FAMU student selected for prestigious Washington, D.C., internship

Florida A&M student Reamonn Soto, 23, of Tallahassee has been selected to participate in the Congressional Black Caucus’ internship program this spring.

The program in Washington, D.C., is known as the Emerging Leaders Internship Program – a semester-long paid internship in which he will have the opportunity to work on Capitol Hill at federal agencies and for nonprofit organizations.
Soto plans to drive to D.C. this weekend, and the program will officially start Monday.


As a recipient, he will receive housing, a stipend and an all-expenses paid semester at the George Washington University’s Semester in Washington Program.
Source:tallahassee.com/

EPA to Hold States, Washington, D.C. Accountable for Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

(January 3, 2010) - Utilizing the authority of the Clean Water Act and an executive order by President Obama, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hopes to accelerate the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay.

The EPA recently completed an “accountability framework” that will set limits on the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment which can be introduced to the Bay and its waterways by states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

“President Obama, EPA and the states want real, measurable results to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement. “To get there EPA is strengthening support for our partners, setting clear standards for progress, and ensuring accountability if those standards aren’t met.”

Technical assistance will be provided to help the states comprising the Chesapeake Bay watershed—Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia and Washington, D.C.—to improve the performance and accountability of pollution control programs. A total of $11.2 million in grants for the 2010 fiscal year will also be provided to meet those goals.

To ensure that counties, municipalities, conservation districts and watershed organizations understand their role and play their part in meeting outlined water quality goals, the EPA expects the states and D.C. to further divide their pollution limits down to the local level by 2011. By 2017, pollution controls should be in place that are expected to reduce bay pollution by 60 percent, and the EPA said all required pollution control programs must be ready by 2025.

Each jurisdiction must meet milestones every two years. If they fail to do so, the EPA can impose consequences including: an increase in federal enforcement and compliance in the watershed; prohibiting new or expanded pollution discharges; and redirecting EPA grants.

“Pollution in the Chesapeake is a challenge that has persisted for decades,” Jackson said. “This federal-state partnership presents new opportunities for cleanup, and we’re increasing support and accountability to be sure we get the job done.”

Source:afro.com/

After passing 2 health bills, Hill must now build bridge

WASHINGTON - -- Even as Senate Democrats celebrated passing landmark health care legislation last week, they knew the arm-twisting and dealmaking wasn't close to being over.

The $871 billion Senate measure, which passed early Christmas Eve in a taut, party-line vote, now must be reconciled with a $1 trillion House version that passed in early November. While the two bills are more alike than different, working out the kinks won't be an entirely smooth process.

What form that process will take also remains unclear. Typically, differences are ironed out in a joint House-Senate conference committee. But last week, sentiments on Capitol Hill were moving away from such a formal structure in favor of a looser negotiating framework that could allow greater flexibility to fashion a compromise.

And because Republicans will play no role in shaping the final product, Democrats are free to do as they see fit -- which could mean a handful of leaders from both houses, along with key committee chairs, will hammer out a deal behind closed doors with the goal of sending a bill to President Barack Obama by early February. Both the House and the Senate will have to vote again on the measure before that happens.

Members of the Obama administration, including the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, will also be heavily involved in the talks.

"We've got two bills, one in the House, one in the Senate; they're 95 percent similar," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said Thursday. "We're going to be actively working to iron out the rest of the differences and get a bill passed and signed."

Regardless of the format, the Senate is expected to have the upper hand in any negotiations, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., needs the vote of every one of the 58 members of his caucus along with the two independents in the chamber to ward off a Republican filibuster.

Senators such as Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, whom Reid courted until the last minute, have already pledged to withdraw their support if the bill deviates too much from the Senate version.

For Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the challenge will come in keeping Senate moderates on board without triggering defections from House liberals, who are aggrieved that the Senate bill dispensed with cherished provisions such as a government-run insurer -- the "public option" -- that would compete with private companies.

