Gap

The only sound in the crystalline mountain air was the crunch of our bicycle tires on the crushed limestone path. We'd pedaled around a bend, leaving behind the frothing Youghiogheny River and its whitewater rafters. Now, as we paused to split an orange, my husband and I looked down the path ahead of us, through the springtime trees just beginning to leaf out. The morning sun slanting between their narrow trunks striped the trail with parallel bars of light and shadow. "Look," Rick said suddenly.

After years of pay freezes and unpaid furloughs, physical education teacher Steven Lightman received a roughly $8,000 annual salary bump this school year. But it wasn't because Lightman's school system decided to give the veteran teacher a raise. He made it happen himself by switching Washington area school districts. Lightman, a Prince George's County teacher for 11 years, started working in Montgomery County last fall. He is one of many teachers reaping the benefits of living in a region where a dramatic boost in...

There's no way around it. I throw like a girl. Luckily, it's not difficult to avoid situations in which throwing is required, and I've managed to do it successfully my entire adult life. Except that one time. A decade or so ago, in New York, a ball came flying over an 18-foot schoolyard fence just as I was passing by. There was no one I could hand it off to, and a gaggle of fifth-graders was waiting for me to toss it back. I had so little faith in my overarm throwing that I had to go underhand.

The headline on the May 5 front page read, " Big gap in race for Va. governor . " A big gap? While a new Washington Post poll showed that Republican Ken Cuccinelli has a 10-point lead among likely voters over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the qualifications that The Post attached to that gap are stunning. For instance, the article stated that "barely 10 percent say they are following the campaign ‘very closely' and that nearly half of the electorate says they're either undecided or could change their minds.

The back of most ceramic soap dishes has a square or rectangular raised area that is the same thickness as the tile that is adjacent to the soap dish. This raised area is what creates the gap where the soap dish is grouted to the tile. It is important that the gap between the flange of the new soap dish and the tile is no more than one-eighth of an inch. If it is more, there may be some old mastic or thinset on the substrate. This needs to be removed for professional results.

THE DEATH this winter of Marilyn J. Praisner, a wellspring of sound judgment, fiscal prudence and deep knowledge over her 17 years on the Montgomery County Council, left an enormous gap. It also left the council divided on critical questions involving the management and budget of a dynamic jurisdiction of almost a million people. That sets the context for an unusually important and hard-fought Democratic primary on Tuesday to fill Mrs. Praisner's empty seat in District 4, an exceptionally diverse area that includes Aspen Hill, the Route 29 corridor...

The federal government reported Friday that on average, its employees are underpaid by 26.3 percent compared with similar non-federal jobs, a "pay gap" that increased by about 2 percentage points over last year while federal salary rates were frozen. The Bureau of Labor Statistics presented the figures to the Federal Salary Council, an advisory group of federal agency officials, union representatives and outside pay experts. Under a 2010 law, federal salary schedules were frozen for 2011 and will be frozen again in 2012, though...

IRBIL, Iraq — To land at the gleaming new airport in this booming regional capital is to glimpse what the United States hoped a decade ago that all of Iraq might become. Cranes swivel across a skyline whose glittering high-rises and five-star hotels bring an air of Dubai grandeur. Modern malls with brightly lit boutiques do a brisk business. Modern, wide highways include pedestrian bridges, some with escalators. This is Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that was semiautonomous even under Saddam Hussein, but one that has...

More than six in 10 Americans see a widening gap between the wealthy and the less well-off in this country, and about as many want the federal government to try to shrink the divide, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll . Democrats and independents largely support government policies to reduce the wealth gap, while most Republicans oppose such action. The issue cuts even more sharply along a new political fault line, with tea party supporters and those backing the fledgling Occupy Wall Street...

Now the good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats. You always have been, and you probably always will be. Never mind that your presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while your president plumbs historic depths of popular scorn and your free market squeals for intervention while your investments evaporate on Wall Street. You are not just happier than the other guys, but more of you are very happy indeed, according to new survey results published yesterday by the Pew Research Center.

