An Egyptian court on Tuesday banned virginity tests for female detainees, months after women arrested in a March rally on Tahrir Square alleged they were forced to take the examinations. Samira Ibrahim, 25, took the military-led government to court in August, alleging that she was forcibly subjected to a virginity test in March—and since then she claims she has received death threats after bringing the case. “I will not give up my rights as a woman or a human being,” Ibrahim said. Although Egyptian authorities originally denied issuing the tests, at least one senior official has admitted the practice exists.

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Egypt Bans Virginity Tests

Jan Vesely, the Wizards’s top draft choice from June’s draft , is listed as day-to-day with a right hip injury and is unlikely to be available for the season opener on Monday against the New Jersey Nets. Coach Flip Saunders hoped to have Vesely on the active roster for opening night and gave his players the day off on Saturday to help them get prepared for the upcoming grind of the 66-game season . A day of rest did little to subside the pain in Vesely’s right hip and he sat out Sunday’s two-hour practice at Verizon Center. Read full article > >

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Jan Vesely likely out for season opener

Two of the Redskins’ most valuable and promising young players will spend the final week of the NFL season at Redskins Park around the locker room and in the weight room. But they won’t be in the meeting rooms or on the practice field . And it might not matter a whole lot. The Redskins’ offense isn’t just surviving without tight end Fred Davis and left tackle Trent Williams; it’s somehow thriving. Read full article > >

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Redskins’ offense adjusts to playing without Fred Davis, Trent Williams

A six-month study of this year’s defense authorization bill has identified 115 spending proposals as earmarks worth $834 million, including 20 by Republican freshmen who campaigned against the pet projects, according to a copy of the report provided to The Washington Post. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), whose staff produced the study, called the behavior a “bold flaunting” of the GOP-led moratorium on earmarks. She chastised Republican House members for removing documents about earmarks from their Web sites that would have made it easier to identify the practice. Read full article > >

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McCaskill-led earmark probe finds $834 million in requests

Tuesdays at an NFL facility are typically reserved for coaches: film review, game planning, meetings. Players take the day off, allowing their bodies to heal before they kick off a new week of practices the next morning. But last year, rookie wide receiver Terrence Austin would visit Redskins Park every Tuesday and head to the practice fields with the team’s third-string quarterback, John Beck . “Windy, freezing days,” Beck said. The two would squeeze in an extra practice, Beck determined to master the offense and Austin intent on working his way off the practice squad. A season later, Beck is still waiting to learn whether he’ll be the Redskins’ starting quarterback , but heading into the final preseason game Thursday against Tampa Bay, Austin has already done his best to secure a spot on the 53-man roster . In fact, he’s been perhaps the team’s biggest preseason surprise thus far. Read full article > >

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Redskins wide receiver Terrence Austin sees his hard work pay off

The Washington Redskins returned to the practice field on Sunday — two days after they opened the preseason with a 16-7 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers — and back in action was quarterback John Beck . Sidelined for Friday’s game because of a strained groin, Beck is battling Rex Grossman for the Redskins’ starting quarterback job and has ground to make up following the nine-year veteran’s strong performance against Pittsburgh. Grossman completed 19 of 26 passes for 207 yards and a touchdown while directing first-half drives of 88, 82 and 55 yards. Read full article > >

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Back in action, John Beck looks for quarterback time with Redskins

World markets ended a tumultuous week Friday with a day of solid gains, as European countries pushed to contain their economic problems and U.S. consumers, who have remained largely on the sidelines of the anemic recovery, spent more than analysts had expected. In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 1.1 percent to 11,269.02. After a series of breathtaking losses and gains over the previous four days, the Dow finished the week only 1.5 percent lower than it had started. Major European markets were up more than 3 percent Friday after officials banned short selling, a practice in which traders make money on a stock’s decline. Some regulators suspect that the practice encourages excessive speculation and contributed to a sharp drop in the value of European bank stocks this week. Read full article > >

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Stock markets complete wild week with another gain

Before the soccer practice began, the kids buzzed around Anthony Armstrong with no direction or purpose, other than to make as much noise as possible and not occupy the same plot of grass for more than a half-second.  “The hardest thing is to keep them all corralled. I wish I had a lasso sometimes,” said Armstrong, the Washington Redskins wide receiver who is several weeks into his tenure as a rookie youth soccer coach. He finally rounded up the group of 7- and 8-year-olds and explained that this practice was a training day with a special instructor who was going to teach some new drills and basic soccer skills. It also would be a good learning opportunity for Armstrong. Read full article > >

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Redskins’ Armstrong scratches competitive itch coaching soccer

An air traffic controller  in Nevada fell asleep early Wednesday  as a medical flight carrying a sick patient tried to land, leading federal authorities to order an immediate end to the practice of leaving a single controller on duty during overnight shifts.

