Free Republic

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that it had detained men belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group who were planning a bomb attack on a foreign embassy in the country. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Saturday that Egyptian security forces had intercepted a terrorist cell linked to al Qaeda that was on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy. “The Interior Ministry was able to direct a successful blow to a terrorist cell that was planning suicide operations,” Ibrahim said during a televised news conference. The minister did not specify which embassy was being targeted,...

The Associated Press has been one of the few national media outlets providing at least some coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial, presumably from their local partners, so they certainly deserve some credit for going where their competitors wouldn’t — at least not until recently.  As with most news outlets following an ongoing story, the AP started looking for fresh angles to frame their stories.  Last night, though, the AP sent out a wire story headlined “Philly abortion workers saw few options,” in which Maryclaire Dale focuses on the employment woes of Gosnell’s co-defendants to explain why they followed Gosnell’s orders...

New research into Thonis-Heracleion, a sunken port-city that served as the gateway to Egypt in the first millennium BC, was examined at a recent international conference at the University of Oxford. The port city, situated 6.5 kilometres off today’s coastline, was one of the biggest commercial hubs in the Mediterranean before the founding of Alexandria... This obligatory port of entry, known as ‘Thonis’ by the Egyptians and ‘Heracleion’ by the Greeks, was where seagoing ships are thought to have unloaded their cargoes to have them assessed by temple officials and taxes extracted before transferring them to Egyptian ships that went...

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 7 minutes ago He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror. Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan. Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Alabama Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2012 Southern District of Alabama MOBILE, AL—U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown of the Southern District of Alabama and Stephen E. Richardson, Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Division of the FBI, announced that Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 25, and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, 25, both U.S. citizens living in Mobile, were arrested today on terrorism charges filed in the Southern District of Alabama. A criminal complaint signed on December 10, 2012, charges Abukhdair and Wilson with conspiring to...

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the site of the Library of Alexandria, often described as the world's first major seat of learning. A Polish-Egyptian team has excavated parts of the Bruchion region of the Mediterranean city and discovered what look like lecture halls or auditoria. Two thousand years ago, the library housed works by the greatest thinkers and writers of the ancient world. Works by Plato and Socrates and many others were later destroyed in a fire. Oldest University Announcing their discovery at a conference being held at the University of California, Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt's...

Saddam lookalike attacked by gang who tried to kidnap him and force him to impersonate the dictator in porn film An Egyptian Saddam Hussein lookalike claims an Iraqi gang tried to kidnap him and force him to make a pornographic film impersonating the late dictator. Mohamed Bishr, who comes from Alexandria, said the group hoped to sell their video as exclusive erotic footage of the former leader. He claims the gang beat him severely when he refused to go along with the plan, despite being offered $333,000 (£205,000). The devout Muslim says the gang made threatening phone calls saying they...

Government officials in the Washington region, as well as nationwide, are looking increasingly to bus rapid transit for new transit options as they face tightening public purses. BRT plans are under way in Alexandria and Arlington County, where buses are planned to travel from Braddock Road to Pentagon City. Alexandria expects to begin construction in July and start running buses in dedicated lanes in December 2013, said Abi Lerner, Alexandria's deputy director of transportation. Arlington expects to complete its half of the system in spring 2014. Across the Potomac, Montgomery County officials have proposed a 160-mile system with 23 routes....

Suspect a Former Marine Corps Reservist ARLINGTON, Va. - UPDATE: FOX News has confirmed that the man taken into custody early Friday after being found near the Pentagon with suspicious materials in his backpack is former Marine Corps reservist Yonathan Melaku. 22-year-old Melaku was arrested in Arlington Cemetery overnight. He was believed to have a backpack containing 5 lbs of a substance that was labeled ammonium nitrate. Tests showed the material to be an "inert" substance. A notebook was also found in his bag with words such as Taliban and Al Qaeda. Melaku was a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist...

Why Orthodox Christians Prefer the Septuagint Third Edition By Metropolitan Ephraim Preface All told, there are some 300 textual differences between the Masoretic and the Septuagint texts, some of them important and some of them insignificant. These articles will explain why Orthodox Christians prefer the Septuagint, despite some admittedly beautiful and eloquent passages found in the Masoretic text. The articles by Metropolitan Ephraim were originally published on the internet in the Spring of 2009, and they appear here in a slightly edited and augmented form. ONE - HONOR THE PHYSICIAN In the Wisdom of Sirach, it says: “Honor the physician...