NEW YORK — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Friday on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market: NYSE The Gap Inc., up $2.18 at $40.99 Thanks to strong sales at its Old Navy and Gap stores, the retailer said sales at stores open at least a year rose 7 percent in April. Molycorp Inc., up $1.75 at $7.34 The Greenwood Village, Colo.-based miner of rare earth products reported first-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations. ArcelorMittal, up...

NEW YORK — Stock indexes are mostly higher in midday trading on Wall Street and are on track to post solid gains for the week. The Dow Jones industrial average moved between small gains and losses Friday morning. It was down 16 points at 15,066 as of noon Eastern Daylight Time. Other indexes rose slightly. The Dow is up 0.6 percent for the week and 15 percent so far this year. Prices for commodities including crude oil and gold fell sharply as the dollar...

BARCELONA, Spain — Fernando Alonso is hoping to close the gap on championship leader Sebastian Vettel at the Spanish Grand Prix. He says "until we are 75 or 80 points behind, we should be optimistic" about challenging for the Formula One title. The two-time champion trails Vettel by 30 points after just four races going into this weekend's event. But the Spaniard feels for the first time in years that Ferrari has a car good enough to dictate the race to Red Bull, rather than...

The show-and-tell session in Rock Creek Park started out pretty tame. Erin Casgren-Tindall, 31, hoisted up a yellow bag and announced, "Here are things to take with us on a bike ride. " Her audience of a half-dozen women watched as she pulled out her locks — both a cable to loop around her wheels and a U-lock for her frame. Then she grabbed her patch kit and explained how to use the supplies to fix a flat. She talked about bells, lights, shoes, water. And, eventually, underwear.

NEW YORK — High taxes have emerged as the No. 1 weapon in the war on smoking. The more cigarettes cost, research has shown, the fewer people buy them. That is one of the reasons six states are considering proposals to hike tobacco taxes. But the effectiveness of that strategy is being undercut in the home of the nation's highest tobacco taxes — New York City — by light penalties for merchants caught selling cheap cigarettes smuggled in from low-tax states. Of the 1,105...

Much has been written attempting to explain the increasing gap between the economic haves and the have-nots, with the discussion often focusing on various federal policies. The April 27 front-page article " At work in the princess-industrial complex " suggests, however, an alternative explanation. Perhaps the ultra-wealthy play such a prominent role in our society because children are taught from the earliest ages to revere and idealize symbols of wealth, power and inequality. Bruce Levinson ...

Michael Keller has worked on five continents during his 15 years in the foreign service. He's been in Germany, where the standard of living is pretty good, and the Central African Republic and Cambodia, where he could only hope that his three children suffered nothing more than bumps and bruises because of poor medical care. He likes his work, but he's always confronted with a big source of frustration -- the overseas pay gap. When State Department diplomats are posted abroad, they lose locality pay. That's the amount...

LOS ANGELES -- Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 10 and the streaking Colorado Rockies forced the NL West race down to the final two games, beating the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 Friday night. With both teams already assured playoff spots, the Rockies cut the Dodgers' division lead to one game. Colorado needs to sweep the three-game series to win the West. The Rockies won their fifth in a row and Dodgers lost their season-worst fifth straight. Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to start Saturday for Los Angeles...

For more than a generation, educators and policymakers have been agonizing about America's achievement gap, the persistent chasm in academic performance between poor and privileged children. A new book and a national campaign launched Thursday says the country must pay equal attention to the "opportunity gap" — which exists when poor and minority students and English-language learners lack the same access as affluent students to skilled teachers, quality curriculum and well-equipped schools.

Low-performing Montgomery County schools slated to get individual case-management help from central office administrators will be called "Innovation Schools" as part of the district's newest initiative aimed at closing achievement gaps , school officials said. The new program is not intended to replace the existing Focus Schools model, officials said at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday. Innovation Schools will be identified based on performance. The schools will get more...