Target

With the critical need for more workers to have at least a high school diploma, are states doing enough to increase the number of students who graduate from high school? A nonprofit group that focuses on education equity issues says no and rightly urges states and the federal government to devote more resources to beefing up high school curriculums and intervening more aggressively to improve the lowest-performing schools, particularly those that serve low-income and minority students. Those recommendations are certainly worthy - but other investments are needed as well.

To watch two dozen Bhutanese men celebrate Baltimorean Pema Tango's bowmanship yesterday is to understand why the tiny Himalayan kingdom -- where archery is the national sport -- aspires not to wealth but to Gross National Happiness. Ecstatic whoops and hollers rang out as soon as Tango's arrow somehow found the tiny wooden target about 150 yards away. Play was suspended so that the park ranger's teammates could form a circle, singing and dancing in his honor for several minutes. For his part, a beaming Tango couldn't have looked happier if he had won Friday's Mega Millions drawing.

A newly formed New York commercial real estate company is looking to acquire retail and office projects in low- to moderate-income areas in cities such as Baltimore, in an effort to capitalize on a lack of competition in urban areas.UrbanAmerica LP also is hoping its efforts will spur redevelopment in blighted areas by creating necessary infrastructure and jobs.The nearly year-old company -- which is billing itself as one of the first for-profit real estate firms to exclusively target urban areas -- has raised $40 million from a collection of investors and institutions such as Deutsche Bank, J. P. Morgan & Co., Citibank and PNC Bank Corp.

WASHINGTON -- A NATO ally apparently leaked secret targeting information to Yugoslav officials during the U.S.-led air war, according to Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the American four-star Army general who heads NATO.Clark, who declined to speculate about who had tipped the Yugoslavs, said the security breach was "as clear as the nose on your face." But he declined to detail the evidence or the steps taken to stop the leaks."I can't go into it," said Clark, the supreme allied commander for Europe.

WASHINGTON -- An upgraded 1-ton Air Force missile -- fired for the first time two weeks ago in Iraq -- missed its target Monday and struck a residential neighborhood outside Basra, Pentagon officials said yesterday.While the Pentagon is trying to determine whether mechanical or human error caused the AGM-130 to slam into the al-Jumhuriya neighborhood and cause civilian casualties, the Air Force will continue using the missile during its patrols of the "no-fly" zones, officials said.Three U.S. jets fired at military targets in the northern no-fly zone again yesterday, hitting missile, artillery and radar sites after being threatened by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire, the Pentagon said.

Two drug organizations in East Baltimore began to collapse yesterday as 22 people were charged with drug and weapons-related offenses in a new effort to curtail violence in the city, authorities said."

THE accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade shattered the cozy notion that the war in the Balkans is some kind of video game of exploding cross hairs. The sight of a grieving Chinese father bidding farewell to his daughter, one of three killed in the embassy, somberly reminded us of that.Within hours of the bombing, the public was besieged with expert opinions on the deadly error. The usual CIA-bashers found new energy for their theme that the intelligence agency is a bloated collection of incompetents and misfits so out of touch with the real world that they cannot even pull the correct address of the Chinese Embassy off the Internet.

For the first time in years, Maryland economic development leaders are making sure the state has a good story to tell -- and then they intend to passionately tell it.The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development has about $2 million budgeted for an advertising-and-promotion campaign to attract companies in key industries to the state -- up from $375,000 a year ago.And, to bulk up the state's message, economic development officials and business...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Federal Reserve policy-makers were divided in holding the overnight bank lending rate steady on March 31, according to the minutes of the meeting.The Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to leave the federal funds target unchanged at 5.5 percent. Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Jerry Jordan dissented, citing a faster- than-expected increase in the money supply that could ,, be an inflation threat.The FOMC also adopted a stance in favor of raising the interest rate target, if need be, to guard against inflation, as expected.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke was delighted last week that Baltimore had been dropped -- at least temporarily -- as a target for a major probe of federal housing spending, an investigation that he has tried for more than two months to derail.While Schmoke was raising questions publicly about how the selection of Baltimore was influenced by racism and politics, his housing agency was joining in a largely clandestine campaign to leak damaging information to undercut the chief investigator.The target is Susan Gaffney, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Baltimore officials warned residents yesterday about a scheme they believe targets the elderly, saying that a 96-year-old city resident was conned out of hundreds of dollars by a woman posing as a city employee who demanded payment of back property taxes. According to police, a woman with a blocked phone number called the 96-year-old claiming that back taxes were owed. She warned that the sheriff's department would take the elderly woman's West Baltimore home. Legitimate city tax bills arrive in the mail, officials said.

