News: November 2009 Archives

Just as work to lay down tracks for the H Street NE streetcar line disrupted traffic in August, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation is warning drivers that the ongoing installation of streetcar tracks for the Anacostia Line will change traffic patterns at the intersection of South Capitol Street and Firth Sterling Avenue for the next couple of weeks.

Congress Heights on the Rise had the scoop Sunday morning: former D.C. mayor and current Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry is currently filming a pilot for a reality television series. No joke.

No word yet on when the show would make its way to TV or on what network, but folks are telling The Advoc8te they have seen the film crews trailing Barry about town and that members of his staff have confirmed that they are in fact filming a pilot for Barry's reality show. No idea yet on what the focus of the reality show will be, but if in fact true, The Advoc8te isn't really all that surprised. Wasn't it just the next illogical progression for the ultimate showman - his own reality series?

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's obsession with physical fitness may be about to get him into trouble with his constituents. It seems that when he's out training with his cycling team, D.C. Velo, the mayor has been using a large motorcycle police escort that allow him to both flaunt traffic regulations and tie up traffic, WTOP's Mark Segraves is reporting. WTOP spotted Fenty and his team as they "rode on parkways where bikes aren't permitted, ran red lights and stop signs and created traffic backups wherever they went." These rides reportedly occur during weekday business hours, and there's evidence that they are responsible for a large amount of police overtime hours spent doing nothing but waiting for the mayor to show up for his ride. Plus, there's video!

DDOT workers were out putting the finishing touches on the contraflow bike lane on 15th Street NW today, installing the permanent plastic pylons that separate the line of parked cars from the new sidewalk-adjacent bike lane.

Susie Cambria, via her excellent Budget & Policy Corner blog, reminds us that there are 900 D.C. foster children who are hoping to get Christmas presents this holiday season, and the Child and Family Services Agency needs D.C. residents to help. If you're able to purchase a few gifts for some needy local foster kids this year, you can find more details on this flier. Just tell CFSA how many children you can buy gifts for, and they'll give you the age, gender and sizes for each child. Delivery dates for gifts for specific kids are Dec. 7 & 8, while general toy donations can be dropped off on Dec. 14 or 15. Also on the flier are details on how to put together a Thanksgiving dinner basket for a CFSA family.

The District has issued revised regulations that increase the amount of time groups promoting events like anti-war protests may place posters around the city, the Examiner reports today. Previously, event-specific posters could only be up for a total of 60 days, but under the new rules, posters may go up anytime before the event, even a year or more ahead of time, with the only limitation being that they must come down 30 days after the event has taken place. The rules also allow for non-event related posters to be displayed for a total of 60 days, according to the Examiner.

Looks like there's been a major change in leadership over the weekend at the Washington Times. This morning, the paper put out a news release announcing that President and publisher Thomas McDevitt, CFO Keith Cooperrider and Chairman Dong Moon Joo have all been fired, while former VP Jonathan Slevin has been named Acting President and Publisher. The news comes less than a month after the Rev. Sun Myung Moon handed over day-to-day control of the Unification Church, which owns the Times, to his three sons.

Many of you have likely already seen this YouTube video shot by Ephraim and Christy Smethers (and fair warning, it's graphic in the same way that many nature shows are) of a deer being attacked by a lion at the National Zoo yesterday. The deer, which had presumably wandered in to the Zoo from neighboring Rock Creek Park, managed to run inside the lion habitat, and the lions, being lions, went after the young animal like it was a tasty snack.

Good morning, Washington. The ongoing parks and recreation building contracts dispute between the Fenty administration and the D.C. Council isn't going anywhere any time soon, as the Council now has 90 days to figure out how to permanently prevent the mayor's office from funneling projects through the D.C. Housing Authority. In today's Examiner, Michael Neibauer asks an important question: could all of this have been avoided if the D.C. Council had just let Allen Lew do the work? You'll recall that last December, the Council voted to prevent Fenty from giving parks construction oversight to Lew, chief of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, which Neibauer reminds us "was a slap at Fenty in the midst of an ongoing war between the two branches. And it was the best thing that could have happened to Fenty's buddies in the construction industry." In other words, that both the mayor and the council are capable of acting like little children is hardly new.

