>> D.C. police will spend $3 million in the 3rd Police District on an anti-gang initiative. [WaPo] >> Montgomery County Del. Jane Lawton, 63, died of an apparent heart attack this morning, collapsing after giving a speech in downtown Washington. Lawton also served as a four-term mayor of Chevy Chase. [Md. Moment] >> If you have an elderly relative living at either Carolyn Boone Lewis Health Care Center in D.C. or Ruxton Health of......

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: Halloween Screams at the AFI Perhaps my favorite part of this time of year is the fact that on any given night, you can turn on the television, and somewhere on the dial you can find a movie about things that go bump in the night, creatures from the depths of Hell, or your garden......

Nowadays, it seems like every place under the sun is producing wine. Indeed, it's probably because they are. Whenever someone says that they have a bottle from North Carolina or Mexico or China, there is no second guessing them anymore. Whether or not these odd regional wines are actually drinkable is another story. We've made it our mission to always give a bottle try- no matter where's it from- because you never know when or......

As we noted yesterday, today is Patriot Day; so conceived to commemorate the 9-11 attacks—even though we Americans aren't the greatest at "commemorating," see: Veterans' Day, Memorial Day, etc. Just six years on, though, feelings are still raw and memories vibrant. Resiliency is a virtue of our citizenry however, and if nothing else, we can get a hearty laugh out of OBL's radical beard transformation, his decidedly porno 'stache, and threats of attack via the......

In just a few months, fans will finally get a glimpse of the new $611 million baseball stadium rising in Southeast. No longer will they simply be looking at an artists rendering -- they'll get to see the new concourse, the stands, the suites and the field for themselves. And today the Post's Marc Fisher poses an interesting question -- beyond the bricks and mortar, what should the team's owners offer inside the stadium? After......

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy......

Too often, when we think of problems with our transit service here in D.C., it's from the perspective of a commuter headed to work. It's not an unreasonable point of view; much of the travel that takes place in the District is for commuting. Ensuring Metro's morning and evening rush are as smooth and painless as possible is critical to keeping business in the city, as well as attracting more of it. Commerce is......

Happy Friday morning, Washington. After the latest concerns over the quality and safety of the D.C. area's drinking water, did you think twice about drinking out of the tap yesterday? We mentioned it briefly at the end of the day yesterday, but the Post has a full story on how WASA and Washington Aqueduct officials are trying to calm our concerns about our tap water. Officials said high levels of chlorine toxins found in May......

It's never a good sign when it's already this steamy this early in the morning, and indeed, the heat index looks like it will near 100 degrees today (actual temps closer to 94). The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management has some helpful tips to beating the oppressive heat, but this list has a shameful lack of ice cream sandwiches involved. DCist heartily recommends the Ice Cream Sandwich Method of keeping cool today, which involves......

This week for Eating In we thought we’d venture a little out of the city, but not too far and still metro accessible, to the ever-expanding area of Chevy Chase. Right off Wisconsin Ave. is Lia's, the little sister to the Chef Geoff’s restaurants. Chef Geoff Tracy's inspiration for Lia’s came from an internship he completed at Galileo’s, combined with a trip to Italy — and decided to open a restaurant that is focused on......

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are in town today, thanks to Affleck having agreed to be the commencement speaker at Falls Church High School. The WaPo explains that the actor agreed to lend an unusual amount of starpower to the high school graduation ceremony thanks to his friendship with Falls Church senior Joe Kindregan. Kindregan and Affleck met when the actor was filming 1998's Forces of Nature at Dulles Airport. Kindregan has ataxia-telangiectasia, a rare......

It isn't just your imagination -- the D.C. metro area's underground water pipe system is in fact busting more often than Elliott Gould. This morning's WaPo has the details on the record-setting rates at which Montgomery and Prince George's counties' water pipes have leaked and broken down in the past month. In may in those two counties, 42 water pipes have broken, including the two water main breaks yesterday that left 2,200 residents in Bethesda......

It's that time of the year again, when every choral group in the city has a Lenten concert, an Easter concert, or a Holy Week concert. We start this week with some of the best ones for the upcoming week. PREACHING FROM THE CHOIR: >> When the first concert on the list requires a trip to Baltimore, you know that it is going to be good. The Tallis Scholars, one of the best choral groups......

