Among the themes of “All-American Muslim,” a cable reality show about the daily lives of five families in Dearborn, Mich., is the suspicion and bias that ordinary Muslims face in a nation uneasy about all things Islamic after Sept. 11, 2001. As it happens, reality has caught up to reality TV. Peppered by a conservative group’s complaints about the program, the Lowe’s home-improvement chain last week pulled its sponsorship — and has been fielding countercomplaints that the company had caved in to the very prejudices faced by the program’s protagonists. Read full article > >

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Reality TV catches up to reality with Muslim show

Shaka Smart figures about half the questions asked of this year’s Virginia Commonwealth team all relate back to last year’s team and its surreal Final Four run. Indeed, part of being the coach of VCU is that people outside the program still want you to be VC- Who? Creating a separate, non-Cinderella identity in college basketball “can be challenging,” Smart said Sunday at the 17th annual BB&T Classic at Verizon Center. Read full article > >

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BB&T Classic: Shifting landscape for NCAA basketball coaches in D.C. area is on display

For announcing non-candidacy on another program.

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Fox News Chief Infuriated at Palin

On Aug. 19, Maryland Coach Randy Edsall grew enraged with the lackadaisical effort he saw from his players in practice, so he gathered them in a huddle and pierced the morning air with a tirade that included this command: “Do it my way! Don’t do it your way!” While some players have embraced Edsall’s way during his first season, others have been frustrated with his approach, according to several people in and around the program. With the team ineligible to play in a bowl game, some players are now beginning to speak publicly about what they saw as a divided locker room and about the potential of prominent underclassmen transferring after the season, which continues Saturday night against Notre Dame at FedEx Field. Read full article > >

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Maryland vs. Notre Dame: Players begin to speak up on Terrapins’ discontent

You would never know, judging from the program presented Friday night, that Pilobolus is the country’s most commercially successful modern dance company. The evening was dominated by the sort of dark tropes that can turn off some audiences: nearly naked people, rolling around on the floor, to a soundtrack of creepy electronic music. The only clue that Pilobolus has found fame through rock music videos, NFL commercials and Academy Award montages was the size of the crowd: The 1900-seat George Mason University Center for the Arts was nearly sold out. Read full article > >

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Pilobolus at the George Mason University Center for the Arts

At least six states have opened their Children’s Health Insurance Program to the kids of low-income state employees, an option that was prohibited until the passage of the 2010 health-care law. This relatively small step has as its backdrop years of debate over the program, known as CHIP, including concerns that it encourages states — and consumers — to replace private insurance with taxpayer-subsidized coverage. Read full article > >

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Low-income state workers begin to gain access to Children’s Health Insurance Program

The horrifying allegations of sexual abuse of minor boys by a former Penn State coach strike straight at the heart of the program legendary Coach Joe Paterno has led for 46 years. Although Jerry Sandusky stands accused of multiple counts of sexual abuse of minor boys and two Penn State administrators have been indicted for perjury, Paterno is not expected to be indicted . He is, however, expected to be a witness for the prosecution. Read full article > >

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Jerry Sandusky indictment prompts questions about future of Penn State’s Joe Paterno

After hosting the local quiz show “It’s Academic” for 50 years, Mac McGarry, 85, has decided to retire. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed doing the program,” McGarry says, “and I had no idea how pervasive it’s been to Washingtonians.” For generations of Washingtonians, “It’s Academic” has been a soothing Saturday-morning time capsule, taped on a tiny set on Nebraska Avenue. It’s good pajama-day viewing — world capitals and world events and 11th-grade reading lists — and the centerpiece was always McGarry: paternal and chummy, dorky and suave, a comforting blend of Alex Trebek and Mr. Rogers, who wore tweed and pocket handkerchiefs and made the gentlest of jokes. Read full article > >

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‘It’s Academic’ host Mac McGarry retires

The White House has authorized an independent review of all loan guarantees made by the Energy Department to foster green technology following the bankruptcy this year of Solyndra, the California company that received a $535 million loan through the program. White House officials said Friday that Chief of Staff William Daley ordered the review that will evaluate the entire $35.9 billion loan portfolio made to support the private-sector development of new technologies that could help improve the economy and create jobs. Read full article > >

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White House orders independent review of Energy Department loans

ATHENS — The crisis plan approved by European leaders early Thursday morning sent global stock markets rocketing as officials claimed that they had turned a corner in the battle to rebuild confidence in the euro region. But even as many market analysts welcomed the resolution they cautioned that the 15-page plan , hammered out over late-night brinkmanship in a government office building in Brussels, remains very much a work in progress. Key details are uncertain, they say, and a slowing European economy could throw the program off course. Read full article > >

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Europe plan raises hope but will need to prove itself in practice

A key piece of America’s enduring presence in Iraq — a multimillion-dollar program to train police forces — could become a “bottomless pit” for taxpayer funding if officials fail to adequately assess the needs of Iraqi security forces and obtain assurances from Iraqi officials about the program’s future, according to a new federal watchdog report. Read full article > >

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State Department’s police training program in Iraq lacks planning, report says

The Emerson String Quartet is one of the world’s blue-chip chamber groups, so perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that it turned in a superb and often deeply involving performance on Saturday night at the National Museum of Natural History’s Baird Auditorium. What was a little surprising was the relative conservatism of the program — a well-worn path of late works by Mozart and Beethoven — but as it turned out, the conservatism was only skin deep. Read full article > >

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Review of Emerson String Quartet at Natural History Museum

The Obama administration ended a major benefit in the 2010 health-care law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable. Although the program had been dogged from the start by doubts about its feasibility, its elimination marks the first time the administration has backed away from a key piece of what remains of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Read full article > >

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White House eliminates insurance program for long-term care

The 50,000 drivers who cruise daily along Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs drive through ranch and farm land, marked by dramatic buttes and wild animals, a vista that might have been very different but for a little-known federal program. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which Congress created in 1965, helped pay for this open space, along with large swaths of land in other areas across the country. But there is a fight looming in Washington as Congress plans to drastically cut the program’s budget, and President Obama, who had accepted cuts in the past, appears ready to oppose them. Read full article > >

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Conservation funding sparks political battle

The Energy Department, under fire over its management of a program that offers loan guarantees to clean-technology companies, has been finalizing additional multimillion-dollar loan guarantees in the program at a rate of more than one a week since the beginning of August. It now has just two weeks left to commit the program’s remaining $9.3 billion. Read full article > >

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During Solyndra probe, Energy Dept. has to move billions in loans