The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the East Coast on Tuesday rattled a church in Alexandria, Va. so hard that bricks fell through a stained glass window in the ceiling and then broke off the right arm of Jesus Christ on a large crucifix above the altar. The damage occurred at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria, just a few miles across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Further damage to the church included collapsed chimneys and brick walls crumbling. It was the latter that sent bricks tumbling through a stained glass window above the crucifix in the...

A former fourth-grade teacher in Alexandria has pleaded guilty to two counts of producing child pornography. Prosecutors say 35-year-old Justin Coleman videotaped himself with two girls, who were unaware of what they were being told to do, engaging in sexually explicit conduct. He also allegedly altered existing child pornographic images to depict former students engaging in sexual conduct. Prosecutors say the girls in the videotape were not his students.

“It may be that he feels he has been wronged by the Corps in his professional and or personal life,” said FBI Acting Assistant Director John Perren, whose Washington Field Office has been leading the FBI investigation. “The subject of his grievance does appear to be the institution of the United States Marine Corps and not the individual men and women Marines for whom he may feel a great deal of respect, admiration and even loyalty.”

And now, a case of black and white that is anything but black and white. A white congressman, Jim Moran of Alexandria, goes to pick up his kids at a recreation center where most of the children are black. Moran parks his Toyota Avalon and as he's getting out, he's approached by an 8-year-old boy, who is black. (The boy's parents don't mind if I use the child's name. I mind.) The boy says something. That much everyone agrees on. Moran says the boy said: "Give me your keys. I have a gun." The boy says he said, "I like...

The military junta ruling Egypt has announced that parliamentary elections will be held in September. Rather than spending the next five months complaining, those who aren’t supporting the Muslim Brotherhood better get started actually working and organizing. I’ll analyze this a lot more in the coming months but briefly the blocs are as follows: Islamists: The Muslim Brotherhood says it is aiming at getting 30 percent of the seats. I think they’ll succeed. A smaller, moderate Islamist party — whose members split from the Brotherhood because they say it is too extremist — would be lucky to get any seats....

A longtime northern Virginia political figure has decided to calls it quits. In an emotional speech on the Virginia Senate floor, Alexandria Democrat Patsy Ticer told her colleagues, "I have finally come to the end of the line." Ticer's 30th senate district covers Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax counties. She's been a fixture in local politics since 1982 when she was first elected to Alexandria's City Council. She became the city's first female mayor in 1991 and held that position until she was elected to the state Senate in 1995. As Alexandria mayor, Ticer helped lead the high...

Let My People Go  Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic EqualityBy S. S. HasanOxford University Press. 320 pp. $49.95.Reviewed by Robert W. ShaffernSana Hasan, an Egyptian scholar best known for her Enemy in the Promised Land, has written another important book in Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt—a book in which she honestly confronts the sorry condition of Christians in Egypt, where the “problems faced by the Christian minority are for many . . . a taboo subject.” Hasan courageously describes the discrimination and harm often visited upon one of Christianity’s oldest communions—the Coptic...

Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, reports that several of the country's museums have been attacked by looters taking advantage of the political turmoil in the country. In the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, looters stole jewelry from the museum shop and smashed a statue of Tutankhamun and other artifacts. In a Sinai store containing antiquities from the Port Said Museum, "a large group, armed with guns and a truck, entered the store, opened the boxes in the magazine and took the precious objects. Other groups attempted to enter the Coptic Museum, Royal Jewellery Museum, National...

Al Jazeera English: Live StreamIncredible live coverage in Cairo. Now reporting that the military has been ordered into the streets to enforce the curfew. They have already set a troop carrier on fire.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Addresses Coptic Church Bombing In Egypt 11-002-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), assured the bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles of the ELCA's "heartfelt desire" to stand in solidarity with Coptic Christians in the United States and the world in the wake of the New Year's Day bombing in a Coptic congregation in Egypt. At least 22 people were killed and 79 injured as a result of the car bombing that occurred as worshipers were leaving a Mass at the Church...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago. The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archaeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire annexed it in 30 B.C.