Tonight the Capitals came from behind to beat the Florida Panthers 7-4. With Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green among a slew of injured players, Mike Knuble put up four points to spark the win. The total tied his personal best, from Valentine's Day, 2003. Asked what it was like to be a leader on this team, Knuble calmly dismissed the assertion. "It's just one game," he said, talking up the importance of hard work over a long season.

If two sex shops are able to remain open in the relatively small Old Town Alexandria commercial district, someone must enjoy patronizing them. Yet Alexandria city planners proposed to ban further sex shops from opening in the historic district, according to ABC7. That decision that would have grandfathered in Le Tache but forced the more recently opened Lotus Blooms to close. Both stores are located on King Street. (Those links are potentially NSFW, especially if you work in Old Town Alexandria.)

WUSA9 has it that parents and kids waited hours to get the H1N1 vaccine in Cheverly, MD. Yet the Washington Business Journal reports that 55% of Washington-area adults don't plan to inoculate, nothing that a full "one-third of parents with children living at home do not plan on getting the vaccine this year."

Here philliefan99 has captured this tribute to the Fort Hood shooting incident, whose local connection the Washington Post explored yesterday. NBC Washington further notes that Maj. L. Eduardo Caraveo, among the victims in the shooting, was a Woodbridge, VA, native. President Barack Obama (pictured here, kind of) ordered that flags fly at half-mast staff until Veterans' Day, calling the shootings "crimes against our nation."

Mornin', Washington. Hope you're awake, because Montgomery County needs your help.

Yusuf Acar, the former D.C. computer security official who was arrested and charged in March for his part in a bribery scheme that allegedly funneled phony contracts and pay checks through the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer, is expected to plead guilty, the Examiner reports.

The D.C. Department of Health announced Thursday that it is reducing the hours and frequency of its free H1N1 vaccine clinics in order to be able to send more doses to doctor's offices and community health centers. DOH says that over 11,000 people have been served in D.C.'s clinics in the past two weeks.

On a sad day after the killing of 13 people at Ft. Hood in Texas, the Post is delving into the local ties of suspected shooter Maj. Nidal M. Hasan. He was born in Arlington, graduated from Virginia Tech, prayed at a mosque in Silver Spring and spent the better part of his professional career caring for trauma victims at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He apparently went on the shooting rampage in response to his upcoming deployment to Iraq; he had expressed opposition to both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• The Associated Press has the best information we've seen coming out of Fort Hood. An officer who's been identified as Army Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan allegedly opened fire at this military base, leaving 12 people dead and 31 wounded. Authorities killed the gunman and apprehended two other soldiers in what appears to be the worst mass shooting ever to occur at a U.S. military base.
• The biological father of one of the adopted daughters of Renee Bowman, the woman accused of murdering the girls and placing them in a freezer, has filed a $75 million wrongful death lawsuit against the District of Columbia.
• Frozen Tropics updates on the Martini Lounge stabbing and subsequent temporary license suspension.

As the political fracas continues over the $82 million in parks and rec contracts that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty quietly funneled through the D.C. Housing Authority (much of it handed to contractors with cozy ties to the mayor), members of the D.C. Council are demanding accountability. None more so than Council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large). Or not. No, he is. Really. We think.

New York businessman Joel Azumah wrote to DCist today to let us know that his discount bus line, modestly dubbed TransportAzumah, will be launching several new routes servicing D.C. this month. Refreshingly, these routes will not be servicing New York. Instead, Azumah plans to offer non-stop bus service from D.C. to Wilmington, Philadelphia and Boston.

Like, literally. Our sister site Londonist brings news of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who on Tuesday night jumped off of his bike to save a woman from an aggressive gang of teen girls. The victim of the attack, who actually voted for opponent Ken Livingstone in last year's mayoral election, called Johnson "my knight on a shining bicycle" in comments to The Guardian.

We reported yesterday on rumors that the Giro d'Italia, one of professional cycling's biggest events, may come to the District for an opening stage in 2011.