But no one on Capitol Hill seems to believe that the lack of a public option will be a deal-breaker. And Pelosi and other House leaders will have a simple message for intransigent members: Do you want to be the one who keeps a historic health care bill from the president's desk?

It's also possible that the more the final bill begins to resemble the Senate version, the greater the chance that some of the 39 centrist Democrats in the House who voted against the bill could come on board.

Both versions of the bill set up insurance exchanges, where people could buy health policies with the help of federal subsidies. Both expand the reach of the Medicaid program and both impose new rules on insurers, including prohibiting them from rejecting customers based on their medical history.

But there are some significant differences. A key sticking point in the talks may be the issue of abortion coverage and the federal subsidies. The more restrictive House bill prohibits anyone receiving subsidies from buying an individual policy that covers abortion through the new insurance exchange. The Senate bill would only prohibit the use of federal funds for such coverage and would require insurance companies to segregate public and private funds.

Another potential flash point involves how each version is financed. The Senate bill partially relies on taxes on high-end, so-called Cadillac insurance plans -- a tax bitterly opposed by labor unions. The House bill imposes a surcharge on Americans who earn more than $500,000 a year and families earning more than $1 million.

House liberals may seek to extract some other changes to the Senate bill in return for jettisoning the public option, including increasing the amount of the subsidies or moving up the date the new insurance exchanges would take effect one year, to 2013.

How those exchanges would operate is another disparity: House Democrats want that exchange to be a national one, while the Senate bill calls for a state-based system.

The talks could be heated, especially after House leaders have pledged not to "roll over" for the Senate. But it was clear at the end of last week that even the liberals weren't drawing lines in the sand and were ready to deal.

"It doesn't have to be called a public option," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The main issue for Democrats in the House is affordability."

Janet Hook of the Tribune Newspapers Washington Bureau contributed to this report.

Source:chicagotribune.com

NBA finds nothing funny in Arenas probe

At the end of a lost road trip, aboard the Washington Wizards’ charter flying from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., Gilbert Arenas(notes) and Javaris Crittenton(notes) were two teammates playing Bourré, one of the most popular card games among NBA players. The game goes back to the 1980s and resembles something between Spades and Euchre. The pots rise rapidly and millions of NBA dollars have been won and lost on Bourré tables across North America.

As the league’s most disappointed and fractured team watched a late night turn to early morning, a forgettable card game would end up with unforgettable consequences. All around Arenas, this had been a season of tension and turmoil, and now these Wizards couldn’t get close out a card game without drama. Arenas and Crittenton had contributed to much of the pot, and eventually the franchise’s $111 million man infuriated the young player with sarcastic taunts and teasing.

Arenas loves to needle, tweak, and still no one’s sure the reasoning for his refusal to pay a debt that sources say reached into the tens of thousands of dollars. Nevertheless, Agent Zero’s declaration delivered Crittenton into a rage: The payment plan was this: zero money down, zero money later.


Sources say Crittenton suggested Arenas could catch a beating for such belligerence, but “Gil could tell he was pushing Javaris’ buttons,” and that was too joyful for him to relent. Arenas is older, wittier and savvier than Crittenton. What would happen when the players returned for practice two days later on Dec. 21 is still a matter of some uncertainty. Whatever witnesses were in the locker room, including Arenas and Crittenton, have told friends and associates on the outside conflicting stories.


Some sources have described a practical joke gone awry, some have detailed a far darker, more frightening picture.

Here is the story that Crittenton and Arenas plan to tell police on Monday, sources said: When the Wizards returned to practice, Arenas unlocked three unloaded guns out of a strong box in his locker and laid them on a locker-room chair and instructed Crittenton to choose one. The Washington Post reported Crittenton had playfully threatened to shoot Arenas in his knee on the plane, and that offering him a gun to deliver the deed was a way of trying to diffuse the tension.

