Results tagged “fairfax”

Sure, Tiger may have missed the cut for the first time in forever, but a much more interesting local story has developed in Scotland. Steve Marino, a Fairfax native who began swinging a golf club in his Northern Virginia backyard at the age of three, sat atop the leaderboard of the British Open as third-round play teed off this morning at Turnberry. Marino, who shot a solid 67 on Thursday and holed a big eagle putt on 17 yesterday, was a four-year letterman at the University of Virginia and played junior golf all over the region. Looks like Fred Funk now has some serious competition for the title of best professional golfer from the D.C. area. UPDATE: Or maybe not. It seems as if Marino has dropped five strokes in the first five holes this morning and now sits tied for tenth at even par. The chances of Marino winning the tournament are likely dead, but hey, at least he can say he led the Open once. very much alive, though, as he's made a small charge and is back to one off the lead at 2-under through 12.

Forty young men and women chosen as Intel Science Talent Search finalists gathered in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences to compete for more than $500,000 in awards and scholarships to support careers in science -- including one top prize, a $100,000 scholarship. Two area budding young scientists, both hailing from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Fairfax, Virginia, are among the finalists. Each finalist picks up at least $5,000 in scholarship money and an Intel-powered laptop.

The truck inspection unit is among hundreds of program cuts that County Executive Anthony H. Griffin has proposed as part of a $3.3 billion spending plan that includes layoffs, a freeze in the school allocation and an increase in the property tax rate.

Continue reading "The Beginning of the End for Fairfax?"

We first learned last month that Hilton Hotels Corp. was planning to pick up and move from their Beverly Hills digs to the D.C. area; now the Washington Business Journal has the scoop again that Fairfax will officially be their new home. Both Maryland and Virginia had been vying for the business, which will create 300 new jobs in the area, but Fairfax and the state beat out Maryland by offering Hilton a $4.6 million incentive package. Not bad considering Hilton plans to invest about $17 million upon their arrival. The exact location of the headquarters isn't known yet.

So this is interesting: Bloomberg did a story on how no one can agree on the size of the crowd for the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax last week. We were following the story after some controversy broke out over the initial location for the event, and went with the New York Times's number of 15,000, which the paper said it got from "The Fairfax City fire marshal." But the McCain/Palin camp is claiming that 23,000 people were there, while Marc Fisher from the WaPo is saying he counted 8,000, and now Bloomberg reports this:

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

So if that's true, where did The New York Times get its estimate? The Obama campaign has come out swinging on the issue, accusing the McCain camp of flat-out lying about it (and other things). For a good read on how crowd estimates are supposed to work and why they are so tricky, head over to Salon.

The New York Times is reporting that the official estimate of the crowd that gathered at a park in Fairfax this morning for the McCain rally was 15,000, well over twice the number of people who could have attended had the event been held at its original, controversial venue at Fairfax High School. The McCain campaign told supporters yesterday that the event had been moved because the high school venue could only hold 6,500 people. Some Fairfax residents and officials expressed disapproval that the Fairfax County school system should never have agreed to host a political rally during school hours, since it violated the school district's own policy against such events.