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| TOP STORIES |
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| Romney moves to reassemble campaign team for ‘almost certain’ 2016 bid |
| Mitt Romney is moving quickly to reassemble his national political network, calling former aides, donors and other supporters over the weekend and on Monday in a concerted push to signal his seriousness about possibly launching a 2016 presidential campaign. Read full article » |
| Far right in Europe sees opportunity after wave of terror in France |
| PARIS — The wave of terror that left 17 people dead in and around Paris has ushered in a new sense of insecurity across Europe — but also what could be a defining moment for the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam forces of the far right. Read full article » |
| Thousands gather in Jerusalem for funeral of four Jewish men killed in Paris |
| JERUSALEM — Thousands of Israelis gathered Tuesday for the joint funeral of the four Jewish men killed in a shoot-out with Islamist gunmen at a kosher supermarket in Paris last week after the bodies arrived in Israel before dawn, accompanied by family. Read full article » |
| Obama to propose legislation to protect firms that share cyberthreat data |
| President Obama plans to announce legislation Tuesday that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing computer threat data with the government in an effort to prevent cyberattacks.On the heels of a destructive attack at Sony Pictures Entertainment and major breaches at JPMorgan Chase and retail chains, Obama is intent on capitalizing on the heightened sense of urgency to improve the security of the nation’s networks, officials said. Read full article » |
| The time Obama walked in on a staffer who had a friend in bed |
| Reggie Love knows how to put the body in “bodyman.”In a memoir due out in early February, Love recounts his years working for Barack Obama — in the Senate, on the 2008 campaign and in the White House. Fresh out of Duke University, where he’d been captain of the Blue Devils basketball squad, Love joined Team Obama in 2007 and soon became the senator’s personal aide, a role he would keep through the primaries, general election and most of the first term. Read full article » |
| College Football Playoff: Ezekiel Elliott lifts Ohio State past Oregon for national title |
| ARLINGTON, Tex. — So good, so comprehensive and so all-grown-up was Ohio State that it did not even have to abide by a paramount football canon. The Buckeyes had amassed such power and such pluck by this momentous January that they could treat a galling minus-3 turnover margin as just another statistical detail in yet another soaring victory. Read full article » |
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| POLITICS |
| Mitt Romney’s gambit has worked only once since the 1800s |
| It's beginning to look like a pretty good bet that Mitt Romney will run for president in 2016 -- at least, according to all the things he's telling those close to him.Which puts us in rare political territory. In fact, were Romney to win the presidency in 2016, he would be only the second major-party nominee since the 1800s to lose a presidential race and then come back and win one. Read full article » |
| Senior federal executives earned fewer bonuses in 2013 |
| The Obama administration scaled back its bonuses for senior government executives in 2013 as overall performance levels dropped for top managers compared to the previous year.The Office of Personnel Management said in a recent report that federal agencies handed out smaller awards and fewer of them in 2013, staying well below the cap that Congress set in 2010. That means the government could have awarded more bonuses but didn’t. Read full article » |
| DCCC touts historically diverse executive team |
| The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced members its executive team for the 2016 election cycle on Tuesday, a group it is touting as the most diverse in the history of the committee.Three of the seven members of the executive team are people of color, the DCCC told the The Washington Post. Read full article » |
| OPINIONS |
| Republicans’ inconsistent attacks on Obama’s Paris response |
| There is a certain je ne sais quoi in conservatives’ criticism of the Obama administration over last week’s terrorist attack in France. A decade ago, Republicans in Congress were renaming French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” because of that country’s refusal to support the Iraq war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld belittled the “old Europe” French, President George W. Bush mocked an American reporter for speaking French to the French president, and conservative critics called the French “weasels,” “appeasers” and worse. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was ridiculed by the Bush administration for being “too French” and looking French, and his fluency in French was a liability in the campaign. Read full article » |
| Obama’s slap at France |
