Renaissance has been a solidly upscale brand that for as long as I can remember has flown beneath the radar in the hotel industry, never getting the name recognition of peers like Westin or InterContinental. Its been a somewhat overlooked part of the huge Marriott family for nearly two decades, but with a recent reshuffling of Marriotts luxury portfolio, including Ritz-Carlton, Autograph Collection and several more brands, Renaissance is undergoing a true renaissance, with both reinvestment and a sudden onslaught of high profile new openings worldwide, including nine this year, expanding the brand to 37 countries worldwide. Just last week (September 1, 2014) saw the doors open on the Beijing Renaissance Wangfujing, following on the heels of recent additions such as the Renaissance Paris Hippodrome de St. Cloud Hotel, designed by renowned architect Jean-Philippe Nuel (and the brands third Parisian property), the Renaissance Santiago in Chile, and another French property, the new Renaissance Aix-en-Provence. The additions all have an emphasis on design, and most have showcase lobbies.

(Read more about Marriotts eight distinct luxury brands, including new launches, and what segment each one is positioned for, here at Forbes.com).

The Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center is the most notable domestic opening, less than three months ago, and as a guest of Marriott I got to take it for test drive The somewhat unwieldy name is the result of there already being a Renaissance in Denver, but this new one is ideally positioned for both leisure and business visitors, located in the heart of Denvers downtown, which in turn has seen the largest recent downtown urban revival of any US city. It is within walking distance of many key city attractions, form Coors Field and its Major League games to the pedestrianized 16th Street Mall and Larimer Square (see my Great Urban Weekend Escapes Denver story for more visitor detail on the Mile High Citys red hot downtown).

A historic landmark and formerly opulent bank headquarters, the new Renaissance Denver Downtown hotel has a grand lobby.

The new Renaissance occupies the very old former Colorado National Bank building, designed in 1915 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. One of the citys most iconic structures, the building features neo-classical, Greek revival architecture with white exterior columns and walls, built of the same Colorado-mined marble used for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Towering bronze doors guard a three-story atrium, with marble flooring, ornate bronze accents and a traditional circular vault door still on display. The bank had, and now the hotel has, the kind of architectural opulence hard to replicate from scratch, including 16 important lobby murals from acclaimed Colorado muralist Allen Tupper True, circa 1925.

The bank theme extends throughout but without being too kitschy. On the way to the elevators there is a wall of historic antique rendering of building details, and money related art all around the hotel. Coincidentally, this is the second high profile hotel opening of 2014 in a dramatic and historic former bank: I recently reviewed the brand new Park Hyatt Vienna in this Hotel Test Drive column.

The hotel has its own inset parking plaza in the center of the block, which is a rare and really nice touch for a city hotel if you are arriving by rental car. Staff was uniformly friendly, adding to the overall warmth of the grand but welcoming lobby experience. In the center of the lobby is a classy bar that makes a good place to start the evening or meet people, with both bar and easy chair seating. The hotel even has its own bank-themed craft beer, CountingHouse, custom brewed for its bar and restaurant.

The very comfortable bar in Range restaurant in the new Renaissance Denver Downtown hotel.

Guest rooms (221 of them) are sleek and quite modern, with modern art, angular furniture, brightly patterned rugs and lots of smooth surfaces. They are above average size and very comfortable, with well designed sitting areas separate from the bed, and I appreciated the coffee maker and free Wifi in rooms and all common areas, but for a brand new hotel I found the glaring lack of accessible electric outlets unacceptable, especially in light of the substantial real estate given to the desk area. I understand that at older hotel I might have to unplug a lamp or crawl around for an outlet, but at just about every new property of this ilk I have visited, there have been multiple and obvious outlets built into the work area. There is room service but it is not 24-hour. On the plus side, the fitness room was surprisingly well appointed, with all new and top end equipment, plus an uncommon Kenisis wall system.

One element hat is supposed to differentiate the Renaissance brand is Navigator, which what Marriott calls a souped-up, micro-local concierge. The hotels are themed around a sense of being a local, and the Navigator program is essentially a concierge service focused on offering insider knowledge and less obvious experiences, including activities, culture, dining and shopping. To this end, the rooms are full of these little tip-sheet cards suggesting interesting things to see and do, which are a great touch until your realize they are a jumble of Navigator tips worldwide. For instance, I found the shopping suggestion of an enclave of offbeat antique stores fascinating until I realized they were in Thailand. Limiting the Denver Navigator suggestions to Denver might make a lot more sense.

