White House

- Congress authorized subpoenas Wednesday for the White House gate-crashers to testify about how the couple got into a state dinner without an invitation. Lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee voted to compel the attention-hungry couple to answer questions about the Nov. 24 incident. The couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, have said they will invoke their Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions. While the committee authorized the Salahi subpoenas, it would not accept its top Republican's plan to subpoena White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.

The 2012 Navy football team will visit the White House on Friday for a ceremony with President Barack Obama . The team will be honored for winning the Commander in Chief's Trophy for the eighth time in the past 10 years. The time and location of the ceremony has not yet been determined. The Midshipmen were victorious over Air Force (28-21 in overtime) and Army (17-13) en route to an 8-5 record and the school's ninth bowl game in the past 10 years. Navy has won 19 of its past 21 service academy games.

Finally, someone who sees things clearly! Cal Thomas hit the nail on the head by asking "why would you think you would be better off in four years [under Obama] when you're worse off today than you were four years ago?" ("A winning pick," Aug. 15). I was happy to see a change four years ago, hoping that a new administration was the answer to some of our many problems. But I haven't seen any movement in the right direction. Can we seriously blame the Bush administration forever? A change every four years sends a serious message: Get it cleaned up during your first term and we will happily vote you in for a second.

When Rep. Chris Van Hollen struck up a conversation recently with a U.S. Capitol Police officer he sees every day on his way to work, he immediately learned two things about the man: He's from Baltimore and he's a huge Ravens fan. And so the Montgomery County Democrat took a break Wednesday from the budget battles playing out in Congress to take Officer Aaron Smith to the White House, where President Barack Obama honored the Super Bowl ...

WASHINGTON -- Marylanders would spend nearly $3.9 billion less in 2013 if Congress fails to extend middle-class tax cuts, according to a report released Wednesday by the White House that is part of a broader campaign to influence fiscal cliff negotiations. The decline in consumption caused by higher taxes would slow the state's economic growth by 1.4 percentage points, according to the report. The state-specific estimates are based on a report issued Monday by the president's Council of Economic Advisers that discussed the national economic impact of allowing certain tax cuts to expire at year's end. The numbers come as the Obama administration seeks to pressure congressional Republicans to consider middle-class tax cuts now, decoupling them from more thorny issues that must be resolved to avert the fiscal cliff.

Roma L. Klar, a former secretary who worked in the White House during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman and ended her career with the Peace Corps, died Friday of heart failure at Brightview Assisted-Living in Catonsville. She was 98. Roma Lee Simmers, the daughter of farmers, was born and raised in Nowata, Okla., where she graduated in 1928 from Copan High School. After graduating in 1930 from Chillicothe Business College in Chillicothe, Mo., Mrs. Klar moved to Washington and went to work as a secretary for the federal government.

When the Ravens visited the White House on Wednesday, four Baltimore City athletes went along for the ride. The Ravens invited city high school football players Steven Thomas (Poly) and David Owens (City), as well as girls basketball players A'Lexus Harrison (Digital Harbor) and Zyaire Lockley (Western), to join them in Washington, D.C., because President Barack Obama announced during the trip that the Ravens will be donating new uniforms for Baltimore City girls varsity basketball and varsity football teams.

Re: "Teenagers in The White House," (July 10), it's interesting how one example of teenagers in the White House was left out of the compilation. While names like Monroe, Lincoln, Carter and Clinton are cited, the Bush twins are totally ignored. But it's not really surprising, seeing what side of the political fence The Baltimore Sun is on, practically choking up in their descriptions of the Obama clan. Cheryl Herman, Pikesville

A Baltimore police major who heads the Northern District station participated in a domestic violence workshop sponsored by the White House this week. Maj. Sabrina Tapp-Harper joined the lieutenant governor and others, including the mother of Yeardley Love, whose daughter from Cockeysville was killed by her boyfriend at the University of Virginia . The meeting, opened by Vice President Joe Biden, came just before the Senate is to vote on a bill that contains funds for the Violence Against Women act. It would allocate money to local law enforcement agencies to combat domestic violence and to shelters for battered women and rape crisis centers.