Only Crittenton, feeling belittled and bullied, tossed one of the guns to the floor in anger and the tone between the two players escalated again. One NBA executive, briefed on the investigation, said Saturday, “The law is going to start trying to isolate them. Once the entire interrogation starts, you have to wonder if the stories will start changing.”

The New York Post reported in its Friday edition the two players drew weapons against each other. Sources say league attorneys discussed with NBA staff the possibility of Arenas brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, but league officials hadn’t dug deep enough to be sure, and ultimately are waiting for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and D.C. police to conclude their investigation and make a decision on whether to bring charges.

Arenas has denied drawing his weapon on Crittenton and those who know him – even some with no apparent agenda to back him – have done so. Dan Fegan is one of the league’s most influential player agents, but Arenas severed ties with him prior to negotiating his extension with the Wizards and a $30 million Adidas shoe deal.

“Gilbert Arenas did not point a gun at anyone,” Fegan said Saturday. “I don’t believe it. That’s 100 percent inconsistent with the person that I’ve known. Gilbert is a born practical joker, and maybe this is a joke gone wrong … but there’s no way he pointed a gun at a teammate.”

No one’s laughing among Wizards management, where jobs are on the line. And, assuredly, no one’s laughing in the league office, where NBA commissioner David Stern is livid and forever sensitive to the public’s profiling of his league as too gangster, too incapable of policing itself. Stern understands guns are an issue in his league, and some team executives will tell you they estimate 30 to 40 percent of their players probably bring guns into the locker room just like Arenas did with the Wizards.


Not only has Arenas denied he pointed the unloaded gun, he denies he was gambling. Still, sources insist Arenas is a relentless high-stakes gambler, that he loves the action of it. One league source told Yahoo! Sports he approximated Arenas had lost as much as $70,000 to $80,000 in an evening betting on PlayStation games against a friend of former teammate Donnell Taylor.

“The guy went out the next day, bought a real nice car in cash the next day and still had money left over. Gil gave him his money.”

As for Crittenton, his agent, Mark Bartelstein, insisted his client never had a gun, and had done nothing to rise to the level of punishment. “I’m confident my client hasn’t done anything wrong,” Bartelstein said. “The fact will bear that out. It’s unfortunate that rumors get going and inaccuracies come out before the facts are known, but all we can do is wait for the investigation to conclude.… Javaris will be exonerated of any wrong doing.”

It’s clear Arenas will try use to his charm and clownish antics as the cornerstone of his defense. Whatever legal issues could arise with the strict gun laws in D.C., there’s still the matter of Stern’s punishment. This story has engulfed the league, and several league office and team sources believe Stern will be harsh in his judgment no matter what the legal system decides to do. This could be a suspension that extends over months, possibly the rest of the season.


In a lot of ways, Arenas’ return to the Wizards from microfracture knee surgery this season had been tumbling toward this bottom. He returned angry, isolated and unsure about his ability to be his old self. For a short time, Arenas tried to fit back into the lineup with prominent teammates Antawn Jamison(notes) and Caron Butler(notes).

Arenas barely talked to coach Flip Saunders in training camp. Sources say his trainer, Tim Grover, spent time in Richmond, Va., for training camp and became, in the words of one team witness, “a buffer” between the coach and star. After the team broke camp and returned to Washington, Arenas became increasingly belligerent and defiant of Saunders. Witnesses insist he began to purposely disrupt practices. Privately, Wizards executives were conceding to friends, “We’ve lost control of this thing.”

Arenas has long had issues with authority. His relationship with past coach Eddie Jordan deteriorated over time. In fact, sources say Jordan often felt undermined by general manager Ernie Grunfeld when it came to Arenas. Jordan pushed Arenas to defend, to be a complete player, and never felt he got the backing he needed when Arenas grumbled to upper management. All that, and when Jordan needed a contract extension, it was Arenas who still lobbied management on Jordan’s behalf to get it done.

Arenas has always been a contradiction, perfectly brilliant and perfectly maddening. Now, he’s mostly a problem the Wizards don’t know how to make go away, even if they wish they could.