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Hotel Test Drive: Renaissance Denver Downtown

September 10, 2014 - Canadian Football League (CFL) Winnipeg Blue Bombers WINNIPEG, MB. September 10, 2014 - The Winnipeg Blue Bombers today announce the additions of national defensive lineman Ameet Pall and national defensive back Shea Pierre.

Pall (6-0, 245, Wofford University, April 28, 1987 in Montreal, QC ) joins the Blue Bombers in his third CFL season and is a veteran of 10 games, all with Montreal. He was selected by the Stampeders in the first round of the 2012 CFL Draft (#5 overall) and later joined Montreal as a free agent. He also has one playoff appearance in 2012 for Montreal. He spent much of the 2014 season on the Practice Roster and one week on the Injured List. He was recently released by the Alouettes. Pall attended Wofford University where he recorded 23.5 sacks.

Pierre (5-10, 190, Windsor, January 20, 1989 in Mississauga, ON) is a special teams player and defensive back in his second CFL season. He joined Edmonton in 2013 from Windsor and saw action in one game. He was drafted originally by Toronto at #12 overall in 2012 but failed to catch on with the Argos. In 2014, Shea was released by Edmonton after Training Camp.

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Bombers Add Two to Practice Roster

The Woodside Town Council tonight is to consider allowing the owner of a $117 million mansion to resume a remodeling job that planning commissioners essentially stopped.

John Hanna, an attorney representing the mansion's anonymous owner, has appealed the planning commission's 3-3 vote on July 31 that put the project on hold.

The owner contends that a planning commissioner who couldn't attend the July 31 meeting had indicated in advance she would have voted to let the remodeling proceed.

The three-story house on an 8.74-acre lot at 360 Mountain Home Road has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a four-car garage, a swimming pool and a pool house.

The town last year permitted the owner to build one-story additions on each side of the main residence, expand the front entry, enlarge the basement and construct an addition to the pool house.

But when staff planners inspected the site on May 19, they found that "the entire first floor had been demolished, and partial demolition for the second and third floors had also been completed," according to a staff memo.

On July 2, the town ordered construction work to cease until a revised plan could be approved by the town.

Representatives of the owner told planning commissioners the demolition was done for safety reasons, as recommended by a structural engineer. They also noted that there otherwise could have been waterproofing problems between the old and new walls and that the owner wanted to seismically upgrade the home.

But some commissioners said they felt the project had moved far past the simple remodel called for in the application.

However, those who favored issuing a demolition permit noted that it would enable the mansion to look the same from the outside.

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Woodside Town Council to decide if remodel of $117.5 million mansion proceeds

8/8/14: David Murphy lines a single to left to score Michael Brantley in the 6th and cut the Indians' deficit to three runs

"With Aviles down, and not knowing his availability," Indians manager Terry Francona said, "our extra infielder is [Zach] Walters and he's been DH-ing the majority of the time. So, just the way our lineup was kind of configured, we went from having a pretty strong bench, or a usable bench, to we didn't have a lot of versatility."

With the pair of additions, and the trade acquisition of outfielder J.B. Shuck on Friday, the Indians have 35 players on their roster.

The 32-year-old Murphy landed on the 15-day disabled list on Aug. 10 after injuring his side on a swing against the Yankees. The right fielder went 1-for-6 with a home run in his two rehab games with Columbus on Wednesday and Thursday. Through 109 games this season, Murphy has hit .262 with seven homers, 21 doubles and 55 RBIs.

Francona noted that Murphy would be available off the bench on Friday and Saturday, and would likely start for the Indians on Sunday against the White Sox.

Aviles serves as the Tribe's backup shortstop, and he can also fill in at second and third base, along with all three outfield spots. In the first inning of Monday's game against Detroit, Aviles hit his head on a diving attempt and was removed from the contest after three innings. Francona noted that Aviles was feeling improved on Friday afternoon.

