Morning Roundup: Re-Opening Edition

It was two years ago that a fire gutted the inside of Eastern Market's South Hall, leaving its many vendors with nowhere to sell their wares and the District without one of its most loved weekend destinations. The city was quick to erect a temporary structure across the street for vendors, but today the long wait comes to an end as the new and improved South Hall will be re-opened to the public. (We got a sneak-peek at renovations earlier this month.) The Post reports that the ribbon-cutting will take place at 10:30 a.m., and we're sure half the District will head down to the market this weekend to enjoy what has been a long wait for a loved local institution.

Metro Inspecting 3,000 Sensors: After having ruled out operator error, Metro is inspecting the 3,000 sensors that are supposed to help control the speed and placement of trains throughout the system, writes the Examiner. In related news, the Post reports that the train control system that would have prevented this week's deadly crash failed a test on Wednesday, further proving that the computer-controlled train did not receive information that another train was ahead of it as it should have.

D.C. Contractor Fired for Tweets: Sure, Twitter might be playing a key role in getting information about protests in Iran out to the world, but stateside it's doing what all social-networking technologies have had the potential to do -- get people fired. The Post is reporting that a contractor with the D.C. Department of Employment Services was fired for calling Anacostia a "ghetto" and boasting about not doing any work. David Le was hired in early June and worked with the city's Summer Youth Employment Program. (In an interesting aside, the Post didn't try to reach him by phone or email -- they instead left a message on his Facebook page that went unanswered.) Le proves that new technologies are great and all, but they can't stop people from doing stupid things.

DominicanFireTruck-Gate Revelations Continue: In an update in what was the District's most ridiculous mini-scandal, the Examiner writes that the D.C. Council yesterday deposed the founder of the organization Peaceaholics to get a better sense of how a city firetruck and ambulance ended up in the organization's possession and on their way to a beach resort town in the Dominican Republic a few months back. (CityDesk live-blogged the whole thing; it's worth a read.) Ronald Moten defensively accused members of the council of using him to get to Mayor Adrian Fenty, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and put the majority of the blame on Sinclair Skinner, a close friend of Fenty's who often gives the mayor PR headaches.

Briefly Noted: Six Park Police officers placed on leave after shooting of D.C. man ... Virginia gets failing grade for campaign disclosure laws ... Memorial service set for Metro operator killed in this week's deadly accident.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that the District's gun laws were unconstitutional and we saw Colorado Kitchen close its doors. In 2007, Mayor Fenty proved that maybe he's not as fun as we would have hoped when he opted not to do the usual cannonball to mark the opening of the city's public swimming pools for the summer. Boooooo.

Picture snapped by karthikkito