Arenas’ contract was untradeable before this incident and now it’s an albatross of historic proportion. The best chance for getting out of the contract could be criminal charges and a conviction, but all that is so murky now.

The Wizards could void the contract and relieve themselves of the 4½ years and $90 million-plus left on it. Adidas is monitoring the case, too, and it must understand Agent Zero doesn’t sell shoes the way he did two years ago. For now, the company is waiting to see what goes down in D.C. before it makes a decision on its deal with him and on their future together.

Arenas is trying to laugh his way out of something that isn’t funny and isn’t a joke to his franchise, to the NBA. Maybe Agent Zero tried to get one too many laughs, but whatever happened, however he tries to spin it now, the consequences promise to be immense for him. He has a story for law enforcement on Monday, and maybe it’s the truth and they’ll believe it. Eventually, he’s going to New York for a most unforgiving judge and jury in Olympic Tower, for David Stern, and it will be a good, long time before Gilbert Arenas is back in the NBA.

Source:sports.yahoo.com/

NHL Extra Around the ice

• Player to watch: Left winger Niklas Hagman spent parts of four seasons with the Panthers before being shipped out by Mike Keenan and Jacques Martin in 2005. He has burned them ever since, averaging a goal per game. Hagman had two goals against the Cats earlier this season.

• Analysis: The Panthers swept the four-game series against the Maple Leafs for the first time last season, but that success didn't spill over into this season. The Leafs won 6-4 in Sunrise on Nov. 27.

• Series: Toronto leads 26-16-7.

PANTHERS @ CANADIENS, 7:30 P.M. THURSDAY (FSNF)

• Player to watch: Defenseman Andrei Markov went into the New Year with eight assists this season; three of them came against the Panthers on Dec. 31.

• Analysis: The Canadiens have had the Panthers' number of late, winning four of the past five games -- including a 5-4 decision in Sunrise on New Year's Eve. These teams tied for the eighth spot in the East last season, but the Panthers have some ground to make up this season after the Habs won 6 of 7 on their most recent trip.

• Series: Tied 28-28-6.

PANTHERS @ SENATORS, 7 P.M. SATURDAY (FSNF)

• Player to watch: Center Mike Fisher made headlines on the gossip pages for his proposal to Carrie Underwood last month, but his play has garnered just as much attention in sports circles.Fisher's 15 goals this season already have surpassed last year's total, and his 31 points were tied for the team lead going into the New Year.

• Analysis: Ottawa bounced back from an 8-2 loss to Pittsburgh on Dec. 23 to finish 2009 strong, winning 3 of 4. The Senators won 4-3 in Sunrise on Oct. 28.

• Series: Ottawa leads 33-25-3.

CAT CONFIDENTIAL | WAS IT TOUGH TO PLAY A HOME GAME THAT SOUNDS LIKE A ROAD GAME, AS WAS THE CASE THURSDAY AGAINST MONTREAL?

Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov: It's always good to have your own crowd, people rooting for us. But we don't have a lot of people who come, so on one side, it's good to have a full barn. But they're not our fans and that's a sad thing. I asked [Gregory Campbell] if we were going to wear our road whites.

Defenseman Keith Ballard: Montreal has a great following, is a great franchise and the tradition they have is awesome. We love going to Montreal and playing and this is what it's like. Only a lot shorter trip.

Center Dominic Moore: It's always fun to have passionate fans in the building. The Panthers have great fans and you could hear the rivalry going with the out-of-town fans. It made for a good atmosphere.

ASK A FLORIDA PANTHER | DENNIS SEIDBERG


DESCRIBE YOUR FAVORITE OLYMPIC MOMENT AND THE EXCITEMENT THAT SURROUNDS THE GAMES


In 2002, I got to go into the stadium in Salt Lake for Opening Ceremonies, and that was an unreal feeling knowing you were there representing your country and everyone at home was watching. This year, we are going up just to play the games and you don't get the full Olympic feeling, but it's still very special. My first Olympics was great because I was still playing in Germany and I was so nervous being around all the NHL guys.