The great Library of Alexandria, established by Ptolemy II (circa 280 BC), has come to symbolize the receptacle of knowledge of Classical civilization. This great repository was barbarously razed in the Middle Ages. At its height, the Library contained an estimated forty thousand volumes on a wide variety of topics. It held works on astronomy, mathematics, physics, medicine, and philosophy -- many of which were copied from the hieroglyphic and cuneiform texts of the Egyptians and Babylonians. It also stored histories of all the countries of the known world: histories of Egypt, of Babylonia, of Persia, of the lands of...

SNIPPET: "Federal law enforcement officials call it a front for Hamas terrorists which "has been under numerous investigations for financing and [providing] aid and comfort to bad orgs and members." SNIPPET: "In gearing up for the 2010 Census, the General Services Administration (GSA) leased office space throughout the country. One location is a 6,654 square foot section of a two-story building on Edsall Road in Alexandria, Va. owned by the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque. The United States government is spending $582,000, or about $23,000 per month, to lease the space from November 2008 through the end of this year. SNIPPET: "The...

A 30-year-old woman accepted a ride home from Fast Eddie's night club, but instead of returning her to her Alexandria home, the man and five of his friends drove her to a Waldorf house and held her hostage for several hours as they repeatedly raped her, authorities said. The Charles County Sheriff's Office said all six men appear to be illegal immigrants. The men, ages 18 to 28, have been charged with rape and false imprisonment. Authorities say the men were in the car when the woman accepted the ride home late Monday night. They drove to a house on...

“Arrested Americans show no remorse about their terror plans” PTI Monday, December 21, 2009 14:44 IST SNIPPET: “Lahore: Five American Muslim youth arrested by Pakistani authorities on suspicion of terror links have shown no remorse about their plans to commit terrorist acts and one has even said they should be hanged so that they could become martyrs, a senior police official said today.” SNIPPET: “Zamzam, Waqar Hussain Khan, 22, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, Iman Hasan Yemer, 17 and Omar Farooq, 24, were arrested in Sargodha, located 200km from Islamabad, on charges of planning terror attacks in Pakistan and abroad.” SNIPPET:...

Breaking News: Pakistan Reportedly Detains Five D.C.-Area Muslims on Suspicion of Terror IPT News December 8, 2009 **Updated December 9, 9:00 a.m. EST A Pakistani newspaper reports the arrest of five foreign nationals after a raid in a town called Sargodha. The raid took place at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001. According to the report, "The DPO told that these people had been living in Sargodha since Nov 30 and it was quite a possibility that they were engaged in acts of...

The tactic of bashing Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk show hosts to score political points is apparently no longer the exclusive realm of national-level Democrats and moderate Republicans. Now, even local politicians are adopting this political maneuver in their local campaigns. Democrat David Englin, member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 45th District (and currently my own delegate), sent out a direct mail piece which I received on Thursday where Englin boldly proclaimed his opposition to the top conservative talk show host: “If Rush Limbaugh is for it, I’m probably against it.” (image at right).Englin’s mail piece, paid...

Note: The following text is a quote: 09 July 2009 EGYPT ARRESTS TERRORIST CELL OF 25 MEMBERS CAIRO, July 9 (Xinhua) The Egyptian authorities have arrested a terrorist cell of 25 members, 24 Egyptians and one Palestinian, for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Suez Canal, Egyptian Interior Ministry said in statement issued on Thursday. According to the statement, the members of the cell who believe in Jihad (Holy War) were located in Cairo, Alexandria and Daqahlia governorates and communicated through internet with other terrorist groups outside Egypt. The cell's members, mostly engineers, were developing high-tech and electronic devices...

It's not every day that a congressman asks for terrorists to be shipped to his hometown. So we were surprised to see Rep. Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, pen a column entitled "From Guantanamo to Alexandria" in Saturday's Washington Post. He actually championed the idea of bringing terrorists like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other al Qaeda detainees to historic Alexandria. What's next? Does he want the nuclear waste that Nevada won't take? We understand why congressmen work to bring federal office buildings to their district or fight off noisome incineration plants. So we read Rep. Moran's column with...

Alexandria Democrats Allegedly Pledging Vengeance Ms. Hughes is a federal employee who ran as an independent. An African-American non-democrat with tax lowering sensibilities drives the local Democrats bonkers. Democratics are gearing up to attack her election as improper under the Hatch Act which would go to the Obama Office of Special Counsel.