| In Paris on Sunday, the United States really led from behind — so far behind that President Obama and other important U.S. officials stayed stateside as 40 other world leaders joined about 1.5 million Frenchmen in a stirring riposte to terrorism and anti-Semitism. Even Vice President Biden stayed home. He remained in Delaware where, possibly, he stood at attention in front of the TV. It was, I’m sure, a moving moment. Read full article » |
| Eugene Robinson: The 2016 campaign is returning to the familiar |
| Run, Mitt, run! You too, Jeb, and please bring along the whole roadshow of perennial Republican also-rans. Across the aisle: Go for it, Hillary! What all of you see so clearly is that the nation desperately wants to be led forward into the past, or back to the future, or something. Read full article » |
| Libya spirals downward as the West looks the other way |
| WHEN LIBYA’S attempt to construct a new, democratic political system faltered after 2012, the Obama administration and NATO allies who had intervened to support the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gaddafi could still rationalize that they had headed off the mass bloodshed and civil war that the Gaddafi regime threatened and that later overtook Syria. The respite, however, proved to be temporary. As 2015 begins, Libya is well on its way to becoming the Middle East’s second war zone — with the same side effects of empowering radical jihadists and destabilizing neighboring countries. Read full article » |
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| LOCAL |
| In Week 1 for Mayor Muriel Bowser, a likely recurring theme: Expect the unexpected |
| On her fifth day as the city’s new mayor, Muriel E. Bowser was about to announce cold-weather precautions when, a few blocks from where she stood in Southeast Washington, a police officer fired at an armed man who had just tried to rob a store. Read full article » |
| U.S. education policy: Federal overreach or reaching for the wrong things? |
| Education Secretary Arne Duncan is seen as the most powerful education secretary ever, given his use of federal funding and No Child Left Behind waivers to get states to follow school reform policies that he supported. Many of his critics argue that his federal overreach is excessive and has encroached on local and state authority to run public school districts as they see fit. The author of the following posts asks whether there has been too much federal overreach, or whether the administration has used its executive power in education in the wrong ways. This was written by Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone and do not represent Stevens Institute. His other writing can be found at www.arthurcamins.com. Read full article » |
| D.C. area forecast: Quite cold today with light snow chance Wednesday; not as cold toward weekend |
| Use caution on the roads early and be prepared for temperatures to drop tonight. Read full article » |
| A Supreme Court case that public education advocates should be watching |
| Critics of education reform that focuses on standardized tests for accountability purposes and the expansion of “choice” correctly point out that what happens in a classroom is impossible to entirely divorce from what happens to children outside their school buildings. Government housing, tax and other policies affect public schools, though they are very rarely considered when people talk about how to close the achievement gap or about how to provide more college access to children from low-income families. In the following piece, scholar Richard Rothstein looks at a coming U.S. Supreme Court case that he says could indirectly be the most important public school desegregation case since Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954 and ruled unconstitutional all state laws that created separate public schools for black and white children. In fact, in a piece last year on the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. Board, Rothstein noted that public schools remain segregated today because neighborhoods in which they are located are segregated, and he wrote, “Education policy is housing policy.” Read full article » |
| SPORTS |
| Alex Ovechkin’s power-play game-winner leads Capitals against Avalanche |
| Each time the Colorado Avalanche’s penalty-kill unit climbed over the boards Monday night at Verizon Center, hell-bent on thwarting their host’s most star-dusted weapon, one white sweater was explicitly tasked with shadowing Alex Ovechkin, no matter the cost. The calculus was simple: prevent one-timers from hissing off the captain’s stick, defend the remaining members of the Washington Capitals’ power play four-on-three, and live with the consequences. Read full article » |
| Should Ohio State have taken a knee at the end of the title game? |
| Ohio State emphatically won the national championship against Oregon on Monday night, in the process making a case for Urban Meyer as the best coach in the country. However, a decision by Meyer to run the ball toward the end of the game rubbed many observers the wrong way. Read full article » |
| The Oregon mascot got a little raunchy during the national title game |
| The action on the field wasn’t going Oregon’s way during Monday’s national title game, which may be why the team’s mascot headed up to the luxury boxes. Or perhaps “Puddles” really wanted to do a striptease for somebody, but didn’t want to be a distraction. Read full article » |
