment but can also be profitable. **The scenario:** With sales of $2.8 billion in 2010, Sandvik Tooling is the world leader in cemented carbide inserts (the critical component of advanced metal cutting tools). Sandvik Tooling is part of Sandvik, a global high- technology group in Sweden. In 1996, the company launched a program for recovering its inserts, called the Coromant Recycling Concept, coined after Sandvik Tooling’s leading brand, Coromant. The program was organized as a global stand-alone project: A new reverse supply chain was created. The rationale was to show that this activity was profitable and to recognize the differences between the forward and the reverse chains. The forward supply chain for Sandvik focused on responsiveness, enabling the company to deliver inserts to more than 200,000 customers within 24 hours almost anywhere in the world. The reverse supply chain, on the other hand, focused on cost efficiency and low environmental impact (low CO2 emissions) through slower but high-volume transport modes. In 2010, 14 years after its launch, the recycling business was operating profitably, but in many countries, a ceiling prevented the company from recovering more than 50 percent of its products. In addition, Sandvik had a hard time promoting the CRC to its sales organization. Sales teams considered dealing with recycled inserts as counterproductive to meeting their sales objectives. Insert recovery did not affect their compensation. As such, they did not appreciate the strategic value of recycling, which enables Sandvik to have greater control over its supply of materials. (China is the largest producer of tungsten, the key element in the inserts.) The fact that the take-back and recycling business was small made these issues hard to address. Sandvik’s forward business sells knowledge, and its solutions are priced many times the cost of material. Therefore, a stand-alone recycling business had no chance to compete with the forward business. Should Sandvik accept that take-back and recycling, like many environmentally oriented activities, would remain marginal? Should it abandon it? Or should it transform and relaunch it? **The resolution:** In 2011, the company decided to integrate the CRC into the normal selling process so that a new “value chain offer” could be promoted to customers. Program enhancements were introduced under which customers were allowed to offset part of their tooling bills with their take-back payments. Resellers, who in the United States handle 90 percent of Sandvik Coromant’s sales, were closely involved. In 2011, Sandvik Coromant U.S. was the largest market of the company for total recycled volume, as well as for recycled volume as a percentage of weight sold. In fact, this past year, the U.S. organization recycled twice the volume sold to its customers! (Sandvik also recycles its competitors’ inserts.) **The lesson:** Deciding to recycle one’s products is much more than adding a new business. Its genuine value is not the stand-alone value of a typical recycling business but instead often comes from the potential opportunities to reconfigure the existing business. **— Gal Raz and Michel Schlosser ** Raz is a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Schlosser is an expert in sustainable global leadership at Darden’s Batten Institute.

To no one’s surprise, Charlie Rose is no alarm clock, and “CBS This Morning,” the network’s umpteenth approach to the morning show format, is a gentle nudge. Lots of news in its first hour and remedial pop-culture chitchat, courtesy of Gayle King, in its second hour. And a third anchor, Erica Hill, bridging a gap labeled “etc.” It will take some time for “CBS This Morning” to locate its proper place in the realm of TV’s crowded and buzz-addicted field of morning brew-haha, but it’s easy to predict that once that place is found, the show still won’t be atop the ratings. That’s not to say that “CBS This Morning’s” debut Monday was bad. It’s just that the daily morning slot is and may forever be CBS’s mysterious anemia. The network may dominate prime time, and it can deliver a solid nightly newscast (courtesy of Scott Pelley); “60 Minutes” will never be equaled, and CBS has no problems with its late-night lineup (David Letterman, Craig Ferguson); it even possesses a rare jewel in “CBS Sunday Morning,” a “This American Life” for people well past their hipster years. But weekday mornings just weren’t meant to sizzle here. It’s as if this were fatefully predetermined years ago, when the pioneers of television started erecting transmitter towers. I wouldn’t blame CBS for one day deciding to let its success in other time slots speak for itself and try rebooting “Captain Kangaroo.” (A job either Rose or King might also be interested in, though Rose is more of a Mr. Green Jeans.) Acknowledging this state of affairs is a better solution than trying to deny it or eradicate it with marketing, which is how Rose got here — and he seemed happy enough Monday to sit at a round glass table on “CBS This Morning’s” bricky new set, with its see-through green room and its restauranty vibe. Rose’s voice and demeanor, which have for so long been a certain viewer’s idea of nightly televised melatonin, are just as pleasant to stir awake to — if not exactly encouraging you to jump out of bed. The first hour was an informative jog through New Hampshire and Tuesday’s Republican primary vote. Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich beamed in (Taped earlier? Live? It was difficult to know) to swipe a bit more at Mitt Romney’s “pious baloney” (Sunday’s trending campaign jargon) and wish “CBS This Morning” success. “I know you’re going to do a tremendous job,” Gingrich told Rose. Near the end of the news report, Pelley dropped by with addenda to his “60 Minutes” story that aired the night before, a startling and typically outrageous investigation into the phony stem-cell market. Rose looked a little tired, chasing camera cues and shuffling papers, but who wouldn’t? I’ve been on the sets of morning shows, and all of them feel a little like a packed bus, filled with anchors and guests (And movie stars, and animals, and saute pans!), careening off a cliff, even on a slow day. It’s hard to hold on for dear life _and_ make meaningful small talk. At one point, teasing to a spot about Beyonce’s new baby, Rose said the blessed event “has been called a huge Twitter topic that Twitter friends have been tweeting.” That sort of techie malapropism drives the young folks cray cray, but it is just my speed for 7 a.m.: Slowwww and steady, a little caffeine with an Aleve chaser. Not all of us can spar with “Morning Joe”; not at this hour. And at least “CBS This Morning” isn’t an empty gabfest. I’ve never understood morning TV’s trend toward the hyperactive, but then again, a brand new day has never caused me the panic and consumer anxiety (Allergies! Cholesterol! Missing toddlers!) that most morning TV, especially the “Today” show, likes to sell. To that end, “CBS This Morning” could do with a great deal more looseness and departure from format — the freedom to be in last place and to do a show with calm confidence and even some sense of surprise. By the time King took over the 8 o’clock hour for the lighter fare, “CBS This Morning” still looked too much like a garden-variety morning show: Speculative infotainment on the Duchess of Cambridge’s 30th birthday and all that, interrupted by the onslaught of commercial breaks that mar morning shows in the latter half. “I was up at 2:31 [a.m.]!” King said, marveling at the cruel fate of this job — a cushy prison of crack-o’-dawn cheer. She was talking to singer Melissa Etheridge, who, King noted, had “nothing to promote. You just want to join the conversation.” Which Etheridge did, explaining why celebrities such as Beyonce need entire hospital wings in which to give birth and how pretty Adele’s singing voice is. Then, after CBS’s “Good Wife” star Julianna Margulies was interviewed, the anchors seemed to run out of things to say. A long piece about Dick Van Dyke was apparently pegged to the fact that, eons ago, he hosted the CBS morning show with Walter Cronkite. It was a disaster, the now 86-year-old Van Dyke recalled. What’s the message there? That it was ever thus? “It’s the first day of school,” King said of Monday’s broadcast before the trio signed off. “I hope we get good grades.” Oh, Gayle. Nobody gets graded on the first day of school. You’re on CBS, girlfriend, in the _morning_. You’ll get plenty of points for just showing up. (two hours) airs weekdays at 7 a.m. on CBS.