It was a year ago today that District residents awoke -- likely groggy from the celebrations the night before -- to a new president-elect. Barack Obama not only became the nation's first African-American president, he also offered residents of the District of Columbia the promise of a new relationship between the federal executive and the city, one that had largely fallen by the wayside during President George W. Bush's eight years in office.

Two Prince William County teens who were found dead in a Triangle, Va. home on Monday died as the result of a suicide pact, the Post is reporting. Police say they may never know what prompted to Desiree Patrick, 17, and Quirinius Williams, 18, to kill themselves together, but these comments from Williams' stepfather, Ruben Aguilar, are fairly haunting:

Aguilar said he had never met Patrick but had received a phone call from her father about a year ago about the relationship. After that conversation, Aguilar said, "we made sure to tell them to stay away from each other." From all appearances, Williams complied.

Continue reading "Saddest Story of the Day: Teens Died in Suicide Pact"

Good morning, Washington. DCist is actually compiling the Roundup from Philadelphia this morning, where the streets are overflowing in grief after last night's World Series loss. We didn't spy any rowdy crowds or inappropriate displays of frustration after the game, but we don't even want to think about what might have happened had something like the Cox cable outage in Virginia gone down up here. Congratulations to all the Yankees fans in the DCist commentariat. We're looking ahead to the Nationals' world championship that's sure to be coming in 2037.

Heat 93, Wizards 89: It was the Dwayne Wade show at the Phone Booth last night. When Wade was on the court, he poured in 40 to lead all scorers; unfortunately for the Wizards, they couldn't transplant their very good play for the short periods of time when D-Wade was on the bench to when he was playing. Gilbert Arenas had 32 to lead Washington, and Brendan Haywood and Caron Butler both chipped in double-doubles -- although the three were an ugly combined -34 in plus/minus. Statistics aside, it just wasn't enough to overcome Wade, who was hitting key baskets all night. With back-to-back games against two of the league's five best players, the Wizards will probably be relieved to see mega-star-deprived Indiana next on the slate. Oh, and Mike Miller picked up an injury to his arm -- but as Dan Steinberg notes: what's new?

Another sad death to report at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Merlin, the Zoo's oldest male sloth bear, died this morning after a 48-hour illness, according to a news release. He was 28 years old.

On Monday morning, Nov. 2, he underwent a routine physical examination. Although the examination went well, his anesthetic recovery was prolonged, and he had not returned to normal by the afternoon. While under observation, veterinarians noticed that he had vomited some blood-tinged fluid.

Continue reading "National Zoo's Elderly Sloth Bear Dies"

As a competitive cyclist who mourned the postponement of this year's only professional race in the District, I was ecstatic, though slightly skeptical, to stumble acros the news this morning that organizers of the Giro d'Italia, one of the three grand tours of international cycling, were thinking of bringing the opening stages of the race to D.C..

• Metrobus fareboxes are functioning, although some bus operators had difficulty logging onto them earlier this morning. If that was the case, customers were allowed to ride without paying.
• The Bus Operations Control Center had early difficulty communicating with buses on the streets, however bus radios came back into service at about 10 a.m.
• All reservation and dispatch systems for MetroAccess returned to use at about 10 a.m.