Source:

D.C. Chief Lanier Calls 45-Year Homicide Low A “Huge” Success

Washington, D.C., and adjoining Prince George’s County, Md., the region’s most violent jurisdictions, logged their lowest homicide totals in years in 2009, with D.C. hitting a 45-year -low, the Washington Post reports. The number of slayings last year in Washington, once known as the nation’s murder capital, was 140, a 25 percent drop from 2008. Prince George’s recorded 100 killings, the county’s lowest in nine years. ”It’s huge,” said D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. “We’re making an impact.”

Although final year-end totals have not been tallied, New York expects to post its fewest homicides since 1963. Philadelphia had a 9 percent decrease, and Chicago an 11 percent drop. There is no consensus among police officials about why crime went down in 2009; theories include more focused enforcement, better use of technology, and stepped-up intelligence gathering.

Source:thecrimereport.org/

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Capitals In The 2000's: A Decade In Review

Like Dan Snyder and the Redskins, the Washington Capitals began this decade with a new owner. A young former businessman and sports fan Ted Leonsis, purchased the team in 1999 from original owner Abe Pollin. Both owners have spent the first decade of this millennium learning through experience how to run a professional sports team. Both have had a mixed bag of successes and letdowns and both are still waiting to win a championship. In the past ten years Ted Leonsis and the Capitals have had considerably better regular season success than the Redskins, Wizards, and Nationals. The Caps have won four division titles this decade and finished in second place twice while neither the Redskins, Nationals, or Wizards have won their division. Shockingly, however, the Capitals have only advanced in the playoffs once in the 2000’s, equal to that of the Wizards, and less than the Redskins who did it two times.

How could it be that the Capitals have been so disappointing when it comes to winning in the playoffs? There is no clear answer, but the consensus is that the Caps are on the right path and will get their fair share of chances in the next few years. Comcast SportsNet anchor Russ Thaler explains the last ten years for the Caps as the “decade that Ted Leonsis learned how to be a successful owner.” Thaler said that through trial and error Leonsis has built a “winning team from top to bottom,” eventually engineering a “Caps emergence on the D.C. sports scene.”

When Ted Leonsis took over the Capitals in 1999 the team was one season removed from a Stanley Cup appearance. The season before he bought the team was marred by injuries and they had missed the playoffs. Leonsis’ first two regular seasons as owner were out of a storybook, as the Caps twice captured the Southeast Division Title. Both years ended prematurely with playoff series defeats to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In the offseason of 2001, Leonsis and the Capitals decided the best way to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins was to acquire their best player. The Caps traded three young prospects to the Pens for five-time Art Ross Trophy-winner Jaromir Jagr. Later that year Washington signed Jagr to a seven year, $77 million dollar contract, the highest in NHL history at the time. When Jagr came to the Caps he was arguably the best player in the National Hockey League. His acquisition brought considerable hype to a team that played in a city that had previously flown under the sport’s radar. Though Jagr and the Capitals failed to make the playoffs in his first season the team set a franchise record for home game attendance.

In the summer of 2002 the Capitals continued to aggressively build their roster, they signed Jagr’s former linemate from Pittsburgh, Robert Lang. The Caps did not make the playoffs the next year but were back in the postseason in 2003. In the 2003 playoffs they lost a devastating series to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Caps won the first two games against Tampa Bay, only to get swept in the next four. In Game Six, in D.C., the loss became especially painful as the two teams fought through overtime. The Lightning got the victory when a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty led to a Lightning power-play where Martin St. Louis scored the game-clinching goal.