Officially, the Consumer Electronics Show runs from Tuesday through Friday, but the show sort of started Sunday, when some companies put their best products on display. Acer offered up some big announcements in advance of the show, unveiling its new ultrabook, or ultrathin notebook — the Acer Aspire S5 — and, as VentureBeat reported, a new iCloud-like service called AcerCloud. The notebook, which Acer claims is the thinnest ultrabook on the market at around 0.6 inches, has a 13.3-inch LCD screen and lets users work with the computer using their smartphones. That feature, called the Acer Always Connect, works even when the computer is asleep. The notebook will have the Thunderbolt port that was introduced in March with 2011’s MacBook Pros, a solid-state hard drive for fast booting, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port. And it’s designed to weigh less than 3.1 pounds. The price is yet to be announced. Acer also introduced a new quad-core tablet, amping up the processing power for commercial tablets by using the Nvidia Tegra 3 to power the 10.1-inch device. The Iconia Tab, sadly, does not yet have a price or a release date. An ever-increasing number of Internet-connected devices have come to the forefront at CES in recent years, and this year is no different. One of the products that made a splash at this year’s preview was the Body Media exercise and diet tracker, software that personalizes what you can to with the company’s existing armband. Body Media’s FIT coach will track your calories, sleep and activity to help you lose weight. Another product that drew a lot of attention was the 3M Touch system, a 46-inch display that could be the desk or coffee table of the future. The technology will look familiar to anyone who’s been to a Microsoft store and played around with the company’s Surface technology, but Engadget reported that the 3M Touch prototype impressed demo testers with the responsiveness of its screen. The company told the blog that it will release the product in an educational setting first. Related stories: CES 2012: Top trends to watch Capital Business — CES 2012: The perils of ubiquity CES 2012: Google TV devices coming from LG, Sony and Vizio

The plan was simple. Spend an evening on a vehicle-accessible beach at the Outer Banks roasting marshmallows and surf casting. With our old SUV and three children in tow, we headed out to a narrow stretch of sand that extends into the Atlantic. We started a small fire and enjoyed marshmallows while my husband immersed himself in surf casting. As the tide started to come in, we paid little attention to our surroundings. Glancing up from my duties of s’more construction, I saw something that horrified me: The incoming tide had created a growing river that was quickly separating us, our SUV and our tiny piece of sand from the mainland. I yelled in panic to my husband; we quickly loaded the car and started the engine. My oldest son, sensing our panic, nervously asked, “What are we going to do about that really big river, Dad?” My husband calmly replied, “We’re going to hydroplane. Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.” In my mind I started to mentally construct my conversation with the insurance agent. Is an “accidentally” marooned vehicle covered under our policy? With the skill of Evel Knievel (in his mind), my husband backed up our truck as far as it would go on that shrinking spit of sand. He turned to me and grinned, leaned into the pedal and plowed clear across a three-foot-deep river of foam and froth. The children screamed as water sprayed everywhere. My daughter remarked, “Let’s remember to put the windows up the next time we hydroplane.” What had started out as a simple plan for an evening at the beach turned awry and ended as an unforgettable moment in the annals of our family history. **Anne Sullivan** **Vienna** My plan was to remove from her scrapbook, an artifact from the very day I met my wife, Cara, and have it framed to surprise her for our 25th anniversary. A week or so before our anniversary, I had taken the french-fry bag from her scrapbook and had it framed and matted. This important relic was from a fast-food restaurant that my wife had scribbled her name and phone number on for me the day we met. I was going to surprise her with what I thought would be a romantic gift for our milestone. After picking up the perfectly framed item, I returned home and stashed it away to wait out the few days before our upcoming anniversary. The night before the big day, we were watching television, and out of nowhere my wife decided to do some scrapbooking while we watched TV. I was sitting behind her on the couch shaking my head and frowning, knowing what was about to happen, when she opened the very book that once held the bag that I had framed and hidden away. She quickly panicked and turned to me, saying, “Where’s the french fry bag?” I retrieved the now-framed item, handed it to her and said, “Happy anniversary, honey.” My plan had gone completely awry! **Mike Lambert,** **Seaford, Del.** **Query: Tell us about a time when a simple plan went awry.** _The Washington Post is partnering with the Public Insight Network (PIN) to hear more of your 100 percent true stories from your own experience. Submit your answer to the query above online atwapo.st/ed-query. By sharing, you become part of PIN, 130,000 people who contribute to high-quality journalism. Editors will choose an entry to run in the Magazine, but we will also share more of your stories online. You can also submit to The Washington Post Magazine, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 to recount your story in 250 words or fewer. Include your daytime phone number._

Weddings are going to cost you — and the question of how much isn’t just cash? Here, a round-up of columnist Carolyn Hax’s advice on sticking to a budget, who should pay and how to keep dollars from getting between you and family. **May 2010: Make wedding plans with everyone’s finances in mind** _My girlfriend and I just got engaged and now it’s time to start the wedding planning. What would you say is customary and appropriate as far as paying the bill these days? Should it be split evenly? Divided proportionally by guests? Is the bride’s family still expected to foot the majority of the bill? Thanks!_ Thank you so much for asking, because it gives me a chance to say: Pleeeease start your planning with the goal of paying for the whole thing yourselves. Not with credit cards, either, but with your savings. If you have no savings, then read that as a message to start managing your money like the grown-ups you are. If you have only enough savings to pay for a small wedding, then read that as a message to live the life you can afford, and have a small wedding. If you have enough savings to stage a Wedzilla for the ages, then use that as a discussion starter about treating the things you need as the base line for your decisions, and not whatever shiny things you can have. And if your families respond to your minimalist wedding plans with offers to help with the costs, treat that extra money as a frill. Think in terms of fashion, or home decorating: Pick what reflects who you are, and refuse the rest. Besides, any gift comes with strings; even if your families don’t use money as a means of hijacking your plans, taking something from them now that you don’t need may keep you from getting something later that you do need. If all this sounds anti-fun, then consider asking around -- include your fiancee, and see how people feel now about their weddings large and small. Ask people in happy marriages, strained ones, even veterans of failed ones. If you find you identify with certain people more than others, you’ll see preferences start to take shape. *** **November 2011: Hey, there’s a string attached to this money! ** _My fiance and I are eating crow in a major way. My parents were paying for most of our spring wedding, but we were butting heads over certain things, such as their insistence that we invite a number of irrelevant family members and acquaintances of theirs instead of our own third-tier friends. We had a falling-out last month that ended with me saying we would plan and pay for the wedding ourselves._ _They backed off. Well, as it turns out we cannot swing it ourselves. Not even close. Fiance is neutral but I’m torturing myself trying to decide whether to grovel for help and accept the strings that come along with it._ Please please please please PLEEEEEEASE greet this challenge by having the wedding you can afford, and not one frill or bubble more. It can be intimate and beautiful and a love letter from each of you to the other, which is what a wedding ought to be anyway, at least at its heart. SO much cooler than groveling. Even though I’m groveling to you. But that’s different. Plus, developing and owning a habit of living within your means is a love letter from each of you to your marriage, and, if you have them, to your kids someday. *** **June 2001: You can’t sell tickets to your wedding ** _Young couple (one of them is the offspring of one of us), have been living together several years, are now planning a wedding they clearly can’t afford. But that’s their call._ _A couple of weeks ago they announced they will be “collecting the money” for the cost-per-person of the reception dinner. After we got over our shock, we tried to tell them nicely that they can’t sell tickets to their wedding. Gave them the benefit of the doubt, thought perhaps they were acting on bad advice, or really did not know any better. Bad (defensive) reaction from the groom, implying we are the only ones who have a problem with this._ _Our first attempt at damage control was to offer the money for the reception as our wedding gift. Offered, but not insisted -- accept or decline, we would respect their_ _decision. No response. Hubby is ready to boycott the wedding, which risks a serious rift. I am more inclined to shut up, pay up, and refrain from offering any further advice, ever. My question to you, and your “peanuts”: were we wrong to point out that hosts DO NOT charge admission, ever? If we didn’t speak up, who would? Did we make it worse by offering the money? Any advice on where to go from here?