Good morning, Washington. As expected, Bob McDonnell thoroughly defeated Creigh Deeds in yesterday's race for the Virginia governor's office. Conservatives' efforts did well nationwide in general, in fact, with the exception of the tumultuous NY-23 race. Experts will be quick to tell you that election results during an off-year shouldn't be used to draw any broad conclusions... before wondering aloud whether there are any broad conclusions that they can draw from the results. Metro Computer Systems Down: A power failure at a WMATA computer center has left a variety of Metro systems inoperative this morning, according to the Post. Bus fareboxes, MetroAccess booking, call centers, alert systems, and debit card purchases at farecard machines are all inoperative. On the bright side, the PA system in stations is also broken, so riders will at least be spared the constant inane messages demanding that they ask each other about their bags. D.C. Sniper Asks Supreme Court To Delay Execution: John Allen Muhammad, the convicted D.C. sniper, is scheduled to die in just under a week. Now the Examiner reports that his lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to delay the execution while they consider whether Muhammad was adequately represented at his trial. Muhammad also has a request for clemency filed with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, based upon the claim that he suffers from a variety of serious psychological and neurological problems. Montgomery County Mulls Helicopters' Cost Versus Awesomeness: The Examiner reports on a dilemma facing Montgomery County: should anti-drug funds be used to fight dealers and treat addicts, or to start a helicopter program that could probably fight drugs but mostly involve having totally sweet helicopters. To be fair, the county already has the helicopters lined up, a donation from the military. On the other hand, the county is facing cuts to its police department, which critics point to as an argument against starting an expensive new program. Briefly Noted: EHN pushing for D.C. attorney general district attorney... Monday's gym shooting may have been drug-related... Teens dead from apparent suicide pact... Former NSO director has heart attack while conducting orchestra... Montgomery County firefighters will start using foam to extinguish blazes... This Day In DCist: One year ago Shaw got a dog park and Google Street View debuted in D.C..

So there you have it, Redskins fans. Dan Snyder apologizes that his team has made your Sundays miserable for the better part of two months. He "feels bad" for you. He's "embarrassed." Here's the man many people are attributing with lead one of this town's biggest cultural institutions to a slow drive into irrelevance, telling you he's sorry.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton today introduced a bill that would allow District residents to elect their own District Attorney for the first time.

Rumors about a possible D.C. Council run by ANC 1C chair Bryan Weaver have been circulating for weeks now, and DCist had been dutifully pestering the longtime Adams Morgan activist to confirm his intentions for some time before ... getting royally scooped by Loose Lips this afternoon. Sigh. Weaver "filed exploratory papers with the Office of Campaign Finance on Tuesday," Mike DeBonis reports.

Unless you've got little kids or are under 24 (and apparently the young people care not for this vaccine, if the Post is to be believed), you probably haven't even tried to go get an H1N1 vaccine yet. The District government only late last week opened up its free vaccine clinics to adults over age 24, and for the time being, that only includes adults with underlying health conditions such as asthma or diabetes, or those who are currently or will soon be caregivers of children under 6 months.

Sad news for the local restaurant community today. NoraNori Amaya, co-owner of popular U Street restaurant Coppi's Organic, was found dead Monday night in her apartment in the 3600 block of 16th Street NW, NBCWashington.com is reporting. A call to Coppi's this afternoon confirmed the news, though a restaurant spokesperson declined to comment any further at this time.

In a move which should surprise no one, D.C. United head coach Tom Soehn removed his name from consideration for the team's head coaching position in advance of his contract's expiration yesterday, effectively ending six years of service with the club. Soehn, an assistant coach from 2004 to 2006, was promoted to head coach for the 2007 season and started brightly, leading United to the MLS Supporters Shield in his first season. But after two consecutive years in which United failed to make the MLS playoffs, it was obvious that the club would not be extending his three-year contract, which was due to expire at the end of 2009. Soehn finished his tenure at United with a 55-48-31 record in all competitions.

An armed robber wearing a creepy skeleton mask got away with a bag of cash on Tuesday morning from the SunTrust bank branch located at 8510 Connecticut Ave., in Chevy Chase. Montgomery County police say the suspect fled in a white sedan driven by another person, and that the two later switched to a black Mercedes Benz.

WMATA plans to scrounge up $36 million from a combination of stimulus funds, inaugural reimbursements, surplus reserves and insurance money to deal with its widening budget gap for the 2010 fiscal year, both the Post and the Examiner are reporting.

The D.C. Department of Public Works began its fall leaf collection period this week, so if you've got a lot of leaves to deal with around your house, it's worth a reminder how this works. First things first, head to http://leaf.dcgis.dc.gov/ and search for your address on the DPW leaf collection status map. The map will return a list of of scheduled leaf collection periods for your area. Take a note of the dates, and then before your next scheduled pass begins, rake all the leaves in front of your house and sidewalk into a pile in the nearest tree box. DPW crews will then come around and vacuum them up. And if you think you might have been missed, make sure to call 311 to request additional leaf removal service.