"This is the first day where he's starting to feel a little bit better," Francona said. "He was going to do some things in the training room just to see how much they'd allow him to do. But he was starting to feel a little bit better."

Sellers, who is back for his third stint with Cleveland this season, started games at shortstop (67), second base (18), left field (17) and third base (two) with Columbus. In 102 Triple-A games, he hit .254 with three homers, 22 extra-base hits and 40 RBIs. Sellers has hit just .188 through seven games with the Tribe this season and .198 in 89 games in parts of four Major League seasons.

Jordan Bastian is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Major League Bastian, and follow him on Twitter @MLBastian. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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Cleveland activates Murphy, recalls Sellers

TULSA, Oklahoma -

There will be more school choices for Tulsa parents next fall. Tulsa Public Schools approved plans for three new charter schools during a meeting Tuesday.

The schools will be part of Tulsa's public district and free for students. TPS said it's excited about the additions because the charter schools will help fill a gap in some areas in need of a little extra education attention.

9/2/2014 Related Story: TPS Approves Three New Charter Schools

Nikhil Kawlra knows all about starting up a charter school, it's something he's already done once in Philadelphia.

Charter schools are important because they're able to work differently to meet the needs of children differently, he said.

Now he's founding a second school, this time Collegiate Hall, which will fill a void for 120 fourth through eighth graders near 61st and Peoria, where there is no middle school.

Our goal is really to instill fundamentals as well as character education for all of our children, Kawlra said.

Charters Schools, while public, have more flexibility than traditional public schools.

As Chelsea Vanacore puts it, teachers are allowed to think outside the box a little more freely to provide a holistic learning experience; but the charters will also mean more class time for students - it comes out to about 40 extra days.

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Three New Charter Schools Give More Options For Tulsa Parents

September 3, 2014 - South Atlantic League (SAL) Savannah Sand Gnats The Savannah Sand Gnats look to defend their South Atlantic League Championship when they travel to Asheville, NC on Wednesday Night for Game One of the SAL Division Series.

The Gnats, who won the South Division's First Half for the second consecutive season (and fourth of the last five), will take on the winners of the Second Half--the Asheville Tourists--in a best-of-three series, with Games Two and Three at Historic Grayson Stadium.

Once again, the Sand Gnats are led by their pitching. Boasting a South Atlantic League leading team ERA of 3.03, Manager Luis Rojas will have the luxury of sending three aces to the hill for the Division Series. Taking the hill for the Sand Gnats in Game one will be right hander Robert Gsellman. Making 20 starts for Savannah this season, Gsellman had a 2.55 ERA with a 10-6 record with four complete games. Following Gsellman in Game Two will be Savannah native John Michael Gant. Getting the chance to pitch in front of friends and family this year has really agreed with Gant. After being selected to appear in the All-Star Game in Hickory in June, Gant was selected as the right handed pitcher on the Annual South Atlantic League All-Star team. John Michael led the team with 11 wins and posted a 2.56 ERA in 123 innings. If Game Three is necessary, the Gnats will send right hander Robert Whalen to the mound. Whalen was a staggering 9-1 in just eleven appearances (ten starts) in 2014. The lumbering right-hander boasted a 2.01 ERA while holding opposing batters to a .192 average.

While Savannah has the league's best pitching, there is no doubt that the best offense resides in Asheville with the Tourists. The Tourists paced the league in batting average (.292), runs scored (772), home runs (122), and RBI (704). The offense was led by Ryan McMahon and Correlle Prime who shared the league lead with 102 runs driven in.

Asheville won the season series with the Sand Gnats by taking six of the nine games played. In an interesting coincidence, eight of the nine games where started for the Sand Gnats by someone other than Gsellman, Gant, or Whalen. Robert Whalen was the only one of the trio to face the Tourists and went 7.1 innings as the Gnats dropped a 3-2 decision on August 12.

Joining the Sand Gnats on their quest for back-to-back Championships are several players who earned late-season promotions from within the Mets' farm system. Mets' 2014 first rounder Michael Conforto leads the quartet of new Gnats players heading into the post season. After being selected with the 10th overall pick, the former Oregon State outfielder began his professional career with the Brooklyn Cyclones. Appearing in 42 games, with all but one coming in left field, Conforto hit three home runs and knocked in 19 runs to go along with his .331 average.

