Turbulence

— They have experienced turbulence so often this season that it only seems fitting that any championship flight include at least one final jolt on the way to the desired destination. There was the blown 19-point second-half lead against the Utah Jazz in November, when power forward Paul Millsap, for the first time in his career, turned into a 3-point specialist. There was the fadeaway jumper by Rudy Gay two weeks later for a walk-off win by the Memphis Grizzlies. There was the blown 15-point lead in a loss to the New York Knicks in late February and the 24-point blown lead against the Orlando Magic in early March.

It is fitting that we referred to last week's storm-that-wasn't as a snowquestration. And not just because it was kind of embarrassing and shut the government down. No, the meteorological turbulence - such as it was - was like the economic turbulence in another way, leaving us all wondering: When will it arrive, and how bad will it be? Or will $85 billion in automatic budget cuts miss me altogether? This uncertainty was compounded by confusion when the Dow hit record levels anyway.

AFTER turbulent days in Wall Street -- the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 150.71 points Tuesday, was down 175.63 points at noon Wednesday before recovering most of the plunge and edged up 33.63 points yesterday -- the Dow this morning stands 13.4 percent above its level on New Year's Day.With that volatility in mind, here are some warnings, and some cheerful notes, about your investments:WARNINGS: "Historically, many spring stock market declines worsened...

Andy Griffith, one of the stars who put CBS on top of the TV world in the 1960s with an easy-going but culturally-packed sitcom that ran for eight seasons during that stormy decade in American life, died Tuesday at 86 at his North Carolina home in Roanoke Island. Like Fred MacMurry, whose range ran from the feature film  "Double Indemnity"  to TV's "My Three Sons," Griffith was far more than just another TV actor from the early days of the medium. Before TV and Sheriff Andy Taylor, he was Lonesome Rhodes in Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd," And he found renewed TV fame in the 1980s and '90s as Harvard-educated attorney Ben Matlock.

WASHINGTON -- Prompted by a December plane crash in Santa Ana, Calif., the Federal Aviation Administration will begin warning jetliner pilots to approach airports at flatter angles to avoid sending killer turbulence into the path of other aircraft.But the warnings, which the FAA will start issuing Friday, will not go as far as standard approach paths recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board. That's because of fears that mandatory changes would reduce the number of planes that airports can handle, an FAA official said.

WASHINGTON -- An expensive National Security Agency initiative to search the world's communication networks for security threats is hitting early but significant snags, prompting intelligence officials and lawmakers to raise questions about its funding and its future. Dubbed "Turbulence," the NSA's ambitious effort is part bloodhound and part attack dog. It attempts to continuously troll cyberspace to sniff out threats from terrorists and others, then rapidly tip off analysts who can mobilize defenses.

WASHINGTON -- Congress publicly registered its impatience with the management of the National Security Agency yesterday as lawmakers criticized the agency's new multibillion-dollar effort to identify, track and analyze emerging threats in cyberspace. Dubbed "Turbulence," the signature initiative of the NSA director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, is experiencing "management deficiencies" just 18 months after it was launched, the Senate Armed Services Committee said in the course of its confirmation process for James R. Clapper Jr., who is President Bush's nominee to be Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

Growing evidence yesterday suggested that the tail fin of American Airlines Flight 587 broke from the plane, initiating the aircraft's rapid downward spiral two minutes after it took off from John F. Kennedy Airport on Monday. Based on radar records, investigators have carefully mapped the flight path of the aircraft, as well as that of a Japan Airlines 747 that took off from Kennedy just ahead of it. The proximity of the two planes is consistent with a condition called "wake turbulence," in which swirling masses of air from the first plane trail downstream and can create problems for planes nearby.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- It's been a wild ride through the skies for the Maryland basketball team on the last three road trips and some players are wondering what can go wrong next.There was an emergency landing at BWI Airport on Feb. 27, complete with flashing red-light rescue trucks on the runway; severe turbulence on a trip home March 6 from the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Charlotte, N.C., and a six-hour flight delay due to mechanical problems in Orlando, Fla., last Saturday night.

If you own an older vehicle, such as the space shuttle, you can expect to replace parts more frequently. Note: By the words "space shuttle," I am referring to my 1999 minivan, which has sustained one $2,500 altercation with an eight-point buck, and one $5,000 whack by a driver who failed to look past a snow bank. Since these collisions, the minivan has developed a few unexplained rattles and tremors, yet it continues valiantly on its scheduled missions; hence its nickname. Recently, the space shuttle required a replacement passenger seat belt.