This morning, the liberal Democrats who run Alexandria, Virginia learned that beloved president wants to bring terrorists to Northern Virginia. And the wailing from the NIMBY lefties began.

In the Old Town historic district here, tourists and shoppers stroll brick sidewalks along King Street and peer into a wide range of boutiques — rug shops, antiques dealers, a cheese shop, even a comic book store. Old Town’s latest offering, though, has been stopping visitors in their tracks since it opened in January. It is called Le Tache, a “couples boutique,” more commonly known as a sex shop, which is sandwiched between art galleries whose offerings are more common in Old Town than colorful vibrators and steamy DVDs. The boutique’s owner leased the building after a dispute between the...

To many in Old Town Alexandria, the sex shop that opened recently on King Street is nothing short of scandalous, a historical desecration just blocks from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee. But to Michael Zarlenga, it's justice. Zarlenga spent $350,000 on plans to expand his hunting and fishing store, the Trophy Room. He worked with city officials for almost two years and thought he had their support -- until the architectural review board told him he couldn't alter the historic property. Furious and out of money, Zarlenga rented the space to its newest occupant, Le Tache. "I can't...

While driving into the office this morning I heard the "expert" guest on Coast to Coast tell everyone not once but several times it was the terrible Christians that burned down the Library at Alexandria. Sadly, facts do not matter or go challenged on that political show any longer. The fact is: Amr bin Aas at the behest of the Second Caliph, Umar burned the Library in Alexandria. Umar the Great or Omar the Great was a Muslim convert from the Banu Adi clan of the Quraysh tribe,[1] and a sahaba (righteous companion) of Muhammad. He became the second Caliph...

Faced with painful choices about who will suffer most from looming budget cuts, Alexandria officials have taken the unusual step of paying a professional ethicist to help them grapple with the moral issues involved. Just a few of the vexing decisions his advice helped Alexandria policymakers confront in recent weeks: They took apartments being built for the mentally ill and temporarily turned them into housing for the disabled. They cut a parenting counselor for jailed minors with kids but preserved aid for belligerent preschoolers. They scaled back drug prevention but kept the methadone pills available to ease the cravings of...

The unique library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, buried beneath lava by Vesuvius's eruption in AD79, is slowly revealing its long-held secretsSTORED in a sky-lit reading room on the top floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples are the charred remains of the only library to survive from classical antiquity. The ancient world's other great book collections -- at Athens, Alexandria and Rome -- all perished in the chaos of the centuries. But the library of the Villa of the Papyri was conserved, paradoxically, by an act of destruction. Lying to the northwest of ancient Herculaneum, this...

PARIS (AFP) - "The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep sea bed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD. "Huge masses of water flowed back when least expected, and now overwhelmed and killed many thousands of people... Some great ships were hurled by the fury of the waves onto the rooftops, and others were thrown up to two miles (three kilometres) from the shore." Ancient documents...

A pastor at a Cold Spring church was arrested on two counts of carrying a concealed weapon on Christmas Eve. According to the Cold Spring Police Department, Johnny R. Coleman (Randy), 1069 Parkside Drive, Alexandria, the pastor of Christ Baptist Church in Cold Spring, was arrested after police found him at 12:30 p.m. with a loaded Glock 9mm handgun and a loaded .25 caliber handgun, in a briefcase at the Mr. Spotless Car Wash in Cold Spring. Cold Spring Police Chief Ed Burk III confirmed Coleman is a pastor at the church. According to the police report, Coleman told an...

The city of Alexandria, Va., is expected to pass a resolution tonight renewing its commitment to extend public services to illegal aliens. "We are reaffirming and recommitting our services and outreach to international citizens," Mayor William D. Euille, a Democrat, said yesterday. The seven-member City Council will vote on a two-page resolution that outlines Alexandria's intent to comply with state and federal immigration laws but not question the immigration status of people seeking public services. Mr. Euille said that the resolution should pass unanimously but that Alexandria has no figures on the cost of providing services to illegal aliens. "We...

St. Cyril of Alexandria VATICAN CITY, OCT. 3, 2007.- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today at the general audience in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear brothers and sisters! Today, continuing our itinerary following the footsteps of the Fathers of the Church, we meet another great figure: St. Cyril of Alexandria. Linked to the Christologic controversy at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the last outstanding representative of the Alexandrian tradition, Cyril was later defined by the Greek eastern church "the custodian of exactitude" - in the sense of being custodian of the...