_ Oh boy do I feel your pain. I also think you did what you could, and you were right about all of it. Have you tried repeating the offer privately to your offspring alone? Or maybe suggesting a form of arbitration, in which you agree to abide by the judgment of a neutral third party? Otherwise, I don’t see you have much choice but to wince and go. Their humiliating themselves will be difficult for you, but not as difficult as the fallout from not going. *** **September 2011: Post-wedding financial woes ** _I just learned that my husband feels our recent wedding celebration was not worth the money. It came up because an engaged couple asked for our views in the context of their own spending, and that’s the view my husband plans to share with them. I am a little defensive because I feel like he’s bailing on decisions we made jointly — we planned the wedding together, equally, and I recall him being happy with everything at the time._ _I guess I’m hurt that he now regrets something we did together. Is that a fair thing to say to him? How about in front of this other couple?_ _— Disagreeing about money in public_ It sounds as if you’re putting emotions where his money is. Unless he’s actually blaming you for making expensive decisions that he was a party to making, I don’t think his regrets necessarily mean he’s “bailing.” His experience might simply have told him that 50 of the 150 guests didn’t really add anything because he had no time to enjoy them, and that the most moving parts of the day, for him, were the ones that would have been the same at a $5,000 wedding as a $500,000 wedding — seeing you come down the aisle, the vows, your favorite music playing at the reception, the look on Mom’s face, having your closest friends and family laughing it up with his. If (IF) that’s what he wants to say to this other couple, then I hope he does, and then goes on to preach it far and wide. It would make sense, though, for you to ask him to explain his views a bit, and warn him that your reflexive response so far has been to feel hurt and defensive. Just don’t go into that conversation assuming that because he has a negative opinion on the budget, he has a negative opinion on the whole wedding experience. Again, it could just mean that the good time he had and the memories he took away can be bought for less than you and he spent. And if it turns out he is shifting blame to you, then this is an even more important thing for you both to wrestle with openly. Whether he’s failing to own his own choices, or you failed to listen to him when he was objecting gently to expenditures, or a combination of both, this is a communication issue that will keep piling up consequences until you figure out how to resolve it. **MoreWeddings and Engagements:** The holiday engagement boom is a wedding industry dream come true Photos: Marriage proposals in the movies Photos: Celebrity weddings and divorces of 2011 Photos: Wedding trends for 2012 Photos: How to choose a diamond Engagement stories: Upload a photo and share the story of your marriage proposal Timeline: When and how to plan your wedding Getting married in the Washington area? Tell us your story to be featured in On Love.

BAGHDAD — A terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaeda has asserted responsibility for 37 recent attacks in Iraq’s capital, including what the organization called a failed attempt to assassinate the prime minister, as violence continued throughout the country Monday. The latest attacks — targeting Shiite pilgrims, police officers, at least one army officer and a bank executive — heightened fears in a country reeling from a series of bombings in the wake of the departure of U.S. troops last month. Iraq also remains locked in a political crisis, a large part of it being played out along sectarian lines. On Monday, five people were killed and 32 were injured in a car bombing outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, according to security officials speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. A blast 30 minutes earlier killed seven people and injured 19 in the capital, the officials said. Also, the chairman of a private bank and her husband were fatally shot inside their garage by men with silencer-equipped pistols, the officials said. On Monday evening, two bombs blew up near a federal police patrol in Baghdad’s Jasr Diala neighborhood, injuring three officers and three civilians, security officials said. About the same time, a bomb exploded under a car in the city’s al-Qahera neighborhood, wounding two men. To the west of Baghdad, in the Fallujah area, a soldier was killed and three others were injured near a military base when a bomb exploded under his vehicle. And a member of the Sons of Iraq, a group of Sunni fighters who helped U.S. troops battle forces of the organization al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a blast near the gate of his house, said Lt. Col. Najim al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for Anbar province’s operations command. South of Baghdad, attacks continued against at least two groups of Shiite pilgrims. One person was killed and at least 22 were injured, according to security officials. Othman al-Ghanimi, head of the middle Euphrates operations command, said forces stopped an explosives-laden car and arrested the driver, who was carrying a special badge authorizing him to enter the holy city of Karbala, where the pilgrims are headed. It was not clear whether anyone had asserted responsibility for the Monday attacks. But the earlier attacks were the work of the Islamic State of Iraq, the al- Qaeda affiliate asserted on Internet message forums, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a monitoring service. The group said that on Nov. 28, a bomber exploited a security “loophole” in Baghdad’s Green Zone and drove an explosives-laden vehicle inside with the intent of striking Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to SITE. But the vehicle detonated prematurely outside the parliament building, the SITE report said. The Islamic State of Iraq also asserted responsibility for a Dec. 26 bombing outside Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which houses the country’s internal security forces, and for a wave of bombings in Baghdad on Dec. 22. The group said the attacks were carried out as revenge for the detention of Sunnis in Shiite prisons, according to SITE. Iskander Witwit, a ranking member of the parliament’s security and defense committee, cautioned against accepting the terrorist group’s assertions of responsibility for the bombing outside parliament. He said officials continue to investigate the attack. Ali Hadi al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Maliki, said the prime minister was targeted because he is committed to “the destruction of al-Qaeda.” He added that al-Qaeda in Iraq “may perpetrate crimes, but that will only increase the unity of the Iraqi people.” Moussawi said lapses in Green Zone security have been addressed. The terrorist group has bragged in its Internet postings about its ability “to penetrate the complicated military and security complex of the fortified Green Zone, which the Crusader enemy had spent billions upon,” according to SITE. Referring to the November attack, the terrorists said that in “His wisdom,” God intervened as the driver was on the way to Maliki’s office by “creating a specific defect so that the vehicle exploded while it was parked behind the entrance of the parliament, causing the death and wounding of many people,” according to SITE. Sterling Jensen, who studies the Islamic State of Iraq at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, said the group is targeting Shiites to create the impression that it is defending Sunnis. “It is a sign they want sectarian violence to increase,” he said. Joost Hiltermann, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group, said “it’s too early to tell” whether the organization is getting stronger. The group is Sunni-based, motivated by a hatred of Shiite power and Iran, and it sees Iran as controlling Iraq’s government, Hiltermann said. The terrorists are trying to instigate Iraqi security forces to strike back against the country’s Sunni population — igniting a full-scale sectarian war, he said. “They want to create a chaotic situation,” Hiltermann added. Special correspondents Aziz Alwan and Asaad Majeed in Baghdad contributed to this report. **More world news coverage:** \- Iran sentences American to death \- In Yemen's crisis, children suffer most \- Promise of Iraq’s economy still unfulfilled \- Read more headlines from around the world