| TV and radio listings for Jan. 13 |
| NBA7 p.m. San Antonio at Washington»Comcast SportsNet, NBA TV, WNEW (99.1 FM),WFED (1500 AM)NHL7 p.m. Minnesota at Pittsburgh»NBC Sports NetworkMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL Read full article » |
| FEDERAL GOVERNMENT |
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| Shrinking IRS struggles to keep up with growing number of tax-exempt charities |
| The Internal Revenue Service is losing ground in its oversight of charities as it struggles with budget and workforce declines, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The IRS audited 0.7 percent of charities in 2013, down from 0.81 percent in 2011, the GAO said. By comparison, the agency audited individuals and corporations at rates of 1 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, in 2013. Read full article » |
| Is federal hiring fair and open or do ‘special hiring authorities’ get in the way? |
| The federal hiring process, often a headache for those seeking a spot on Uncle Sam’s staff, remained a maze even after the Obama administration implemented reforms almost five years ago. Now, a new Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) study says the complex matrix of ways people get hired — or not — into the federal service can undermine confidence in a hiring process that should invite the very best. Read full article » |
| New GOP Senate looks to blast Obama at confirmation hearings |
| Look for some fireworks soon as the new GOP Senate starts hearings on Obama’s two cabinet nominees: Loretta Lynch for attorney general and Ashton Carter as secretary of defense.There doesn’t appear to be any indication so far that Lynch or Carter will personally come under fire at the hearings, which may be held the end of this month or the first week in February. Read full article » |
| NATIONAL |
| The case against e-readers: Why reading paper books is better for your mind. |
| You got an e-reader over the holidays. What should you load it up with?Beach reads? Sure. “Ulysses”? Probably not.We know a lot about the pros and cons of reading a hard-copy book vs. reading electronically. The problem is, many of us refuse to listen. Read full article » |
| The most important thing you can do with your kids? Eat dinner with them. |
| As a family therapist, I often have the impulse to tell families to go home and have dinner together rather than spending an hour with me. And 20 years of research in North America, Europe and Australia back up my enthusiasm for family dinners. It turns out that sitting down for a nightly meal is great for the brain, the body and the spirit. And that nightly dinner doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal that took three hours to cook, nor does it need to be made with organic arugula and heirloom parsnips. Read full article » |
| The Middle East is full of ancient, mysterious religious sects. The Islamic State is wiping them out. |
| When I met Mirza, a Yazidi nursing a leg he broke trying to rescue his people from the brutal Islamic State, I was fascinated by his religion. The Yazidis believe that nothing is outside the mercy of God. Even Lucifer, they think, has been redeemed and restored to favor; his tears of repentance extinguished the fires of Hell forever. Read full article » |
| WORLD |
| Cuba completes prisoner release agreed to under U.S. pact |
| All 53 political prisoners Cuba pledged to release as part of a normalization agreement with the United States have now been freed, the Obama administration said Monday.“We welcome this very positive development and are pleased that the Cuban government followed through on this commitment,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. Read full article » |
| After Paris shooting, Irish say its time to finally ditch their blasphemy law |
| After drawings of the Islamic prophet Mohammad led to killings at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a major European nation is facing renewed claims for an end to its own ban on blasphemy.One article published by the Irish Times newspaper, titled "Why a referendum on blasphemy is long overdue," specifically cites the words of Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier (aka “Charb”) as justification for an end to Ireland's blasphemy laws. "Let's repeal our blasphemy law if we really want to honor 'Charlie,' " read a separate op-ed in the Irish Independent. Read full article » |
| Photos: Five years after the earthquake, Haiti still struggles to recover |
| It has been five years since a devastating earthquake struck Haiti and left much of the country's infrastructure in ruins.The 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed about 316,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Despite receiving more than 80 percent of the $12.45 billion in aid pledged by more than 50 countries and agencies, Haiti is still struggling to recover. Read full article » |
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| BUSINESS |
| How Cadillac got left behind in the booming luxury car market |