Comcast SportsNet managing editor Joe Yasharoff saw Jaromir Jagr’s years in Washington as having “highlights here and there, but overall he absolutely didn’t live up to the hype.” He was brought in to make the Capitals a Stanley Cup contender but the plans just never materialized. The loss to the Lightning precipitated an effort by the Caps to scrap their roster and rebuild. In 2003, over budget and with a league lock-out looming, the Caps traded away many of their roster’s centerpieces including Steve Konawalchuk, Peter Bondra, Sergei Gonchar, and Jaromir Jagr. They went on to win the NHL Draft Lottery and secure the number one overall pick.

In finishing at the bottom of the league the Capitals received draft lottery odds with the third best chance to get the first pick. With extraordinary luck they drew the number one pick and were able to select Russian phenom Alexander Ovechkin, a prospect that Yasharoff described as a “once-in-a-lifetime player.” Ovie’s arrival changed everything, it drastically altered the course of a franchise and forever changed the landscape of Washington, D.C. professional sports.

In that stroke of luck in landing Alex Ovechkin, the Caps curbed the trend that has plagued the district’s other franchises. The Wizards and Redskins have had terrible misfortune in drafts of late and have been adversely affected by wasted picks. The Capitals were not only fortunate enough to be able to draft Ovechkin but the pace at which he has developed is unbelievable. Alex Ovechkin came into the league as a can’t-miss prospect but was still overshadowed by the “heir apparent” to Wayne Gretzky,
Sidney Crosby. Ever since Crosby was in middle school he was tabbed as the successor to the greatest player to take the ice. Since both have entered the league, however, the “Great Eight” has shown a closer resemblance to the “Great One.”

At just 24 years old, Ovechkin has already claimed the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year and two Hart Memorial Trophies as league MVP. His emergence as a superstar and most valuable player was quicker than Lebron James and Tim Lincecum. He is the best hockey player in the world and he resides in Washington, D.C.

Russ Thaler points to Ovechkin as a rarity in the nation’s capital in the sense that he “started here, made his name here, and became a winner here.” In the last decade there have been few players that D.C. sports fans can point to with the same career path. Most of the aging stars that have come through the turnstiles -Michael Jordan, Jaromir Jagr, Bruce Smith, Deion Sanders, Jerry Stackhouse, Brandon Lang, Jason Taylor- failed to bring success to Washington. Any success Ovechkin has will be in Washington, the Capitals locked him up with a 13-year, $124 million contract extension in 2008.

In Ovechkin’s professional career the Capitals have certainly become winners in the regular season. However, they still have not made a deep run in the playoffs. They missed out entirely in Ovie’s first season but have made the postseason in the two seasons since, each time losing in a game seven. In Ovechkin's first playoff series, the Caps rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force a seventh game against the Philadelphia Flyers, only to lose the game (and the series) 3-2 in overtime.

That offseason, the Capitals front office made a tough decision in letting long-time goalie Olaf Kölzig go via free agency. Kölzig had played his entire career in the Capitals organization. He helped the Caps reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998 and won the Vezina Trophy in 2000 for the NHL’s best goalie. The decision was unpopular but was in the team’s best interest. Kölzig had been one of the most popular players in team history but he was past his prime. The Capitals replaced him and were able to win the division once again the next year and return to the playoffs.

The playoff exit for the Capitals in 2009 was one that D.C. fans would like to forget. Dismissed a year earlier in Game Seven of the first round, Washington was triumphant in their first series in '09, defeating the 7th seeded New York Rangers. The Caps had fallen into a 0-2 series deficit before newly promoted goalie Semyon Varlamov helped them top the Rangers in seven games.

In the second round, hockey fans got their dream matchup. The Caps faced their longtime playoff nemesis and 2008 Stanley Cup runner-up, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The series showcased possibly the three best players in professional hockey: Ovechkin, Crosby, and Evgeny Malkin.

For most of the series, the showdown lived up to the hype and more. Ovechkin and Crosby dueled under the spotlight created by a personal rivalry stemming from the regular season. An exchange of words created an almost Magic and Bird-type aura around their competition. The series was highlighted by an outstanding Game Two in which both Ovechkin and Crosby scored hat tricks. By the time Game Seven got underway, even the most casual hockey fans were glued to their television set. What ensued was a Capitals letdown of epic proportions. The Penguins immediately took control, jumping out to a 4-0 lead just 2:13 into the second period. The game was capped off by two Sidney Crosby goals as Pittsburgh took the series on their way to a Stanley Cup Title.