I “Tebowed” for the first time Sunday evening — actually, I was cleaning up after the cat — but it was around the same time the (yes, I’m going to say it) miraculous quarterback Tim Tebow led Denver to a 29-23 overtime victory over Pittsburgh, and I certainly was grateful to whoever was responsible for finally giving us a game worth watching this weekend. I’m speaking from a disinterested observer perspective, of course. If you had a team in the mix, of course your game was the most fascinating of all time, and I congratulate the winners and console the losers. Though how Falcons fans sat through that mess Sunday afternoon is beyond me. By the time the Denver-Pittsburgh game rolled around, I was expecting an early blowout and a chance to clear some programming off my DVR. I should have known never to count out the most controversial NFL quarterback since Joe Namath. Tim Tebow played the best game of his short but never dull career and capped it off with a remarkable touchdown throw on the first play of overtime. (I’d like to interrupt this column to mock at least three presidential candidates who thought the national college championship game was being played Saturday night during yet another of their debates, but I can’t. Scheduling the championship game after the NFL playoffs have started is a huge mistake on the part of the Bowl Championship Series, whose motto might as well be “Making huge mistakes since 1998.” The playoffs would have overshadowed the championship game in any case; then along came Tebow. Is anyone paying attention today, besides alums of both schools and ESPN?) There will be grousing about the Broncos hosting a playoff game with an 8-8 record when Pittsburgh was 12-4. Last year, the Seattle Seahawks threatened the integrity of the NFL playoffs. Remember? They “captured” the NFC West crown with a less-than-impressive 7-9 record and — gasp! — won the right to host a playoff game. The New Orleans Saints, the defending Super Bowl champions, came calling. What was supposed to be a bloodbath turned into a 41-36 Seattle victory that included one of the highlight reel runs in recent memory by Marshawn Lynch. This year the Broncos backed into the playoffs so dramatically they actually made a loud beeping sound. They lost their final three games and won the AFC West only because the Raiders couldn’t beat the Chargers in their finale. (Are both instances unfair? Well, they are products of the current system: win a division, host a playoff game. If you want home-field advantage, win your division — or change the system. The Rooneys could do it just that — or they could sic The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Roger Goodell. She’s family, after all.) Listen, I don’t care if Tebow takes a knee, or points to the sky, or does the downward facing dog. I don’t care if he thanks the Lord during interviews. I don’t care if he wears those strange vests after the game. If he can find a way to play consistently, to make Sunday’s performance a typical Tebow performance, then he can silence the critics who say he’s not an NFL quarterback and that he’ll never be an NFL quarterback and that this season’s successes have been flukes and this season’s failures have been the real thing. For a long time I looked on, interested but detached, to see what would happen. Sunday’s performance made me care. John Elway seems able to tolerate Tebow now. (As a Chiefs fan, I love to see Elway unhappy, even in retirement). He told him to “pull the trigger” against the Steelers, and that was surprisingly effective advice. Tebow — the kid who can’t throw — completed some of the longest passes given up against the Steelers this season. The play call in overtime was brilliant: The Steelers were beaten before they knew what happened, and Tebow has another chance at the mighty Patriots, who humiliated the Broncos last month. He’s a media nightmare because he doesn’t really answer questions, but he deflects them by praising his teammates, the game plan, the fans. That’s why his teammates, fans and finally even his coaches love him. He took a victory lap around the stadium Sunday evening; who doesn’t like a victory lap? Which Tebow will show up Saturday night against New England? Whichever one it is, it should be entertaining. And that’s all I ask of these playoffs. **More from** Post Sports: Crediting John 3:16, John Elway and John Fox **The real Tebow:** ‘Everything you see is true’ **Matchups:** Broncos at Patriots **When Tim met Tom:** Brady on Tebow **Tebow and Roethlisberger:** God’s QBs

_The 2012 North American International Auto Show opened in Detroit on Saturday, and one early winner at the show was Hyundai, whose Elantra beat out the Ford Focus and Volkswagen Passat to win North American Car of the Year. As APreported:_ The prestigious industry award was announced at the start of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which hosts media previews this week and opens to the public on Saturday. The Land Rover Range Rover Evoque won the North American Truck of the Year, beating the BMW X3 and Honda CR-V. The Evoque, which starts at $43,995, gets an estimated 18 miles per gallon in city driving and 28 mpg on the highway. Jaguar Land Rover North America President Andy Goss said it’s a tremendous honor and humbling for the company, which has had had finalists but never a winner in the 19th annual independent awards program. “We’re going to market the hell out of this,” said a smiling Goss on a stage above the four-cylinder sport-utility vehicle. The U.S. is the world’s largest Range Rover market. Fifty automotive journalists voted on the winning vehicles from a group of finalists, and the vehicles must be all new or substantially changed to be eligible. Organizers accept no advertising, though automakers capitalize on the marketing value of the honors. _Also looking to boost its brand is Ford, which unveiled its next-generation Ford Fusion at the auto show. As Cars.comreported:_ Car shoppers returned to family sedans in December, and a fresh round of products will greet them in 2012. Ford kicks things off with the next-generation Fusion, which hits U.S. dealers this fall and international markets as the Mondeo in early 2013. Ford says 70% of consumers see midsize sedans as a lookalike group, and 43% who trade theirs in say they did so just to have something different. The Fusion cuts through this, falling into Kia Optima and Hyundai Sonata territory for outside-the-box styling. Design cues mirror the Evos Concept from last year's Frankfurt Motor Show, with thin headlamps that sweep clear toward the front fenders and a low, forward grille. The beltline stays visually flat — in contrast to the rising lines on most sedans — and the bumper runs flush with the trunk lid, with integrated tailpipes beneath. Wheels range from 16 to 19 inches, and trim levels include the S, SE and Titanium. There will also be Fusion Hybrid and plug-in Energi models; the Energi arrives closer to the end of the year. Inside, the Fusion adopts MyFord Touch with a few more physical keys, as well as detents to help your fingers find the touch points. Thinner seats free up rear legroom, and Ford says it moved the dash closer to the windshield for an "airy, open environment" — a different tack from the larger Taurus, which is anything but. High-tech safety options rival many luxury cars, with lane departure warning and mitigation systems, drowsy-driver detection and adaptive cruise control with forward collision warning. A blind spot warning system, cross-traffic alert and Ford's automatic parking system are also optional. _Cadillac is also using the Detroit Auto Show to showcase a new model it hopes can compete with BMW’s 3-series and the Audi A4, the Cadillac ATS. As Cars.comexplained:_ Cadillac had fighting words backing up the ATS , a car that GM North America president Mark Reuss said will challenge German supremacy in the sport-sedan segment. Touting the brand's latest small sedan, Reuss said the ATS is "the most mass-efficient car in its segment," with a curb weight of well under 3,400 pounds. The proof will be in the driving, but the ATS fits the Cadillac lineup and it doesn't look deliberately scaled down. More 2012 Detroit Auto Show Coverage Photos don't do the headlights justice. They're intriguing. They sweep over the fenders, ending above the front axle, and there’s a bit of first-gen CTS in their character. It's a cool look. A shoulder line appears under the C-pillar, sweeping around the tail. It looks OK, but I found the rear too busy and a bit forgettable. The wheels max out at 18 inches — appropriate here, if smaller than some rivals' wheels — to keep unsprung weight down, Cadillac says. Cabin materials are good — BMW 3 Series good — with available carbon fiber and stitched panels atop the dash and doors. An official told me it’s faux leather, and it feels more tautly stretched than the ultra-padded faux-leather dash in the CTS. But it fits the character of a sport sedan, and all the important areas – where your knees would dig into during hard corners, for example — are padded. I’m sold. **More fromThe Washington Post ** 2013 Dodge Dart to start at $15,995, 40 MPG Nissan PAthfinder Concept at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show Nissan e-NV200 Concept at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show