As the Washington Capitals sat in the dressing room at their Arlington, Va., practice facility ahead of a flight to Boston for a final showdown with the Boston Bruins in this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, the mood was noticeably loose. Players lobbed well-intended jabs at one another, exchanged jokes with reporters and seemed relaxed to the point that an uninformed observer might not have believed the team will be fighting to keep its season alive tonight in Game 7 at TDGarden.

His aunt called him Georgie. A high school student he helped when she was temporarily stranded on campus said he was "perfectly nice. " And as seen in a video from Saturday, May 1, 2010, Yeardley Love chatted with his family as she held his hand. This was the image jurors left court with on Friday, the day before lawyers were expected to turn the case over to them for deliberation: George Huguely, in the embrace of his family — and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Love.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's nominee for city finance director spent a tumultuous three years as top financial official in Richmond, Va., during which he oversaw the forced ejection of the school board from City Hall and was sued by the Richmond City Council, according to news reports. Harry E. Black was nicknamed "the mayor's pit bull" for the ferocity with which he implemented Mayor L. Douglas Wilder's agenda in Richmond from 2005 to 2008, according to news reports.

Ronald Watkins was shot on Aug. 17, 1992 the same day that supporters and opponents of Odell's night club were readying to pack a hearing room at City Hall to testify on its request for a "dance hall" permit. There had been a rash of previous shootings and other crime outside the club, located at North Avenue and Charles Street, angering residents and zoning officials. Watkins' shooting, it would seem, was icing on the cake. But the club's owner, Milton Tillman Jr., and his attorney, Elijah Cummings, argued that he was being made a "scapegoat for the ills of society" and would leave city youth without enterainment options.

The councilman wouldn't return their calls. Shirley Supik and her husband, Jeff, were trying to stop Baltimore County from tearing down the historic former Underground Railroad safe house they own. So, Jeff Supik stuck a note on the front door of Councilman Kenneth Oliver's home. The politician called them, angry that the man had gone to his house, but he quickly changed his tone. "[My husband] said, 'I am a constituent and I need help. And you didn't answer my call, and I was desperate,'" Shirley Supik recalled of the encounter about five years ago. "And Councilman Oliver said, 'You are right.

— They have experienced turbulence so often this season that it only seems fitting that any championship flight include at least one final jolt on the way to the desired destination. There was the blown 19-point second-half lead against the Utah Jazz in November, when power forward Paul Millsap, for the first time in his career, turned into a 3-point specialist. There was the fadeaway jumper by Rudy Gay two weeks later for a walk-off win by the Memphis Grizzlies. There was the blown 15-point lead in a loss to the New York Knicks in late February and the 24-point blown lead against the Orlando Magic in early March.

Have you ever noticed, when you're shaving, how the water comes out of the tap in a nice, smooth stream at first? But when you turn the water up to rinse your razor, it comes out in a turbulent jumble. Do you ever wonder why? Well, scientists do, and it's more than idle curiosity. They say turbulence also happens inside oil pipelines, and along the skins of airplanes, and in ships and cars, too. It slows things down and costs us plenty. So engineers, physicists and mathematicians in England, the Netherlands and Germany have taken another look at pipe turbulence.

Hugh Schmittle's and Odile Legeay's dream of making planes with movable wings received further credibility yesterday as the owners of Freewing Aircraft accepted a Discover magazine technology award for aviation and aeronautics."

Southwest Airlines built its brand with a wink and a smile, bringing its customers a winning combination of low fares and high spirits. But the last week or so has brought a challenge in which price chopping and good-humored flight crews wouldn't cut it. After a section of the fuselage of one of its Boeing 737-300 airlines gave way April 1, tearing a hole in the roof while it flew more than 30,000 feet above Arizona, the airline faced the test...

Prospects for rising income tax revenues are improving for Howard County, an economist told the county panel that will recommend spending and borrowing decisions for the next county budget, though dangers of a renewed decline remain potent. "For the next two years, off a low base of incomes, this county looks pretty good, we think," economist Anirban Basu told the county Spending Affordability Committee on Wednesday morning at the George Howard Building. "That doesn't mean the county should go on a spending frenzy … but things will be less worse.