Sarah Rosario and other longtime Annapolis residents say they remember the demise of the old Parole Shopping Center pretty much as a slow fade, with retailers large and small slip-sliding away for years. The Kmart packed up and moved to Edgewater, Sears jumped down the road to the Westfield Annapolis mall, and Woodward and Lothrop was gobbled up by competitors. Somebody must have turned out that old white sign as the 32-acre site went under the bulldozer. Lately, Rosario and 380 colleagues - all decked out in identical red shirts and khaki slacks - are manning the cornerstone Target store for the $500 million Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole.

Marion Greenidge is a compliance associate at T. Rowe Price, but we think she knows how to make fashion comply as well. When we "glimpsed" her at Cibo Bar & Grille in Owings Mills, it was obvious the 29-year-old Randallstown resident had a flair and know-how to mix and match items to create her "fearless, chic, sexy, unique" style. Age: : 29 Residence: : Randallstown Job:: T. Rowe Price compliance associate Self-described style: : "Fearless, chic, sexy, unique." The look:: Light pink 3/4-length henley T-shirt.

The investment a business makes in a community can't be reckoned only in terms of bricks and mortar. It also has to include a desire to improve the quality of goods and services for customers and create a safe environment for employees. That kind of commitment ultimately benefits people far beyond its immediate neighborhood. The $300,000 gift big-box retailer Target made this week to the Baltimore Police Department to beef up crime-fighting efforts around its new store at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore is an example of that kind of commitment.

After their daughter was born, Mike and Stephannie Weikert, who live in Butchers Hill, developed a philosophy of "cool clothes for cool babies" and spent about $5,000 from their savings to create a hipster line of baby wear called "Small Roar." It's mostly onesies and T-shirts emblazoned with simple images: an empty speech balloon symbolizing free speech, a pacifier over the word "pacifist," a heart mom tattoo on a sleeve. It brings in about $500 each month through boutique and Web site sales, but without the resources to reach a mass audience, the three-year-old project run out of their home was always more hobby than business.

Target - the big-box store with the bull's eye logo and funky TV ads - has arrived in Baltimore. Elected officials and business leaders celebrated the grand opening of the city's first Target at Mondawmin Mall last night, heralding it as vote of confidence from a national retailer in the commercial potential of neighborhoods far beyond the revitalized areas near the Inner Harbor. "This new Target gives Baltimore residents a great place to shop without having to travel great distances," said Mayor Sheila Dixon, who has worked to bring retail outlets to the city, where shopping options declined starting in the 1960s, when large retailers joined an exodus to the suburbs.

Ask, and you shall receive. As consumers, we know that statement is far from true. How many times have you brought a dispute to a business only to be blown off? Or how many times have you filed a complaint, never to get a response? Amy Lynn Thomas felt like she was banging her head against the wall when she tried to return to Target almost $100 worth of gifts she received from friends and family for a baby shower in April. "First of all, let me say that I love Target," said Thomas, a 33-year-old manager of operations who lives in Essex.

iTunes users, beware. Someone's phishing for your personal data online. Technology news source Computerworld Inc. says phishers have targeted users of Apple Inc.'s music store by sending people spam e-mails that tell users that they must correct a problem with their iTunes account. The e-mail includes a link that leads users to a site posing as an iTunes billing update page. The phony page then asks for information, including your credit card number and security code, Social Security number and mother's maiden name.

Rock star Avril Lavigne, the singer with raccoon eyeliner and skull-and-hearts style, is about to start selling a clothing line at Kohl's Corp., the traditional discount department store from Wisconsin that has been dabbling in trendier fashion. The deal, announced early this month, would have been unfathomable five years ago, before Isaac Mizrahi teamed with Target Corp. to make discount shopping cool. Now it's just the latest iteration in the swelling establishment of "cheap chic." While the idea of marketing trendy apparel and home goods to the masses - an idea pioneered at Target - has been building for years, the cheap chic phenomenon is seeping into everything from candles to bath towels to baby blankets to lamps, and bringing together such unlikely combinations as Wal-Mart and Norma Kamali.

The state launched its BayStat Web site yesterday with data on the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Gov. Martin O'Malley said he hopes the site, www.bay stat.maryland.gov, will help residents and state government get quicker access to information on the estuary. Numbers on water quality, nutrient and sediment loads, biotic integrity, fish species, wetlands and forest buffers are available. "We designed BayStat to help us better coordinate, track, target -- and ultimately improve -- our statewide restoration efforts," O'Malley said.