DURHAM, N.H. — The libertarian prophet of American decline arrived at a Granite State auditorium Friday evening with no fanfare and few bodyguards. “Dr. Paul?” said a man near the door, who in the past three years had gone from believing in Barack Obama to believing that the country is sliding toward total economic and social collapse. Christopher Way, 32, a technician for the event, held out a microphone to the man he hopes will become president. “Is this mine?” Ron Paul asked, taking it, smiling slightly at the new convert and walking onstage, where he drew long cheers from an audience full of Christopher Ways, an eclectic mix of young and mostly white men who were not just undeterred by the candidate’s third-place finish in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, but somehow more motivated by it. “The job of a president is to protect your freedom,” Paul told them. “It isn’t to run the world, it isn’t to run the economy, and it isn’t to run your life.” Way, a new husband and new father who said he wants more than anything in the world to be a responsible adult, nodded and clapped. He had already heard Paul speak on C-SPAN dozens of times. He had read and reread the 1970s book “None Dare Call It Conspiracy,” about international banking magnates and the loss of civil liberties, which, he said, “totally relates to today.” He had become steeped in the details of monetary policy, economic bubbles and national security issues, all of which for him add up to an increasingly bleak picture of America — which helps him understand the increasingly trying circumstances of his own life. “Once you see the truth, it can’t be unseen anymore,” Way likes to say. And these days, he is trying to figure out what he is supposed to do about that, about the overwhelming prospect that American civilization is crumbling. He had already bought a 9mm semiautomatic Springfield for protection. He had started stockpiling canned food. And now in the morning mail had come a more immediate reality: a foreclosure notice. As he left the auditorium four days before the New Hampshire primary, he picked up a tall stack of “Ron Paul revolution” brochures and headed into the cold evening. In this Republican primary season of fickle voters, Paul supporters are unique in their steadfast devotion to a man they often see less as a candidate than as a cause. Although doing well in Tuesday’s primary is important to his followers, they also tend to see themselves as players in the grander struggle Paul describes: one in which decades of government expansion, disastrous economic policy, unjustified foreign meddling and lapsing civil liberties threaten to undermine the republic — unless, that is, people wake up from their nanny-state subservience and save the nation from tyranny. It is a dark if oddly energizing vision that has especially resonated with a young, male demographic. According to exit polling, 40 percent of Paul’s Iowa backers were men younger than 45, and 46 percent earned $50,000 a year or less. Roughly nine in 10 Paul supporters are white, similar to the racial makeup of Republicans overall, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls. Anecdotally, Paul’s backers tend mostly to be disillusioned Republicans, although his crowds these days routinely have a smattering of disillusioned Democrats, too, a group that now includes Christopher Way. He has a trim, slightly graying beard and the affable demeanor of a bartender, which he was during his 20s, when he also sang for a band called Good Morning Chester. It was a blissfully nihilistic period that tapered off after he got a job handling classroom technology for the state university and that officially ended when he married his girlfriend. To his surprise, he woke up the next day feeling different — “like I’m committed to this, to something, at least,” he said. And then came the day when a nurse handed him his newborn daughter, Lily, who is 3 now, and a feeling closer to shock came over him. “It was like this rush of realism,” he said. “Like I’m responsible for leading my wife and my baby down a path, for finding our way through. And I thought, ‘What kind of world am I bringing her into?’ ” So he started to read, from the 9/11 Commission report to anarchist tracts to theories about the domination of the financial system by secret networks of global elites. He read about U.S. government experiments on black Americans with syphilis. The Vietnam War. The economic crisis, derivatives, the bank bailout — until he wound up on Paul’s Web site. The smiling, grandfatherly figure focused Way’s newfound skepticism in a manner that struck him as sane, educated and honorable. The preacher of less government, more personal liberty and more personal responsibility had found an audience. “It was just, wow, this guy makes sense, and he’s been making sense for 30 years,” Way said. “I started to feel like doing something.” And that, in turn, led to the recurring question that was on his mind when he woke up Saturday morning: “So, I’m fairly convinced that the government doesn’t have people’s best interests in mind and they’re probably disgusting criminals, okay? So, how do I be a part of a system that disgusts me?” Some days, he’d answer this question by walking around town in a Ron Paul T-shirt and starting conversations. One day, he put on his Springfield and pushed Lily around for a stroll, testing the state’s open-carry gun laws. On this morning three days before the GOP primary, he grabbed his Paul brochures, got into his minivan and drove over to the Hannaford grocery store, where he spent an hour tucking words about liberty under icy windshield wipers in the parking lot. Then he went to a doughnut shop to warm up and thought about the foreclosure notice as he sipped coffee. He was waiting for a call from his lawyer about filing for bankruptcy, which he hoped would allow him and his wife to keep their house. They could no longer afford the mortgage payments since his wife became ill with a muscular disorder and was unable to work. Way was stoic — “I get it, we can’t stay in a house we can’t pay for,” he said, in the libertarian spirit. But the Paul convert now worried about the inherent conflicts between that spirit and other parts of his life. Lily, for instance: He wondered whether he’d messed up her life forever by getting her a Social Security number, which, according to his new worldview, bound her contractually to a dubious system of laws and regulations, but which she needed to get health insurance. His wife: He wondered whether his deepening commitment to Paul was making him a better husband or interfering with his commitment to her. Their finances: He had spent hours thinking about his mortgage situation, which on one hand made him part of a deeply corrupt banking system. On the other hand, precisely because the system was flawed, he might be able to catch a break from one of the mortgage-relief programs. It was all confusing, so he was waiting for a lawyer to help sort it out. His phone rang. “Hello?” Way answered, and stepped outside into the parking lot. The lawyer told him that the bankruptcy could proceed but that it would not save the house. Way’s family would have to leave in a matter of weeks. “I’m not going to cry in my Cheerios over here,” Way said later, shoring himself up as he drove down the highway toward a bar in Manchester to watch the presidential debate with other Paul supporters. He had never been to this sort of Ron Paul meeting, and this was a chance to see who his comrades were. Arriving in Manchester, he drove by the college where the debate would be held; it was a scene of satellite TV trucks and Occupy Wall Street protesters around a jazz ensemble labeled “Leftist Marching Band.” Way rolled down his window. “We’re fighting for you!” one of the protesters yelled at him as he drove on. Finally he pulled up to the bar, a warehouse-like space in an old converted mill where a band called Golden State was playing. To his surprise, it was packed. “God,” Way said, wading into a sea of young, white, male faces and Mylar balloons. “It’s all Ron Paul people.” He passed a guy with blue hair and another in a pinstriped suit. There were people wearing T-shirts that read “Tyranny Response Team” and “I Am Not a Terrorist,” and here came a few Occupy Wall Street protesters. “Strange,” Way said, grabbing a beer and sitting down at a table with two young volunteers, both Republicans for Paul. “Four years ago, it was nothing like this!” Phillip Saxton, 30, yelled over the band. He had come from New York. “So how did you find out about Ron Paul?” “It grew out of a search, really,” Way shouted back. “Yeah, that’s right!” said Nathan Warren, 25, who’d come from Texas. “I remember the first time I read Ayn Rand,” he said, referring to the literary heroine of libertarianism. Way nodded, although he had not yet gotten to Rand. “Once you see the message, it’s hard to go back,” he yelled, trying to