| With interest rates low, gas prices down, and the economy finally on the march, 2014 was a banner year for luxury car sales. But don't tell that to the folks who run Cadillac.The iconic brand saw sales decline by 6.5 percent last year despite boasting what auto critics call an impressive lineup of cars. Making matters worse for Cadillac, many other luxury brands saw robust sales growth in 2014. Read full article » |
| Save money, eat better with these fast recipes |
| There are times in your life when you realize something’s got to change.I had such an epiphany on New Year’s Eve. My family and I were returning home from service at our church. We were hungry and wanted something fast. We stopped at McDonald’s at about 10:30 p.m. The restaurant was short-staffed, so it took an hour to get our food. We then had to rush so we could get home in time to watch the broadcasts of the celebration at Times Square. Read full article » |
| Deciphering financial markets in the short term is a losing game |
| One of the underlying principles of much of the daily news coverage of financial markets is that every effect must have a clear and rational cause. The yield on U.S. Treasury securities is plummeting — the all-wise, all-knowing bond market is giving us a message about deflation that lies ahead. U.S. stocks are tanking — investors are selling to protect themselves against difficult times the market sees ahead. Read full article » |
| TECHNOLOGY |
| Robots are sneaking up on Congress (along with four other tech trends) |
| One of the best Twitter accounts — inside the Beltway or out — belongs to former representative John Dingell (D-Mich.), who announced his retirement with self-effacing posts such as “Added the ‘F’ word to my Twitter bio” and “Also retiring: the underscore in my username.” He’s also tweeted an inside joke to master Photoshopper @darth, posted incredible#TBT selfies and called out the Environmental Protection Agency for tweeting about Kim Kardashian. Read full article » |
| Justice Department seeks to dismiss most of Twitter’s First Amendment lawsuit |
| The U.S. government wants a federal court to dismiss most of a lawsuit filed by Twitter alleging that it violated the firm’s First Amendment rights when it restricted the firm’s ability to reveal information about national security requests for user data. Read full article » |
| Trivia Crack, an app to quiz yourself and show off your smarts |
| triviacrackQuiz yourself and show off your smartsAre you a trivia buff? Do you live to prove your knowledge of the little things? Then it may be time for you to try Trivia Crack.Like the classic game Trivial Pursuit, the app challenges players with questions in a variety of subjects such as sports, science and history. The app lets you play with friends or strangers. Read full article » |
| The Weekly Itch, Vol. II |
| The Itch is back! Welcome to my weekly roundup of innovation, tech, creativity and humor.Cool tech of the week Out: Selfie sticks. In: Nixie. Read full article » |
| LIFESTYLE |
| For this piano man, the regular crowd no longer shuffles in |
| For months, Nick Margaritas has been reading stories of his coming demise.His intention, when he set up the alert for any news articles about “piano sales,” was to keep tabs on his world. What he learned instead from the e-mails that flowed in nearly every day was that his world was falling apart. Read full article » |
| Samuel Goldwyn Jr., second-generation Hollywood producer, dies at 88 |
| Samuel Goldwyn Jr. grew up with Hollywood royalty.Charlie Chaplin, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable and George Cukor were among the luminaries who would come to his parents’ palatial home for parties or tennis. Read full article » |
| At a notably relevant Golden Globes, the film world is seen struggling to keep pace |
| It is a long-held truism that, as far as social change goes, film is a lagging indicator. Movies typically take at least two years to be written, produced and brought to market, much longer when compared with their pop-culture brethren in television and on the Web. The cinematic medium has ceased to feel like “history written in lightning,” as Woodrow Wilson famously quipped when he saw “The Birth of a Nation,” and more like history written in molasses. Read full article » |
| Carolyn Hax: Is there a ‘we’ here? |
| Adapted from a recent online discussion.Hi, Carolyn:Do you attach any particular significance when half of a longtime couple frequently refers to himself in the singular in situations when he shouldn’t? For instance, if a friend asks what my boyfriend did over the weekend, even if I’m standing right next to him, he is likely to say something like, “I went to see friends out of town” when the answer is really “Susie and I left town to visit Susie’s friends from college” (which, in addition to being more accurate, would help me join the conversation). He does that pretty much every time and only occasionally mentions my involvement as an afterthought. It reminds me a bit of how in my single days, guys flirting with me would sometimes clumsily omit the existence of their wives or girlfriends from our conversations. Read full article » |
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