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Another sleeping air traffic controller prompts FAA to assign more personnel to towers

Okay, this is inside baseball, so all normal people can skip to the next post, assuming there’s a next post. (One never knows, do one?) The New York Times’s Mark Leibovich (full disclosure: He’s a friend-of-Goldblog) apparently received e-mails other reporters wrote to Darrell Issa’s now-fired flack. (Dana Milbank has the best write-up of this — including a very funny lede — in the Post, in which he suggests that Politico reporters, in particular, might not look so wonderful if these e-mails come out). Leibovich is writing a book about how Washington is full of assholes, which I’m looking forward to reading, because I didn’t know this before, and these e-mails are presumably part of his research. Jack Shafe r (also a friend-of-Goldblog, except when he’s yelling at me for something) has written in defense of Leibovich. Ryan Lizza (Goldblog’s replacement at The New Yorker, and also a friend — yes, it amazes me too, that I have friends, though mainly I have shifting alliances) — explicates the weirdness in a post on the New Yorker website. Andrew Sullivan (a friend of Goldblog’s,  from Zionist summer camp) thinks the pro-all-e-mails-are-fair-game-for-exposure camp is full of shit, and takes after Ryan, although in closely reading Ryan’s blog post, I don’t think he’s actually defending or criticizing the practice, just reporting on it. (An earlier iteration of this post accepted Andrew’s contention that Ryan was defending Leibovich and the practice of leaking journalists’ e-mails, but I should have stared at Ryan’s post more carefully before accepting that conclusion). The dirty secret driving this conversation is the near-universal recognition among reporters that, in trying to nab access and interviews, we sometimes tend to paint a rather benign portrait of our intentions in the pitch e-mails we write. (To wit, my e-mail last week to Muammar Qaddafi: “Dear Mo, it’s been long time — too long, in fact! How are you? I would love to come to see you, and no, I don’t want to talk about Benghazi, and these al-Qaeda putzes trying to overthrow your glorious and democratically-chosen governnment! Mainly what I want to talk to you about is flowers. All facets of horticulture, actually. And, by the way, I’m on your side! I just read the Green Book again, and man, it is just brilliant! You’re like James Madison in a dress! Which would make you Dolley Madison, I guess, but whatever. XXOO, Jeff.”) By the time you’ve spent a dozen years or more in journalism (like Leibovich, Lizza, me, etc.) you pretty much learn the downsides, ethical and practical, of lily-gilding, and I err on the side of morose foreboding when I ask for interviews. But the exposure of these sorts of e-mails — and of a much worse sub-species, the e-mails that simultaneously promise the source the sun, the moon and the stars while trashing the competition — is what is at stake here. People around Washington are very nervous about Leibovich’s book, which is good for Leibovich. I’ve created a short-cut for myself, by cc’ing Leibovich on every e-mail I write, and also by giving him access to my bank account.

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Leibovich, Lizza, Sullivan on the E-Mail Debate

The predicted lower cost of space travel is set to transform the practice of conducting experiments in space.

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Space Tourism: One Giant Leap for Researchers

Here’s one booming part of the new economy: prison labor. Officials have been expanding the practice of prison labor to balance cuts in federal financing and shrinking tax revenue, using prisoners to perform services that private contractors or…

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Prisoners Help Relieve State Deficits

Prison labor is nothing new. But officials are now expanding the practice, in areas like farming, to combat cuts in federal financing and dwindling tax revenue.

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Inmates Help States Fill Budget Gaps

Voters in Switzerland are due to vote in a referendum on gun controls that would end the practice of soldiers keeping their weapons at home.

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Switzerland to vote on gun curbs

India’s Supreme Court says the practice of illegal funnelling of wealth overseas by Indians is a “pure and simple theft of national money”.

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India alarm over ‘illicit money’