Shortstop Amed Rosario returns for second tour of duty in Savannah. After a seven game stint with the Gnats at the end of May, the 18 year-old was assigned to Brooklyn for the start of the New York-Penn League Season. As the Cyclones everyday shortstop, Rosario hit .289 with a home run, 23 RBIs and five triples in 68 games.

Infielder Jhoan Urena and right-handed pitcher Persio Reyes round out the additions to the Sand Gnats roster. Urena comes to Savannah by way of Brooklyn, after hitting .300 with five home runs and 47 RBI. Reyes joins the team from the Mets' Appalachian League affiliate, the Kingsport Mets. Appearing in eight games, four of them starts, Reyes posted an ERA of 1.34, with a save and a 2-0 record. He also struck out 31 batters in 33.2 innings pitched.

Game 2 of the Divisional Series will be on Friday, September 5 at Historic Grayson Stadium. First pitch will be 7:05 and gates will open at 6:00. There will be a post-game fireworks show immediately after the game presented by Amerigroup. If necessary, Game Three will be on Saturday, September 6 at 6:05 at Historic Grayson Stadium.

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Gnats' Defense of SAL Championship Begins Tonight

When season 1 ofAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. came to a close earlier this year, it left many unanswered questions. We even listed 13 of them.Despite our mixed feelings towards the season as a whole, we did explain whyMarvels first, connected live-action TV show deserved a second season. There are characters weve grown fond of, the series did become more Marvel towards the end, as the producers promised, and theres been an exciting stream of news and casting announcements regardingthe second season ever since.

Were only three weeks away from theAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2 premiere, an episode thatll introduce a notable character from the comics codenamed Absorbing Man (Brian Patrick Wade) and a few episodes later, starAdrianne Palicki will appear asMockingbird,a key character in Marvel Comics who has some history with The Avengers. Other cast additions and guest appearances include Lucy Lawless asAgent Isabelle Hartley,Kyle MacLachlanas Skyes dad,Reed Diamond (Dollhouse) as Hydra agent Daniel Whitehall,Nick Blood (The Bletchley Circle) as Lance Hunter,Simon Kassianides(Quantum of Solace) in an unspecified major role as the character Bakshi,Henry Simmons(NYPD Blue) asAlphonso Mack Mackenzie.

The shows executive producer Jeff Bell spoke with TV Lineabout the upcoming second season and promises that theyll bedelivering on the story front, starting off with a bang in the September 23rd premiere.

Once we could say the word HYDRA, its been a sprint, and were planning to just keep sprinting.

As for what questions the premiere will answer, or at the very least, partially address Bell mentions the following plot threads:

All of these questions we raised ourselves in our own listso well see if these are definitively answered or left hanging. Below is a new image of Agent Skye (Chloe Bennet), rocking a large firearm.

Where the first season struggled to introduce non-powered characters who werent from the comics and fit them into the larger sharedMarvel Cinematic Universe in a meaningful way, by the timeCaptain America: The Winter Soldier hit theaters, the show drastically changed for the better. The equally challenging Season 2 aims to maintain that high and mustprove itself after forcefully keeping viewers in the dark about Coulsons condition, its implications, and Skyesmysterious origins. After all, shes a 0-8-4 which SHIELD classifies as an object of unknown origin. If that doesnt have some major Marvel Comics related payoff in the films, then whats the point?

Agents of SHIELD Season 2 Billboard What Does It Mean?

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Premiere Will Address Key Season 1 Questions

When I'm reading for fun and not sitting up in my ivory tower reviewing books for NPR, I generally gravitate toward two kinds of stories: science fiction and procedurals. In both cases, I like my books grimy and lived-in. I have no love for utopias, shiny spaceships where nothing is ever broken, or Teflon detectives who don't come with baggage. If there isn't a bullet hole in someone or something before the story starts, there'd better be one put there within the first couple of pages.