Good morning, Washington. Yesterday, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray held his usual press conference to preview the next day's legislative session, and it was predictably a doozy. For one, Gray called for DCPS CFO Noah Wepman to be fired. If you watched any of last week's Council hearing on the recent DCPS layoffs, you may have caught the boyish Wepman squirming under pressure as he admitted that he had failed to disclose a roughly $12 million deficit in the 2010 schools budget. For two, the Council will today take up emergency legislation designed to stop D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty from transferring any funds to the D.C. Housing Authority for the next 90 days while the Council figures out what to do about those controversial DPR contracts. This move comes after the recent revelations about Banneker Ventures, a firm owned by Fenty pal Omar Karim, and the role it played in helping the administration sidestep Council oversight again and again as it doled out non-competitive contracts, often to companies also run by Fenty friends (including Sinclair Skinner!) through the quasi-independent Housing Authority. On the DPR/Housing Authority shenanigans, Harry Thomas, Jr., who will introduce the emergency measure, is talking subpoenas, and Gray says he wants to find out if these questionable procurement practices extend to other agencies.

Many of you were unhappy with the outcome of this year's new lottery system to get tickets to the traditional White House Easter Egg Roll. Just read through the comments of this post for an idea of how annoyed local folks were that the ticketing system was opened up to the entire country, via the Internet. Then get ready to do the same thing all over again for the lighting of the White House Christmas tree.

WMATA put out its November track work advisories today, and it looks like Metrorail riders on most lines are in for more of the weeknight delays that made October such a joy, not to mention plenty of weekend work to contend with. A brief outline of what to expect this month is below, but see the two advisories for full details.

Former Alexandria Police Chief David Baker is back in the news this week, thanks to agreeing to appear in this PSA for the DUICheckpoint campaign, a joint effort from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, the Maryland Department of Transportation and the District of Columbia Department of Transportation. You'll recall that Baker retired from his position shortly before pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated and serving five days in jail.

A pair of large police and emergency responses to report going on downtown today.

It was obviously pre-planned, but the ongoing D.C. Council hearing on the same-sex marriage bill just had a little awwww moment. D.C. resident and local architect Andy Rollman started it out with his testimony, during which he explained that he's been a happily single gay man all of his life, up until recently.

On a night when the Caps nearly came from behind to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team did something else to help cement their identity as a D.C. institution. With 8:35 remaining in the third period, and both teams readying for a faceoff in the Capitals' defensive end, the team's sound crew played Chuck Brown's "Bustin' Loose" over the arena speaker system.

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo on Friday announced the recent deaths of two scimitar-horned oryx. One female died at the main Zoo campus on Oct. 24, while a male passed away on Oct. 14 at the Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal.

So President Barack Obama and First lady Michelle Obama opened up the White House to trick-or-treaters on Saturday, which is pretty cool. Kids from 11 D.C. area schools were invited to come by and meet the first couple as they handed out this administration's version of a Halloween treat: White House M&Ms, a sugar cookie, and ... you guessed it, dried fruit. Talk about boo.

Good morning, Washington, and welcome to the post-Halloween, post-normal amount of sunshine world we now live in. As thrilling as it was to get that extra hour of spooktacular party time in on Saturday night, watching the sun set last night at about 5 p.m. brought the end of daylight saving time into sharp focus: it's awful. And it's only going to get worse now that the work week is here, seeing as how most of us will leave the office well after it's dark. Conclusion? Changing the clocks twice a year is disruptive and stupid. Case closed!

Yours truly has a love-hate relationship with junk food. But so do you, dear reader: one of the most popular posts in this here site's five-year plus history was Andrew Wiseman's thoughts on the fast food joints that the nation's capital misses out on.

The Georgetown University Department of Public Safety has the details on the second bias-related assault in the last few days near the school. Early this morning, a Georgetown student was attacked by an unknown male near 36th and N Streets NW. According to the public safety alert: