Community

CLEVELAND — The families of three women who spent years in captivity inside a Cleveland home celebrated on Tuesday their remarkable rescue, as questions began emerging about why police were called to the house at least twice in recent years yet never went inside. The women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight — vanished separately a decade ago while in their teens and early 20s only blocks from the eight-room house where they were found Monday night. Their rescue came when Berry,...

Thursday, May 16 Clifton homes tour and market place, tour four homes in the Clifton area, the Masonic Lodge in Clifton and the log cabin at the Paradise Springs winery, sponsored by the Clifton Community Woman's Club. A marketplace featuring local vendors will also be held at the winery, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; "Wine Down" from 3-6 p.m., with live music and a silent auction fundraiser at the winery. Paradise Springs Winery, 13219 Yates Ford Rd. Homes tour, $30; marketplace, free.

U.S. Special Operations forces rescued an American hostage and her Danish colleague in Somalia early Wednesday in the kind of daring raid that the Obama administration has said will be the hallmark of future U.S. military missions. Officials said the raid, by members of the Navy SEAL Team 6 unit that killed Osama bin Laden in May, demonstrated President Obama's focus on the narrow, targeted use of force after a decade of large-scale military deployments. The mission is "yet...

Thursday, May 16 Seniors mah-jongg, Chinese style, 9:30 a.m., also noon Saturday, Langston-Brown Senior Center, 2121 N. Culpeper St., Arlington. Free with 55+ Pass . Registration required. 703-228-6300. English as a Second Language, drop-in sessions for all levels: 10 a.m.-noon, and 10 a.m.-noon Tuesday; for intermediate levels: 3-5 p.m. Tuesday. Charles E. Beatley Library, 5005 Duke St., Alexandria. Free. 703-746-1702, Ext. 3. "Ode to Hundertwasser," gallery artists create works inspired by...

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place. President Obama's economic advisers and outside experts say the nation's much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind , including young people looking to buy their first homes and...

Shorty needed a ride home. She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn't always sure where she'd wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle "Shorty" Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that's why they worried. She got in a car. It begins there, with that simple act, a 21-year-old — in many ways still very much a girl — got in a car. Aug. 22, 2002. If she'd looked up in that last moment of freedom,...

It's true that humanist parents have difficulty finding a supportive community similar to that found in a church [news story, Dec. 21]. Luckily, our area has three Ethical Societies -- one each in Northern Virginia, Washington and Baltimore. Each group is a "congregation" that provides Sunday school for children, meetings for adults and other activities. All welcome visitors seeking an alternative to traditional religious beliefs and doctrines, people who have faith in reason and compassion and who seek a...

Judith Levine's Nov. 23 Outlook article illustrated a point -- "Don't Buy It" -- that can't be made enough to our overborrowed and overstimulated nation. I would, however, like to complicate the seemingly simple dichotomy Ms. Levine drew between public and private consumption. She stated that we choose between private consumption or investment via taxes in the public good ("we're in this together"). I would argue that there are structures and policies that prevent us from feeling connected as a community and that this "choice" between public and...

One of my emotions after being laid off was sadness over the loss of community. I felt like I had been banished from a community where I had worked for five and a half years. During my first interview, I found myself continuing to say "we" when discussing my former job. No. You are no longer "we. " "We" is now "they. " The very pleasant surprise, though, has been watching my personal community grow bigger and stronger. I have reconnected with old friends. I have established new friendships.

Regarding David Malitz's April 3 Style review, " Bringing darkness, depth to the party ": On the night of March 30, I held two tickets in my hands — one a Mega Millions fantasy and the other a Bruce Springsteen dream. By the next morning, I'd chucked the two-buck thing, and the Boss's bargain was to become my latest salvation. Without needlessly recounting the redemptive and reflective qualities of an E Street Band experience, I shamelessly invite the uninitiated to join the Springsteen multigenerational community...

With time running out to save a historic school from closing, the Middleburg Elementary School community is accelerating its efforts to have it approved as a charter school by fall 2014. The tiny school — 61 students are enrolled — has long been a target for possible closing during the Loudoun County School Board's yearly budget deliberations. This year, the warning was particularly emphatic. As the School Board reconciled its budget in March, cutting an additional $16 million to make up for decreased...

Thursday, May 16 Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, behind-the-scenes tour. 11 a.m.- 1 p.m., through May 30, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, 10515 Mackall Rd., St. Leonard. Free. 410-586-8501 or jppm@mdp.state.md.us . National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association meeting, for Chapter 1972. Guest speaker, Cindy Olmsted of the Department of Aging. 1 p.m., Waldorf West Library, 10405 O'Donnell Pl., Waldorf. Free. 301-645-3077. Solomons farmers market, ...

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Twin Oaks tofu's sales and marketing manager. She is Aubby Duggan, not Duggans. Carly Rodgers has her hands full, figuratively and literally. She's under the gun to finish cooking dinner for 70-odd people, the bulk of the population at Twin Oaks, the so-called "intentional community" where she lives. And she's forming tofu patties that she'll fry up and coat with a mushroom gravy, as a vegetarian alternative to tonight's buffet-style main...

DANVILLE, Va. — A community college administrator in Tennessee has been named president of Danville Community College. Bruce R. Scism's appointment is effective Aug. 1. He will replace Carlyle Ramsey, who's retiring after serving as the school's president for 21 years. Scism has served as vice president of academic affairs at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Tenn., since 2008. Virginia Community College chancellor Glenn DuBois announced Scism's appointment...

NEW YORK — "I hope that other women can benefit from my experience," Angelina Jolie wrote in a powerful op-ed article Tuesday, explaining her decision to go public with having her breasts removed to avoid cancer. But amid the accolades for the film star's courageous revelation, doctors and genetic counselors were careful to note that her medical situation — an inherited genetic mutation putting her at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer — was very specific,...

"Community" fans, whose persecution complex rivals Bristol Palin's on "Dancing With the Stars," on Tuesday accused NBC of messing with them for sport after learning that the network had canceled plans to return their beloved show to the lineup on Oct. 19. They, in fact, should be thanking NBC. The relationship between "Community" and NBC has been star-crossed for ages. Last November, "Community" fans did not stop to read the fine print when NBC announced that it was benching the show to make room on Thursdays to return "30 Rock.

Rarely have I seen such disappointed faces as the day I visited a classroom full of college students and told them I'm not a huge fan of NBC's "Community," the ensemble snarkedy about a group of adults ostensibly trying to earn their degrees at a community college. With my pronounced shrug of "meh" — plus the dismissive review I wrote when the series premiered in 2009 — I was once again staring across a personally terrifying "Community" chasm: Me on one side, feeling as outdated as Moses (even though...