But crossing those streams creating a science fiction procedural is almost always a bad idea. By nature, your garden-variety procedural has to start with a bang that drops you not into the world, but into the middle of a mystery. And in science fiction, all but the best (or trickiest) authors have to front-load their stories with exposition and world-building that roots you in a place, but not necessarily in the action. Thus, the conundrum: Right from page one, the author either has to short the action or short the world. So it's a good thing that John Scalzi seems to have missed that memo.

Lock In is a cop story first. It begins with a neat and effective free fall into the near-future world in which the story is set, laying out in dry, almost academic terms the history of Haden's Syndrome, a global, meningitis-like pandemic that, in addition to killing lots of people, also left a certain percentage of them completely paralyzed. This paralysis is called "lock in."

The world has been irrevocably altered by it socially, politically, culturally and technologically. Those suffering from lock in get around using robots or by renting time in the bodies of nonparalyzed Haden's survivors called integrators. Right now (or in the "right now" of the story, anyway), the United States is on the brink of another massive upheaval, as generous government subsidies to Haden's sufferers are about to end. And Scalzi knocks all this out in a tidy, seven-paragraph frontispiece, complete with convenient bolded highlights, attributed to the (fictional) HighSchoolCheatSheet.com a brilliant way to root his fiction in a believable reality.

Then the book actually starts. There is blood, a body, a couch pushed out a hotel room window from a high floor. There is Chris Shane, rich son of a real estate bajillionaire (and a locked in Haden's survivor) reporting for his second day as a rookie FBI agent and meeting for the first time with his partner, a veteran investigator named Leslie Vann who comes with enough baggage to satisfy Dashiell Hammett. She drinks, she smokes, she sleeps around. She's got tragedy baking off her like radiation, and with that, Scalzi hits all the required tropes like checking items off a form a body, a mystery, a damaged investigator, even a robot partner (because Agent Shane spends almost all his page time tooling around in, and repeatedly destroying, a variety of robot bodies).

Once he's gotten past the tricky part of building a near-future world and putting a dead body in it without getting bogged down in the details of either, the rest is all cake and hand grenades.

The balance established in the first pages of Lock In serves Scalzi well throughout most of the rest of the book. He moves the story along from clue to clue and suspect to suspect, dropping out of the flow only occasionally to build neat little additions to the world he's playing in. There's an expository dinner scene at the home of Agent Shane's rich parents that drags on a bit (until it's interrupted by something blowing up), and a distractingly heavy use of coincidence. (What? You mean the perfect person to move the plot along just happens to be Agent Shane's new roommate? What are the odds?) But seriously, by the time any of this matters, the bodies are stacking up, there are ninjas leaping out of the kitchen, and Scalzi has the pot boiling in exactly the way you're supposed to in a proper procedural.

And that's not to say it's formulaic, but just that he knows the book he's writing. Once he's gotten past the tricky part of building a near-future world and putting a dead body in it without getting bogged down in the details of either, the rest is all cake and hand grenades. It's about laying down the pieces for an end game the murder solved, the bad guys brought to justice, all the things you expect.

Which is, of course, where Scalzi plays his second neat trick: Pulling off a half-twist ending that couldn't work anywhere but in this world and yet, at the same time, is so perfectly cop-story-esque that it could've been ripped right from a 1940s pulp novel. It is satisfying in that it's the resolution you expect, but it catches a spark from the postmodern sense that Scalzi and all his characters seem to know precisely what they're doing. They understand that the story is coming to a close, too, and can't help being proud of themselves for the clever job they've done.

Jason Sheehan is an ex-chef, a former restaurant critic and the current food editor of Philadelphia magazine. But when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about spaceships, aliens, giant robots and ray guns. Tales From the Radiation Age is his newest book.

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'Lock In': A Cop Story For Robot Lovers, A Robot Story For Cop Lovers

Robert Griffin III wont be handing off to him on Thursday night, but Chris Thompson needs to do something positive when he gets the ball. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

The Washington Redskins on Thursday play their final game of the preseason, and for many players, its crunch time. Team officials and coaches will use Thursdays performances to help solidify their opinions of players in advance of the final roster cuts that will take place Friday and Saturday.

Coach Jay Gruden has opted not to play his starters, to spare them from risk of injury. He had considered playing his offensive starters after their unit struggled so mightily last week against Baltimore.

