FRIDAY: >> The city’s free concert series follows MC Hammer with a rare appearance by salsa legend Willie Colon, 7-9 p.m. at Woodrow Wilson Center. >> President Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean will be at Politics and Prose to discuss his book, Broken Government, which examines “the institutional damage he believes the Republican Party has inflicted on the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government during the Bush administration.” 7 p.m. He’ll also be…

Washington resident Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, has been released from prison, the Associated Press and the Washington Post are both reporting. Even after family members turned over 3 billion rials (nearly $325,000) in bail money, it remains unclear if the espionage charge still stand or if Esfandiari, 67, is allowed to leave Iran. Since May 8, Esfandiari has been held at Evin prison north of Tehran, a…

MONDAY At Chapters, they’re mad for mystery writers on Mondays in March, and for alliteration at all other times. Today, they have a fine guest: Laura Lippman, who’ll be reading from her latest, What the Dead Know. 445 11th Street, NW, 1 p.m. TUESDAY Tom Bissell and his father, an ex-Marine who served in the Vietnam War, travel back to Vietnam on a journey that retraces both national and personal history. He’ll be in town…