Heroine of the Day

File this under "She's got cojones and she's not afraid to use 'em":

On Tuesday, an unarmed and off-duty suburban Washington, D.C. police chief tackled and subdued a man twice her size who was attacking other people at Dulles Int'l Airport.

Fairfax County (Va.) acting police chief Suzanne G. Devlin was dropping off her husband at the airport when she saw a man, Andrew C. Hython, punching and kicking some male airport employees. So she ran towards Hython, threw him down, and pinned him to the ground by pushing her knees into his spine.

Devlin, 50, is 5'7" and 140 pounds. Hython, five years younger than Devlin, is 5'9" and 260 pounds. Read the Washington Post story here.

Racking up frequent flyer miles: My editor and I had our semi-annual "long-range" meeting yesterday. This is when I give him news and feature story ideas I'd like to pursue in the coming months. These stories, which tend to be more in-depth than our breaking news stories, are in addition to my regular beat coverage.

These stories also tend to require some travel. Since I write for a national publication, I have to fly a fair amount. On any given day, a handful of our reporters are fanned out in cities across the U.S. In the next six months or so, I'll probably head to: Boston, Northern California (twice), Denver, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and maybe Portland, Ore., and Florida.

Whew. It's a good thing I like being on the road.

Over the past couple of years, we've expanded our international coverage as well. My colleagues have been to South Africa, Iceland, Mexico, Japan, Honduras, Cuba, France, and Ireland, among other places. I myself went to Singapore earlier this year on assignment.

I like writing international stories, though they are twice the work of reporting a story here in the States. You've got challenges ranging from cultural and language barriers to logistical SNAFU's.

All right, kids. It's my day off (working part of the holiday weekend), so I'm heading down to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in downtown D.C. Ciao.