connect. “When I heard about Ron Paul and liberty, it was like a self- discovery,” Saxton said, and Way mostly listened as the two talked about their journeys away from an establishment in which they felt powerless and into a world of ideas where they were encouraged to tote guns, stockpile food, take responsibility and reclaim their power as citizens. Way’s phone rang — his wife. He stepped away, then returned as the faces of the candidates appeared on at least a dozen large-screen TVs around the bar. He watched quietly as others cheered Paul and heckled Mitt Romney with “I don’t want you to lead me!” Afterward, the band introduced Tom Woods, “a rock star in the libertarian movement.” “I [expletive] love Tom Woods!” an apparently drunk man yelled toward the stage. “How many of you can say that Ron Paul changed your way of looking at the world?” Woods yelled into the crowd. People cheered. Way yawned. It was late, and he was exhausted. He was losing his house. His wife was upset. He looked around the room at young men getting drunk, at band members, at a table of chicken fingers. It all reminded him of his 20s, of a frat party he’d outgrown. “I don’t need to listen to this guy anymore,” he said as Woods went on. He was happy to see the big crowd for Paul. He was hopeful about Paul’s chances Tuesday and beyond. “The momentum is definitely there,” he said. “The movement for liberty is growing.” And Way had become serious about that. He would liberate himself. He left the bar and walked outside. He needed to get home. Staff polling analyst Scott Clement contributed to this report.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — No one has campaigned harder in New Hampshire this past week than Rick Santorum. But has the Republican former senator from Pennsylvania fallen into the same trap that ensnared Mike Huckabee four years ago? There is something alluring about New Hampshire and its storied presidential primary. The gravitational pull of the state’s history, its tradition and the clutch of media that descend on the state during primary week can be irresistible, particularly to a dark-horse candidate who springs a surprise in Iowa. But there is also the cruel reality that, for Santorum, South Carolina looms as a more crucial test for his candidacy. In New Hampshire, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is the clear favorite to win. The electorate here includes a smaller percentage of social and religious conservatives who were key to Santorum’s success in Iowa. Would Santorum have been better off spending the bulk of his time since Iowa burrowing into South Carolina rather than New Hampshire? Four years ago, Huckabee won Iowa and was faced with a decision similar to the one Santorum confronted. The former Arkansas governor opted to make a play for New Hampshire (and later Michigan) rather than heading south to plant a flag in South Carolina. His reward? He finished a distant third, with just 11 percent of the vote. When the Palmetto State voted a few weeks later, Huckabee narrowly lost to Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), effectively ending his hopes of winning the GOP nomination. Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who had parked in South Carolina after Iowa and received enough votes there to destroy Huckabee’s chances of beating McCain, also hurt him. It’s impossible to say whether the outcome would have been different had Huckabee spent more time in South Carolina. But the 11 percent he received in New Hampshire hardly provided the kind of springboard he needed, and the time he spent here and later in Michigan cost him precious days on the ground in South Carolina. Santorum now faces the same issue. He rolled into New Hampshire last week with enthusiasm and confidence. His showing in Iowa, which far exceeded any expectations, made him the candidate in the spotlight, the Republican with the potential to grab the coveted designation as the conservative alternative to Romney. Two things happened. His hopes of dominating the news coverage after Iowa hit a speed bump when Romney rolled out an endorsement from McCain. The McCain- Romney show turned out to be as compelling as the Santorum-on-a-roll story. That, however, was a momentary problem and one out of Santorum’s control. More important was the absence of a clear message for the New Hampshire voters. Santorum has been diligent about treating the state’s voters with respect. His town hall meetings have been textbook examples of a candidate submitting himself to question after question after question, but they’ve made it more difficult for Santorum to deliver a singular message — especially because he is not spending money on television ads. The best speech of Santorum’s campaign came on the night of the Iowa caucuses, a speech that eclipsed Romney’s by a considerable margin. Santorum took advantage of being in the limelight that night. But he has struggled to replicate that in New Hampshire. The whole of his message one day last week was a confrontation with a student over same-sex marriage. Ed Rollins, who was Huckabee’s campaign manager in 2008, says Santorum is following Huckabee’s pattern, to his possible detriment. “He is making the same mistake,” Rollins said in an e-mail Monday morning. “We got caught up in the afterglow of the Iowa victory.” Rollins went on to say that Huckabee made an even bigger mistake by campaigning hard in Michigan after New Hampshire, rather than going straight to South Carolina. But he noted that Huckabee had a sizable campaign organization in New Hampshire, which made it difficult for the candidate not to campaign here. “It wasn’t as big as Romney’s today, but bigger than anyone else this time but Huntsman and Romney,” Rollins said. “We really had to go. We also felt we were gaining momentum there. Michigan was the fool’s gold.” Former senator John E. Sununu (N.H.) said Monday that he happened to talk to Santorum right after the former Pennsylvania senator’s near-victory in Iowa. Santorum told him there was some discussion in his operation about where to spend his time. Sununu said successful candidates can’t cherry-pick their way to the nomination. He believes Santorum needed to come to New Hampshire to make his case. Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman, called Santorum’s decision “ill-advised.” By his analysis, the candidate’s performance in Iowa earned him a free pass to South Carolina. Cullen said the risk for Santorum now is the possibility of finishing behind Newt Gingrich here Tuesday after making an all-out effort. He says the former senator would have been wiser to play down expectations in New Hampshire and try to set himself up for South Carolina. Santorum senior adviser John Brabender said what to do about New Hampshire was not the subject of any real debate. “We never gave serious discussion to skipping New Hampshire,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We felt that would be a disaster. Instead, our main discussion was whether or not to spend real resources in New Hampshire. In the end we decided not to spend the money, and instead send it to South Carolina.” Brabender, who was part of Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 campaign and learned the consequences of trying to skip some of the early states, explained the thinking behind the decision. “We knew Romney would be remarkably strong in New Hampshire, and our goal was never to compete with him,” he said. Nor, he added, was there any need to worry about competing with Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) here. “End of the day, we felt that if we skipped New Hampshire we would be out of the national discussion for a week, and that this would greatly hurt our fundraising momentum, and hurt us in the polls in South Carolina,” Brabender said. “Finishing at 1 percent tied with [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry in New Hampshire would have killed all momentum. We feel we now can move into South Carolina with plenty of resources to compete, and still make the claim we are the best conservative to become the alternate to Romney.” To hedge his bets, Santorum flew to South Carolina after Sunday’s debate here. But he was back in New Hampshire on Monday morning for a full day of campaigning. Shortly before the Iowa caucuses, Santorum did an interview with two of my Post colleagues, Karen Tumulty and Roz Helderman. Asked about his strategy for New Hampshire, Santorum was confident that he could appeal to Granite State voters in ways Huckabee could not. “Rick Santorum is from the Northeast,” he said. “I’m from Pennsylvania, not from Texas. With all due respect to Mike [Huckabee], I’m not from Arkansas. I’m an ethnic Catholic from a steel town. We have 20-plus state legislators from New Hampshire who have endorsed us. You go up to our office in Bedford right now, and it’s jampacked with volunteers making phone calls and it has been for weeks. Just like I think what happened here in Iowa. That little spark, and people will start to say, ‘Yeah, he is the alternative.’ ” That’s what he hopes he will get Tuesday, enough of a spark to convince conservatives that he is their best hope to stop Romney. He will be living with the consequences as the campaign moves to South Carolina on Wednesday morning.

