D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. was charged with embezzling more than $300,000 in city funds and filing a false tax return, according to court papers filed Thursday in the District’s federal court. The charges came in a “criminal information,” a type of charging document that can only be filed with the defendant’s consent and generally signals that a plea deal has been reached. Read full article > >

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D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. is charged with theft; plea likely

Public schools in Tucson, Arizona, face millions of dollars in penalties after a ruling that the district's Mexican-American studies program violates state law.

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Ethnic studies in Tucson ruled illegal

Whew. That was one helluva barbecue year – and we still have a few days to go. Who knows? Maybe somebody will open yet another barbecue restaurant before the new year comes around. In the Washington area, more than a half-dozen new barbecue restaurants opened in 2011, at least a couple of them long-awaited major players, including the Penn Quarter outlet of the New York City-based Hill Country Barbecue . Several barbecue trucks started trolling the District’s streets, and barbecue even made inroads at some of the city’s top restaurants. I’m not one to shy from a horn to toot: In May, I inaugurated the Smoke Signals Barbecue Sauce Recipe Contest . Read full article > >

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Smoke Signals: The Golden Rib Award

Virginia Tech place kicker Cody Journell was denied bail Thursday afternoon during a preliminary hearing in Montgomery General District Court in Christiansburg, Va., after he was charged and arrested Wednesday night with breaking and entering following an alleged home invasion at the residence of Virginia Tech basketball player Dorenzo Hudson. Read full article > >

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Virginia Tech PK Cody Journell is denied bail after alleged break-in at home of Hokies basketball player Dorenzo Hudson

Oh, the things Bruno Frohlich can scan. Ancient whale skulls. Smashed human ones. Stradivarius violins. Violas. Cellos. Guitars. Stringed instruments from Mongolia. Apollo spacesuits. Eagle feathers. Mummified birds from Egypt oddly missing their heads. Dinosaur leg bones, fossilized. Thigh bones, hip bones, arms bones, teeth. An infant’s iron casket dug up in the District. Live turtles. Dead crocodiles. Mummy after mummy from Egypt. And one from Peru. Read full article > >

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Smithsonian’s scan man in high demand

I met with a couple of dozen civic activists from Northwest Washington this week to get some feedback on The Post’s coverage of the District. I got an earful. Maybe 10 earfuls. These leaders, all in the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia , represent every northwest neighborhood from Crestwood to Georgetown. This was a largely white crowd and not representative of the city as a whole. But collectively, the activists have several hundred years of knowledge of this city’s neighborhoods and its government. Read full article > >

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Community activists give The Post a failing grade

Oh, to have been in the next room when Herman Cain arrived home Friday to talk with his wife, Gloria, about what he called a longtime “friendship” with Ginger White, the Atlanta woman who claims the two had a 13-year affair. “He should come with security,” said Queen Aishah of Bowie, who performs at the Riot Act Comedy Theater in the District. “He should wear a helmet, and he should not speak because he’s said too much already.” Read full article > >

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What should Herman Cain tell his wife? Ask the comedians.

The morning after his retirement announcement, Rep. Barney Frank scored an interview on NBC’s “Today” show , gaining the opportunity to act as an elder statesman in front of a TV audience of millions. Instead, the Massachusetts Democrat chose to quarrel with the interviewer. “You said that your district has been redrawn in a way that would make it more difficult for you to win reelection,” host Savannah Guthrie said. Read full article > >

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Barney the bully: Congressman Frank’s other legacy

Concerned about the pace and price of construction projects for the poor, the new director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development has shuffled staff, set strict building deadlines and made sweeping changes to how the embattled agency does business with developers. Three managers have been removed in recent months and five new ones will be brought in to help overhaul the department, which oversees federally funded affordable-housing construction in the District. Developers will be required to have a documented track record, adequate financial backing and the ability to finish construction within two years. Read full article > >

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Embattled D.C. housing agency tightens HUD projects’ oversight

It’s Tuesday at the King Greenleaf Recreation Center, hard off N Street in Southwest Washington, and LaRon Landry is handing out some 500 turkeys to families in need. With his volunteers from Leadership for Life — his nonprofit for underprivileged youth in the District — Landry poses for pictures, gives hugs and makes most everyone smile on a dreary, gray day. Read full article > >

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LaRon Landry’s fortunes will be telling for the Redskins

Wal-Mart has agreed to fund job – training programs, open hiring centers and make $21 million in charitable contributions in the District in a package of community benefits as the retailer prepares to open several stores in the city. In the deal , the chain will seek small- and minority-owned businesses in the District for construction of its stores; create and fund training programs aimed at populations suffering from high unemployment rates; and open hiring centers in the wards where the chain opens stores. The donations will fund hunger relief, health programs, education and job-training programs, the retailer and city officials said Tuesday. Read full article > >

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Wal-Mart package for D.C. includes job-training program, $21 million in donations

An armed robber burst into a Northeast Washington market, scuffled with the cashier, and then shot him and the clerk’s father, who also owned the store. The killer sped off in a silver Pontiac, but a witness was able to write down the license plate number. Police figured out the name of the suspect very quickly. But locating and arresting him took a little-known investigative tool: a vast system track of the comings and goings of anyone driving around the District. Read full article > >

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License plate readers: A useful tool for police comes with privacy concerns

At the District’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant , city contractors are clawing into the ground to install huge pipes along the Anacostia River, wider and deeper than anything operated by Metrorail. They are not for trains. They are meant to end a scourge that has plagued the District for decades: raw sewage mixed with polluted storm water that overwhelms the Civil War-era combined sewer system that serves a third of the city and overflows into local waterways. Read full article > >

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New D.C. tunnels, green solutions aim to end sewage overflows into local waterways

A move by Congress may allow members of the board that oversees Reagan National and Dulles International airports to be removed by their appointing bodies and increase the size of the panel, which is supervising the construction of the Metrorail extension to Loudoun County . Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) has pushed for legislation that would expand the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority from 13 to 17. Under his plan, Virginia would get two new appointments and Maryland and the District would each get one additional member. Read full article > >

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Transportation bill would expand board of Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority

The nation’s debt in dollars consists of 14 digits. The District’s, 10. But Gaithersburg has only one: zero. Yes, $0. Zilch. Just a 45-minute drive from Capitol Hill, the community is debt-free and has been, more or less, for about four decades. As the country struggles with its $15 trillion debt , Gaithersburg has plugged away with a time-tested budgeting philosophy: Pay as you go and build your financial reserves. Read full article > >

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For a city in Montgomery, staying debt-free is the norm