They are two of Washington’s architectural and historical gems: The Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue and the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building on the Mall. The good news is that both are slated for renovation and what the bureaucrats like to call “re-purposing.” The bad news is that, in both cases, the process is headed in the wrong direction. Read full article > >

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What D.C. doesn’t need: a Trump Tower

After initially telegraphing optimism about President Obama’s decision Friday to amend the religious exemption for mandatory birth-control and sterilization coverage, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has declared total opposition to any compromise on the issue. Read full article > >

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U.S. bishops blast Obama’s contraception compromise

CHARLOTTESVILLE — As more than two dozen witnesses took the stand this week for George Huguely V’s trial for the murder of his former girlfriend Yeardley Love, jurors kept hearing about Love’s bedroom door. Read full article > >

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Huguely trial: Jurors see Love’s damaged bedroom door

Nearly 20 years ago, former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder announced that he wanted to create a museum that would tell the story of slavery in the United States. He had the vision, the clout, the charm to make it seem attainable, and he had already made history: the grandson of slaves, he was the nation’s first elected African American governor . Read full article > >

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Two decades later, donors wondering what happened to plans for slavery museum

BEIJING — As measured by China’s state-run media, the country’s leadership transition is already well underway. Vice President Xi Jinping , who will move up to Communist Party general secretary later this year and president of China in 2013, has appeared prominently on the front page of China Daily in recent weeks, signing ping pong paddles with former president Jimmy Carter, toasting the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s visit to China, and being welcomed with honors in Thailand and Vietnam. Read full article > >

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In China, will transition bring real change?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — They now inhabit regal mansions in the nation’s capital, but the prime minister and the president of Pakistan have known their share of more lowbrow addresses — namely, jail cells. Read full article > >

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For Pakistan’s prime minister, a question of loyalty

For most of three quarters on Friday, the Washington Wizards played with enough ambition and resolve that on other nights may have been sufficient to produce a victory. The opponent in this case, though, was reigning Eastern Conference champion Miami, so an incomplete performance instead yielded a 106-89 loss before a Verizon Center crowd of 20,282 that booed the Heat’s LeBron James at virtually every turn. Read full article > >

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Wizards vs. Heat: Dwyane Wade torches Washington as Miami rolls to 106-89 win at Verizon Center

Mitt Romney’s recent losses to Rick Santorum in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota revealed a truism that Romney might want to study — but not too much! Parting with one’s dreams isn’t only sweet sorrow, it also can be liberating. Beneath the sorrow and alongside the liberation, one finds not only peace but often oneself. Read full article > >

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Mitt Romney and the power of losing

Blue Ivy Carter, the much-heralded baby daughter of Beyonce and Jay-Z , has officially made her public debut. The president and first lady of hip-hop have shared their first baby photos via Jay-Z’s Web site, Life + Times , an apparent follow-up to Beyonce’s public appearances earlier this week, her inaugural ones since giving birth . Read full article > >

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Blue Ivy Carter: The first photos of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s baby have been revealed

Even though I didn’t know Yeardley Love, I feel that we had a lot in common. Our early lives were both marked by privilege. We both discovered and tested our strength in the burgeoning world of female athletics. We both went away to college — looking forward to bright futures as strong, able women — and were drawn to charismatic athletes from similar worlds of affluence and entitlement. Read full article > >

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Yeardley Love’s story — and mine

There is no more potent symbol of Egypt’s economic fragility than the pocket bread that is a staple of life here. Every day, the Egyptian government allocates 25-pound bags of subsidized flour to designated bakeries to produce the Frisbee-shaped loaves, which Egypt’s impoverished and working poor buy for about eight cents per 10 loaves. But sometimes, there is not enough to go around. Read full article > >

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In Egypt’s bread, signs of economic weakness

The parallels between Mitt Romney and his father, George — both businessmen, both Republican governors of blue states, both presidential candidates — make for tantalizing psychological comparisons. ¶ Is the younger Romney less concerned about economic fairness than was his late father, who helped create Michigan’s first income tax and famously returned a big bonus when he was chief executive of American Motors? Does Mitt’s cautious style reflect the bitter experience of George, whose 1968 presidential run collapsed after he used the term “brainwashing” to explain his early support for the Vietnam War? ¶ Such speculation can certainly be entertaining for political junkies hoping to glimpse the soul of a would-be president. However, the contrast between father and son reveals less about Mitt Romney’s state of mind than it does about America’s. If Mitt has a tin ear for the concerns of the needy, if he goes along with, rather than resists, the rightward turn of his party , he is simply mirroring the disturbing transformations of American business and politics in recent decades. In his public and private careers, the younger Romney has emulated the retreat of corporate elites and the Republican Party from the model of economic partnership and cross-party compromise that the elder Romney exemplified. ¶ At a moment when America needs both business innovation and effective oversight, vigorous growth as well as economic fairness , we would be better off with George, rather than Mitt, in the White House. Read full article > >

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Romney is the right man for America. George Romney, that is.

BEIRUT — Two suicide bombers struck compounds housing security services in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, reportedly killing 28 people and wounding 238 in the worst violence to hit the country’s relatively calm commercial capital since the uprising began last March. Read full article > >

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Bombers strike Syrian city of Aleppo as offensive continues in Homs

President Obama will send Congress a 2013 spending plan that would raise taxes on the rich and pump nearly $500 billion into new construction projects over the next decade, launching an election-year debate over the budget that promises starkly different visions for managing government debt and the sluggish economy. Read full article > >

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Budget to raise taxes on the rich, hike federal spending

Police chiefs everywhere say that smartphone robberies are rocketing. They’ve offered cash rewards, set up decoy crews in subway stations and urged iPhone owners to be wary. But the robberies keep coming. Now, police in the Washington area and elsewhere are expressing their frustration in plain terms, publicly asking regulators and wireless-network operators to allow stolen devices to be shut down remotely through unique identification numbers within them. Read full article > >

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Smartphones’ remote shutdowns would reduce robberies, Lanier says