This year, the International Consumer Electronics Show isn’t just for big-wigs like Google and Qualcomm. For the first time, CES will feature a special area, or “TechZone,” just for start-ups that are first-time exhibitors. Consisting of 100 early-stage companies, the so-called “Eureka Park” will showcase everything from freshly launched Web apps to gloves that can translate American Sign Language into written text. The area will be located in the Venetian Hotel — the site of several of the CES award ceremonies — which puts participants well within elbow-brushing distance of larger companies, which many start-ups see as prospective business partners. In addition, the exhibit provides exposure to the hoards of technology press and gadget enthusiasts at a dramatically lower price than other attendees pay. CES is charging Eureka Park participants $1,000 for a standard booth, about 20 percent of the typical cost. “It’s important that companies come here with an idea, show it off and grow themselves as a company,” said Karen Chupka, vice president of events for the Consumer Electronics Association. “Secondly, with the economy the way it is — we wanted to give those companies a chance to get their big break.” Chupka said many of the Eureka Park products involve robotics, environmentally friendly technologies and audio innovations. The National Science Foundation has given grants to 28 of the exhibitors, including an array of energy-saving and digital-health gadgets. But Web applications, that mainstay of the start-up world, will also be out in force. Victor Karkar, chief executive of a Web-page annotation service called Scrible, said he hopes CES will give him a chance to interact with prospective corporate customers, get press mentions and meet PC makers that could serve as distributors down the line. “Being consumer-oriented, we need to get press and awareness,” said Karkar, who launched Scrible in May and has received NSF funding. “We’re small and scrappy, and we think this is going be a big year for us.” To draw people in, Karkar said he plans to stock his booth with champagne and chocolates and to roam around with an iPad so that attendees can try out the service. (Scrible is a free bookmarklet that allows users to make notes directly on Web pages and save them in online files.) His current worry is that the WiFi signal in the Venetian won’t be strong enough to support the flood of Web entrepreneurs demo-ing their products. “There’s a lot of noise out there, and it’s very hard because we’re a small company,” he said. “But reading Web content is a top activity that people do on tablets, and we think a lot of people will find this interesting.” Josh Brooks, CEO of Postcard On The Run, said the lower Eureka Park price made all the difference to his company, which is a service that turns smart-phone photos into physical postcards and mails them. The start-up just raised $750,000 in angel funding, but its budget is tight compared to some of CES’s larger players. “A start-up guy always has to be cost-conscious,” he said. “Traditional marketing that some companies might spend tens of thousands on, that’s not in my range.” In order to get noticed at the show, Brooks will be giving away free postcard credits so that CES attendees can send loved ones some physical mementos of all the tech wizardry and Las Vegas sights. And like many others in the start-up community, Brooks said he sees Eureka Park as somewhat of a launchpad, hoping it serves as a potential avenue for meeting major partners. “My goal is to pitch the concept of how this product helps accentuate all the fantastic cameras, memory and editing tools that the carriers have created,” he said. “I’m looking for Mr. Samsung and Mr. HTC to come shake my hand.”

_This piece is the first in a three-part series of myth busters about women in business, authored byCatalyst’s Nancy Carter and Christine Silva._ The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as the saying goes. But is this true for women in business? Our recent Catalyst report, _The Myth of the Ideal Worker_ , reveals that women _do_ ask for raises and promotions. They just don’t get as much in return. The research focused on career paths of high-potential men and women, drawing on thousands of MBA graduates from top schools around the world. Catalyst found that, among those who had moved on from their first post-MBA job, there was no significant difference in the proportion of women and men who asked for increased compensation or a higher position. Yet the rewards were different. Women who initiated such conversations and changed jobs post MBA experienced _slower_ compensation growth than the women who stayed put. For men, on the other hand, it paid off to change jobs and negotiate for higher salaries—they earned more than men who stayed did. And we saw that as both men’s and women’s careers progress, the gender gap in level and pay gets even wider. Our findings run counter to media coverage of the so-called phenomenon that “women don’t ask.” Instead the problem may be, as some other research has shown, that people routinely take a tougher stance against women in negotiations than they take against men—for example quoting higher starting prices when trying to sell women cars or making less generous offers when dividing a sum of money. Catalyst research has shown a number of ways that talent-management systems can also be vulnerable to unintentional gender biases and stereotypes. Our latest findings should help us move past arguments that women themselves are to blame for the gender gap. “Too often the focus is on ‘women’s perceived issues’,” says Shahla Aly, a vice president at Microsoft. “This notion gives false comfort – that with time women will ‘be fixed’ and advance.” If women are asking, but are still not advancing as quickly, maybe we need to frame things differently. Perhaps it’s not that women don’t ask—but that men don’t have to. Are men being rewarded without even having to ask? Do women have to raise their hands and seek recognition to an even greater extent than men do, just to receive the same outcomes? Do women have to ask for the same thing multiple times before they get what they’re requesting? Do managers think women will accept a lower salary, while men will walk? Smart companies are proactively mitigating negative effects of these potential biases, for example by being transparent about their internal process for career advancement, so all employees can gauge where they are and determine next steps for getting ahead. Catalyst’s research on high potentials in the workplace reinforces one core finding: gender gap can’t be explained away by women’s preferences or actions. It’s time for companies to find, and fix, bias in the system. _Nancy Carter is senior vice president of research and Christine Silva is senior director of research, both atCatalyst._ **Like On Leadership? Follow us onFacebook and Twitter: ** On Leadership: @post_lead | Editor: @lily_cunningham **Read more:** The rolodex that redefined power PHOTOS | Powerful women in Washington PHOTOS | Inside the Most Powerful Women summit

Intel is the main voice behind the ultrabook trend at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, because it’s the chipmaker behind the high-performance laptops that are chasing after the MacBook Air. In its presentation today, Intel promised that there would be 75 ultrabooks coming down the design pipeline this year with a few demonstrated features that move the genre forward. Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel PC Client group Mooly Eden talked up the security and portability of the ultrabooks but also showed off motion-control, voice-recognition and multitouch options for the slim laptops. Eden also said that many of the ultrabooks will be below the standard $1,000 price point to let more consumers become a part of the “computing revolution,” Eden said. In fact, the whole presentation was clearly an attempt to relate more to the average consumer than the traditional techy. As a nod to the truly tech-minded, however, Eden also showed demos of the computers’ animation and graphics capability, which showcased the capabilities of the Intel “Sandy Bridge” and “Ivy Bridge” processors. Related stories: CES no longer ‘center of the universe,’ but brands still line up to show gadgets CES 2012: Top trends to watch Capital Business — CES 2012: The perils of ubiquity

France and Germany, the European Union’s key powers, insisted Monday that private creditors must take losses to help over-indebted Greece right its finances, but they also warned the Greek government that E.U. rescue funds will be held back unless it makes a deal soon with the increasingly nervous banks holding its debt. The stern warning, after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, underlined the high stakes in faltering talks between the Greek leader, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, and a coterie of banks and other financial institutions holding billions of dollars in Greek debt that the government acknowledges it cannot pay in whole. Failure to reach a debt swap deal for Greece would most likely undo the rescue package concocted by E.U. governments late last year and dramatically undermine international confidence in the euro, the currency used by 17 of the 27 E.U. nations. If Greece or others among the 17 euro nations start to peel away, analysts have warned, the world economy could suffer a relapse and the entire E.U. project could be brought into doubt. “We must see progress on the voluntary restructuring of Greek debt,” the Reuters news agency quoted Merkel as telling a joint news conference after the Berlin consultations. “The second Greek aid package . . . must be in place quickly. Otherwise, it will not be possible to pay out the next tranche [of the bailout] for Greece.” Merkel said a deal with banks on writing down Greek debts was a “necessary but not sufficient” condition for Greece to benefit fully from an E.U. and International Monetary Fund rescue package and regain financial health. The country must also enact further reforms, she added, disregarding increasing demonstrations