Despite the crushing loss to Pittsburgh, the Washington Capitals should have plenty of chances for playoff success ahead of them. Just because they didn’t get past the second round in this decade does not mean it won’t happen soon. The Caps are a young team with a core of legitimate star players and an excellent minor league system. They will more than likely make a deep run towards a Stanley Cup in the near future, maybe even this spring.

Source:csnwashington.com/

Project FUNDway rewards aspiring fashion designers - local students to show runway collections

(Rendering by: West Potomac fashion design student Alessandra Degregorio)

On Thursday, December 3, the Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce (GWFCC) will hold the first-ever Project FUNDway competition for local students aspiring for a career as fashion designers. The three student finalists, Michael Edwards, Samuel Mintah and Adegbemisola Ademisoye, will compete for a $5,000 fashion design scholarship. Taking its cue from the hit reality television show, Project Runway, the finalists will be judged on the design, construction, individuality and quality of a four-piece mini-collection they each created for this competition.

“The mission [of this competition] is to fund a way [for students] to go to school and study fashion,” said Maggy Francois, vice president of education and training for GWFCC and fashion design director for Project Stitch Studio at the West Potomac Academy of Fashion Design. Francois also stated that the students are not only aspiring designers, but also want to be writers and to learn the “business side of fashion,” which is what this contest seeks to teach them.
In addition to putting together a cohesive four-piece collection, the students are also responsible for the production of their own runway show – including searching for models, music selection and purchasing the materials for their garments.
Interested students from Washington, D.C., as part of the submission guidelines, had to present a garment design, write an essay about why they want a career in fashion and submit their grades in school in order to be eligible. Due to overwhelming interest from students in neighboring metro areas, Francois said next year’s competition will be open to students in Maryland and Virginia as well.
In addition to benefiting local students, this event, sponsored in part by the DC City Council and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development for the District of Columbia Government, seeks to put Washington, DC on the map as a capital city of style by investing in the talent of its residents. Earlier today, the GWFCC released the first-ever report on the state of the DC fashion industry. The Fashion Census Survey Report and the Fashion Action Plan: Identifying the Needs of the Independent Fashion Industry in Washington, D.C.surveyed over 80 local fashion-related businesses and found that Washington, D.C. boasts over 1,900 retail stores and the overall retail industry generated $6 billion in general sales tax revenue for fiscal year 2008.
Download the PDF report here.
Although Washington, D.C. has not traditionally been known for its fashion forwardness, a strong and growing network of designers, merchants and business owners in the fashion sector view these initiatives as a step forward for DC’s burgeoning fashion economy.
Project FUNDways has been garnering considerable local media coverage in advance of the event. Tomorrow at 9:30am on FOX 5 Morning News, the finalists will talk about this contest as an opportunity to support their fashion career goals.
“It’s hard to find scholarships for fashion in this area,” said Francois. “Kids in DC want a fashion program…and want to be visual.”
To learn more about the student finalists and the Project FUNDway contest, visit http://www.gwfcc.org/

Source:examiner.com

DC Firm Gets $25M Contract For New Del. Assessment

DOVER, Del. (AP) ― A Washington, D.C.-based company has won a five-year, $24.6 million contract to develop Delaware's new assessment system for public school students.

American Institutes for Research will develop and pilot a new statewide assessment system for students in grades two to 10.

The Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System is a computer-adaptive growth-model test that will replace the 12-year-old Delaware Student Testing Program by next school year.

To keep the state in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind act, the reading and math portions of the test will be administered to 2nd-through 8th-graders in March, and the science and social studies portions to 8th-and 11th-graders in May.

Source:wjz.com/