Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
D.C. Police Seek Suspect in Series of Bank Robberies
Suspect in 9-Year-Old's Murder Found Dead in D.C. Jail
Photo of the Day: November 25, 2009
Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Good morning, Washington. With so much focus in local news coverage on the inauguration, it's easy to forget that George Bush is still the president until 11:59 a.m. on January 20, and that his administration is still able to make important decisions. In what will be the final major act by outgoing Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, the Dulles rail project has at last been given the federal approval it needed to proceed without restrictions. Congress still has 60 days to comment on the project, but after that, $900 million in federal grants will be awarded to extend the new Silver line. The earliest anyone will be able to ride Metro to Dulles would be 2015, and given the nature of such a massive undertaking, we have to expect there will be delays. Still, considering the project appeared to be nearly dead a year ago, the Bush administration approval is a huge win for all of the state and local agencies that worked tirelessly to keep the Silver line alive.
Inaugural Transportation Costs Add Up: The Examiner gets out its calculator and estimates that local and state governments will end up spending more than $20 million on transportation costs alone for the presidential inauguration. Keeping in mind that the District, Maryland and Virginia are each facing large budget shortfalls, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Govs. Tim Kaine and Martin O’Malley have asked Congress to step in and help them cover the costs.
Small Children Found Alone in Northeast Apartment: Sad story from NBC4: D.C. police found three young children—a 5-month-old boy, a 2-year-old girl, and a 3-year-old girl—home alone in a filthy apartment near Gallaudet. The children were discovered after a neighbor alerted an officer to the sounds of a baby that wouldn't stop crying in an apartment where no one was answering the door. Child & Family Services have taken custody of the children, and the mother was arrested.
Briefly Noted: Twelve sent to hospitals after pileup on I-270 ... Four teens charged in Wheaton mall shooting ... DCPS reduces number of unqualified teachers ... Authorities searching for missing twin teen girls from Loudoun County.
This Day in DCist: In 2008, Metro was giving out free bus rides after accidentally overcharging passengers, and in 2007, we were recovering from Mayor Fenty's inaugural ball.
Photo by cstein96
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Crap, with the arrival of the rail to Dulles, VA will be lousy with hiptards looking for ethnic food.
Looking forward to the inevitable Tysons Tunnel crowd's lawsuit to block Silver Line construction because it threatens a rare species of Booz-Allen snail darter that only lives off Route 7. The subway line will run directly through their spawning ground at Legal Sea Foods! Won't someone think of the poor, unborn contractors!
What about that unique species of slime-covered salescritter that only lives in the Eastern Motors section of the Route 7 Wetlands Automall? Won't somebody think of the salescritter?
PS - did Chief Zee's tomahawk ever reappear? Ya Jawb's Yaw Kredit...
Chief Zee's Tomahawk was returned, and the culprit was summarily executed through creative placement of one of Sonny Jurgensen's cigars. http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0808/548002.html
The world may resume rotation about its axis.
oh boy, that story about the abandoned kids in the apartment is sad.
Hey, they're still alive, it could have been far worse.
Maybe that is far worst.
I hope everything turns out OK for those kids and their mom. Finding a babysitter while you run chores is difficult enough. Where was the father? Was she a single mom?
I also wonder how old the mom is? I have little tolerance for people leaving their kids alone. I really worry about kids raising kids. Sometimes it works out just fine but too often the headlines involve really young moms who get themselves and their kids into these situations because they are not mature enough to handle kids.
At least the kids were physically unharmed and had a neighbor willing to do the right thing. I applaud the neighbor for her concern and action.
Is it me or do the mug shots for the kids involved with the Wheaton Plaza shooting have THUG written all over them?
I hope you're not serious. They're black, that's the only thing that I gather from those mug shots.
Oh no! I'm not pointing out the color. I'm black too.
It's just that their faces pop up on my THUG radar.
I mean...come on..would you buy Girl Scout cookies from these guys?
No way.
Wait, on second thought, are they selling Samoas? I would buy 6 packs of those from Rayful Edmond himself if I were offered the chance.
You should see the comments on the NBC4 article on the mom who left her kids alone. Because it happened in Northeast and she is a terrible mother (which I think is a fair characterization under the circumstances) she must be either a welfare queen or a crack fiend.
News website comment threads are always a rich mine of stimulating intellectual discourse. The WTOP threads blame everything including the weather on Marion Barry, and are pretty much adhering to a pro-eugenics/concentration camp platform. They make DCist look like the School of F**king Athens.
i don't know how you can really spend any time reading comments on the wapo, wtop, or any of the local tv station's websites. after one look to realize the level of bigotry and stupidity there, there's really no reason to ever go back.
we may not be the brightest bulbs in the pack here at dcist, but christ, at least we're entertaining!
Do 4 teens constitute a pack of teens? Or do you need 6? Or is that beer? I hate being sober at work.
The earliest anyone will be able to ride Metro to Dulles would be 2015..
2015? But my flight is next week. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is every bit the hussy that bathroom wall said she was.