of fury from a Greek population called on to accept severe cutbacks in social programs and pay envelopes. In what was seen as a sign of doubts about the future among investors, Germany for the first time sold almost $5 billion of six-month treasury bonds at a negative yield, news agencies reported. The unusual bond purchases indicated that financial institutions had resorted to asking the dependable German government to hold on to their money, even if it meant taking a loss. By contrast, Italian issues were bringing above 7 percent and Spanish bonds were at 5.6 percent. Both nations have run up so much debt that their ability to repay what they owe has come into question during the past months of a building debt crisis across Western Europe. Despite the uncertainities, Hong Kong stocks rose for a second day Tuesday as European leaders stepped up efforts to tackle the debt crisis, and on speculation that China’s government will loosen monetary policy. The Hang Seng Index climbed 0.3 percent to 18,917.87 as of 10:01 a.m. Hong Kong time, set for its highest close since Dec. 8, with three stocks rising for each that fell. Over opposition from the ECB’s former president, Jean-Claude Trichet, E.U. leaders agreed last summer that lenders to Greece would have to take losses as part of the E.U. and IMF rescue plan. The accord described the losses as “voluntary,” but that was seen as a cosmetic for bond swaps that the banks were not prepared to grant unless forced to do so. **More world news coverage:** \- Iran sentences American to death \- In Yemen's crisis, children suffer most \- Promise of Iraq’s economy still unfulfilled \- Read more headlines from around the world

White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley resigned Monday, a year after taking the job, shaking up the administration’s senior management just as President Obama gears up for what is expected to be a tough reelection campaign. Last January, Obama tapped Daley to replace Rahm Emanuel with high expectations. Daley, a former banker who also served as commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, was expected to help the White House improve relations with Wall Street as it implemented a series of financial reforms in the recession’s wake. But Daley never seemed comfortable in the job, drawing wide criticism for his handling of the bitter and protracted legislative battles between the White House and Congress during much of 2011 that helped drag down the president’s public approval ratings. Daley struggled to develop relations with members of both houses of Congress, and after he relinquished day-to-day operations to senior adviser Pete Rouse in the fall, his role seemed significantly reduced. In a brief appearance at the White House on Monday, Obama announced that Daley, 63, will be replaced by budget director Jacob J. Lew, effective at the end of the month. Daley will stay in the job through the president’s State of the Union address Jan. 24 to help ease the transition. Traditionally, the role of a White House chief of staff has included managing daily operations of the staff, weighing in on domestic and foreign policy, and helping manage relationships between the White House and Capitol Hill, Wall Street and other outside groups. Whereas the fiery Emanuel, who had been a congressman before joining the White House and left to run for mayor of Chicago, was intimately involved in most of Obama’s decisions on politics and policy, the cooler Daley was said to have taken a more CEO-like approach to the job. Congressional Democrats complained privately that Daley acted as if they were “wasting his time,” and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) never embraced him. Eventually, Daley’s influence began to wane as Obama increasingly relied for political advice on trusted longtime aides such as senior adviser David Plouffe. In Lew, 56, Obama has selected a longtime Washington figure who also oversaw the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001. Lew, who resumed oversight of OMB in November 2010, has played a critical role as the administration tangled with Congress over how to tame the country’s spiraling debt and survived a showdown over a payroll tax cut that was extended last month. Lew is taking “one of the most difficult jobs in Washington,” Obama said, with Lew at his side. “But Jack has had one of the other most difficult jobs in Washington. His economic advice was invaluable. He has my complete trust.” Obama becomes the third consecutive president to turn to his budget director in a time of trouble. Bill Clinton appointed Leon E. Panetta in the aftermath of Republicans taking control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, and George W. Bush elevated Joshua Bolten after the administration was criticized for its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Yet Lew is not a political operative; the president will rely on a cast of familiar faces from his 2008 campaign to direct his reelection effort, including Plouffe, campaign director Jim Messina and campaign adviser David Axelrod. Rather, the choice of Lew reflects the White House’s anticipation of the coming fight with Congress over how to pay for extending the payroll tax holiday, scheduled to expire at the end of February, through the year’s end. Administration officials have described that as the final “must-do” legislative initiative before the White House turns its attention more fully to the campaign. Unlike Daley, Lew knows Capitol Hill well, having begun his Washington career in 1973 as a legislative aide and spending eight years as House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr.’s principal domestic policy adviser. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called Lew’s promotion “a superb choice” and added that few “have Jack’s level of experience and knowledge.” Lew will remain at the budget office this month to wrap up work on the administration’s fiscal 2013 federal budget proposal, which aides said is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. Obama did not name a successor to Lew. Daley drew criticism during the White House’s fight with congressional Republicans over debt-ceiling negotiations in the summer. In one particularly embarrassing episode, Obama requested to speak to a joint session of Congress in September only to be rejected by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who invited him instead to come a day later. The White House claimed that Daley had earlier secured Boehner’s agreement for the original date, but the speaker’s office denied that an agreement was in place. After that, Obama switched tactics, eschewing direct negotiations with Congress in favor of a public barnstorming tour in which he contrasted his efforts to create jobs with a legislature that the president said was mired in partisan gridlock. White House aides said that Obama will continue in that vein in the coming months as he ramps up his reelection message that the administration is fighting to improve the lives of middle-class Americans. In his resignation letter to the president, Daley praised Obama’s leadership during a year of “great challenge for the American people,” citing his push in the fall to boost the economy through his jobs legislation. Obama’s focus on jobs growth “shows that you will not rest until our fellow citizens recover,” Daley wrote. **** Read more at PostPolitics Rick Santorum and the Huckabee trap Romney: ‘I like being able to fire people who provide services to me’ Chris Christie: Obama is faking anger

With an eye to cold and flu season, Consumer Reports assessed 10 thermometers that are probably speedier than those you used when growing up. It tested two types on four adults without fevers, comparing each device’s readout against the temperature measured by a medical thermometer. The results show that you can save a bundle if you skip a few features. Sensory panelists — a different group from the four whose temperatures were taken — assessed the thermometers’ ease of use and comfort; 19 children told testers about comfort, too. Engineers also dropped the thermometers to see whether any broke. (None did.) Digital stick thermometers were used orally; most can also be used to take underarm or rectal temperature. This type is the cheapest and most widely sold, but a readout takes 10 seconds to more than 80 seconds. The tests also included four infrared thermometers, including ear, forehead and non-contact models. They can be more difficult to position, but their readout takes just one to three seconds. Temperatures taken by forehead or mouth are often accurate, Consumer Reports’ medical experts say. Ear readings are generally accurate, but placing the thermometer can be tricky, and wax can interfere. Rectal temperature is the gold standard, because it is the closest to the body’s core temperature. (Note: Prices may vary based on where and when an item is purchased.) The most accurate thermometers were within 0.5 degrees of the medical thermometer, and all but one were at least good at repeating a retaken temperature. The exception: the lowest-rated Vicks ComfortFlex V966F-24 ($15). Results varied widely among ComfortFlex thermometers, and some came with dead batteries. The top-rated digital stick thermometer, the CVS Flexible Tip Digital ($15), has a flexible tip, which most users preferred to the rigid type, and its readout took just eight seconds. The least expensive model, Wal-Mart’s Reli- On Rigid 60 Second ($3), a CR Best Buy, was accurate and best at repeating the correct temp, though it has a small display and a longer readout time. Adults said it was comfortable despite a rigid tip; kids preferred flexible tips. The top infrared models, Vicks V977 (forehead) ($37), another CR Best Buy, and Exergen Temporal Scanner TAT-2000C (forehead) ($50), were accurate and comfortable. Vicks had more features, such as a large backlit display and colors that indicate a normal temperature, mild fever and high fever. (That feature wasn’t tested.) **Bottom line: Infrared thermometers are fast but might not be worth their cost.** **** Copyright 2011. Consumers Union of United States Inc.