But Gruden decided instead that one series or two against Tampa Bay wouldnt make much of a difference, and that the risk of a season-ending injury to key players was too great. He also believed the need to further evaluate players battling for roster spots carried greater importance.

Let the backups play so, we can solidify those roles, very important, Gruden said explaining his decision. I think we have our starters. In general, we feel pretty good about who they are and now we need to find the key backups and who they are and make sure they get the ample reps to make the football team and show what they can do on the field.

Indeed, Washington does have uncertainty hovering over a number of impending decisions on key reserve/rotational players. Gruden hopes things sort themselves out Thursday night.

Heres a look at five story lines to follow against the Bucs.

1.) Thompsons last shot? Coaches dont hide their excitement about the potential second-year running back Chris Thompson boasts. Hes fast and elusive, he would provide a game-changing element to the backfield behind Pro Bowl workhorse Alfred Morris. But Gruden also hasnt hid the fact that there are serious concerns about Thompsons durability. Seriously injured as a junior and senior in college, and as a rookie in the NFL, Thompson again had a bout with injury bug this preseason, missing the past two preseason games with a low-ankle sprain. Finally healthy again, Gruden and his assistants want to see what Thompson can do in games, and they want to see that he can emerge from this contest uninjured. Thompson understands the urgency of the moment. Practice wasnt good enough. I did good enough at practices, but Ive got to go out there and show it on Thursday, that I can translate into a game. Its very important for me. Ive just got to show them I can make it through some games, and I will show them that. Thompson has Evan Royster, Lache Seastrunk and Silas Redd all vying for the same roster spot. All have had their bright spots while hes beensidelined. Now he needs a big night.

2.) Strong safety candidates Brandon Meriweathers suspension now sends coaches scrambling to find the player most capable of filling in at strong safety for the first two weeks of the regular season. Bacarri Rambo gets the first crack. Coaches see him as much improved as atackler. The second-year pro, who as a rookie was quickly benched because of tackling woes, actually ranks among the team leaders this preseason. He also has a forced fumble to his credit. Phillip Thomas would contend for this job, but instead, hes sidelined with injury again. Meanwhile, third-year pro Trenton Robinson and undrafted rookie Akeem Davis aim to make strong cases for themselves when their numbers are called at this position.

3.) Kicking battle Kai Forbath and rookie Zack Hocker get one last faceoff after two even performances in preseason outings 2 and 3. Hocker has shown great poise, which is uncommon at this position for a rookie, as well as leg strength. Forbath has displayed improved leg strength on kickoffs. But has he done enough to make coaches forget about his misses (one nullifiedbecause of a penalty) in the preseason opener?

The rest is here:
Redskins Blog: Redskins vs. Bucs: Five story lines to monitor in Thursdays preseason finale

Tom Fedor/The Gazette

Montgomery County Public Schools IT project manager Kelvin Purvis (left) assists Kenneth Jordan of Clinton Learning Solutions as they hand the ActivBoard for the Promethean interactive whiteboard at Waters Landing Elementary School on Thursday in the Germantown schools new addition.

When students return to Waters Landing Elementary School in Germantown on Monday , they will not only see a bigger and brighter school but also reminders of the dolphin they recently adopted at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

You dont usually get dolphins on a carpet, said Principal Tina Shrewsbury about the images of blue-gray dolphins imbedded into a section of new floor in the newly expanded school.

Thanks to two new additions, Waters Landing is expected to enroll about 690 students this fall, about the same as last year.

However, all will be inside the school instead of some of them outside in portable classrooms that are now a thing of the past.

Its a pleasure to have everyone in the building under one roof, Shrewsbury said.

The additions will also enable adding another 50 students in the future, bringing total capacity to 740, she said.

Waters Landing Elementary is hosting a Sneak Peek visit for students and families at 3 p.m. on Friday before school starts.

Im very pleased about the additions to Waters Landing, said school PTA President Danielle Deaver in an email. The work looks wonderful, and the children and teachers are going to be very excited to see their new classrooms. Ive also talked to many parents who are happy that our children will no longer be attending classes in mobile units.

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Expansion of Waters Landing complete as school prepares for opening day Monday in Germantown -- Gazette.Net