Alexandria’s sanitation authority is trying to take more than 10 acres of property through an eminent domain seizure, offering nearly $10 million less than it bid on the land in 2005. The authority needs to expand its wastewater treatment plant, according to a condemnation petition filed in Alexandria Circuit Court in June. But it is not willing to pay the $51 million value of the property located between Eisenhower Avenue and the Beltway, said the property’s owner, Charles Hooff III. The sewer authority has made several offers on the property over more than two years, according to the authority’s petition....

Fairfax County police said they arrested an Alexandria man in connection with the sexual assault of a teenage boy. Raymond Craig Alexander, a 34-year-old Fairfax County Park Authority employee, was arrested Wednesday after property taken during a search of his home established probable cause, according to police. Alexander is charged with aggravated sexual battery, forcible sodomy and custodial indecent liberties with a child. Federal authorities also are investigating Alexander, and more charges could be filed. Anyone with information about the case should call Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS/8477 or police at 703-691-2131

Hidden City Found Beneath Alexandria Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience LiveScience.com Tue Jul 24, 4:45 PM ET The legendary city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great as he swept through Egypt in his quest to conquer the known world. Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world. Alexandria was founded in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean in 332 B.C. to immortalize Alexander the Great. The...

A residents advisory committee is preparing studies on abortion and sexual orientation to be used in classes required for early teens in Alexandria public schools. Proposed additions to the curriculum include studies about why women seek abortions and about homosexuality, heterosexuality and sexual discrimination.... Officials said the answers would be private but provide basis for teachers to explain the differences in philosophies between pro-life and pro-choice groups without using "insulting, attacking or prejudicial language." One lesson would include a history of abortions, beginning in the Colonial era when the practice was permitted under English law and continuing through 1997 when...

A Malian walks out of the Great Mosque in Djenne, Mali in this August 10, 2003 file photo. Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. (Yves Herman/Reuters) Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of...

June 27, 2006 Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Psalm: Tuesday 27 Reading 12 Kgs 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent envoys to Hezekiahwith this message: “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah:‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive youby saying that Jerusalem will not be handed overto the king of Assyria.You have heard what the kings of Assyria have doneto all other countries: they doomed them! Will you, then, be saved?’” Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it;then he went up to the...

Last weekend the first of the weekly Tridentine Masses was celebrated at St. Lawrence Church in Alexandria. In March, Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde granted permission to two parishes to celebrate the pre-Vatican II form of Mass. The Mass was offered on the feast of Pope St. Pius V. The Tridentine form is celebrated in accordance with the 1570 Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Pius V for the Latin West and revised in 1962. Ancient rites, those older than 200 years, were able to retain their traditions. Following the Council of Trent, Pope Pius wanted to standardize worship in...

Alexander wasn't quite so great after all. Sure, he conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks, but he didn't found the Egyptian city of Alexandria - he just rebranded it. It now seems that this part of the Nile has been settled for at least 4500 years, pre-dating Alexander's arrival by a good two millennia. Alain Véron from the Paul Cézanne University in Aix-en-Provence, France, and colleagues made the discovery by measuring the variations in lead concentration in a mud core from Alexandria's ancient harbour. They determined how lead levels had changed over time by carbon-dating seashells...

Two employment agencies and nine individuals charged with hiring and harboring illegal aliens, mail fraud and laundering $5.3 million -- ICE agents arrest suspects in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two temporary employment agencies and nine individuals affiliated with the agencies have been charged in a $5.3 million scheme involving the employment of illegal aliens, harboring of illegal aliens, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, according to a federal indictment unsealed today in the Northern District of Ohio. This morning, agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of...

Al Qaeda High - Alleged Bush Assassin a Graduate of Local Saudi Madrassa Stella Jatras, who normally follows the Balkans for us, reports on efforts to establish yet another Saudi Madrassa outside Washington, D.C. Nestled snuggly in the Northern hills of Virginia, lies the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), better known as Al-Qaeda High. ISA's most notable graduate - so far - is Ahmed Omar Abu Ali. Ali was arrested recently for plotting to assassinate President Bush. Ali was born in Houston and later moved to Falls Church, Va., where he was valedictorian of his class at ISA. After graduation, a...