Watch where you step this morning, Washington! The Examiner brings us word that the D.C. Emergency Management Agency lists manhole cover explosions, like the one that brough traffic to a standstill around the National Mall last Wednesday, as one of the District’s 18 major hazards, alongside urban crime, hurricanes, terrorism and floods. See, D.C. has the second–largest underground power system in the country, which means underground fires which can cause those manholes to explode are......

D.C.'s lack of choice when it comes to gourmet grocery stores may be coming to an end, although not everything is panning out as planned. A long hoped-for Whole Foods Market on 14th Street in Columbia Heights seems all but dead. “We have no immediate plans for that location,” Sarah Kenney, Whole Foods Market, director of marketing for the mid-Atlantic Region tells DCist. Over a year ago, Whole Foods signed a Letter Of Intent (LOI)......

Not since 7' 7" Gheorghe Muresan guarded the paint for the Bullets from 1993 to 1997 has an enormous dude played basketball regularly for a D.C. area team - sorry Roy Hibbert, 7' 2" doesn't cut it. For those fans looking for another behemoth to cheer on, the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association have announced that they've signed 7' 8 3/4" Sun Ming Ming, supposedly the tallest person to ever play professional basketball.......

Restaurant Week is becoming the must have fashion accessory for the D.C. area this winter. Everyone’s got to have one. Case in point: Silver Spring, a long-suffering suburban “edge city” that has been on the upswing for the last few years is officially entering the fray to show off its shiny new dining scene February 5-11. THIS JUST IN: The price for a 2-course lunch will be just $12, while a 3-course dinner will be......

What’s a holiday celebration without a cheery, slightly cheesy themed cocktail? Not very jolly, we say. Even if you don’t normally go in for a frou-frou drink, who can resist a glass of something icy and decorated with a mini candy cane or gold sparkles at this time of year? Not us. Here are three spots for festive holiday drinks guaranteed to lift your spirits: Morton’s The Steakhouse is capitalizing on the martini madness among......

Welcome back from your holidays, DCist readers. We hope they were filled with turkey, or turducken, or whatever floats your boat. Around here, the long weekend seemed to be filled with totally awesome global warming. 65 degrees in November, anyone? Anyway, gloat over the Redskins' win as we ease you back into the working week with the news. Even More Reasons to Fear the Suburbs: Because, oh my lord, now they're ruining Christmas. The Post......

The Berger Cookie is undoubtedly Baltimore’s greatest contribution to world confectionery. The product of German immigrants to Baltimore in 1835, it’s also easily the single most decadent cookie we’ve ever had. The ultra-soft cookie layer of each Berger “chocolate creme” is dominated by the rich fudge drapery that tops it. In fact, as soon as you back the plastic from the charmingly vintage packaging, the enticing aroma of fudge beckons. In addition to packaging that......

Recently, we’ve forsaken the tranquility of a typically lazy Saturday morning in favor of madly dashing off to the Del Ray Farmer’s Market in time to snag a coveted loaf of Bonaparte Breads’ Pain Normande. A perfectly rustic bundle of yeast and flour, the Pain Normande is fully loaded with tender pieces of dried apple, black and golden raisins, and walnuts. Sure, plenty of local bakeries purvey a range of fruit-studded handmade loaves, but none......

It's a drizzly Thursday morning out there, D.C., and it seems like every ... single ... local news headline ... we've run across has to do with this Tuesday's election. Rest assured, we'll have DCist's own election guide for you later this afternoon, but we'll also have plenty of our regular music, food and other odd goodies. Because lord knows we could all stand a break from the Midterm Midtacular (hat tip to The Daily......

Perusing the Metro news this week, another poll suggesting that Northern Virginians might want to just cut themselves off from the rest of the state got us all excited. But we got a little bummed when we found out that Virginia's Great Tunnel Debate would end up pushing back the timeline of the Dulles Metro extension quite a bit. The possibility that Maryland might begin the Great Tunnel Debate 2.0 depressed us even more.......

For citizens with a literary bent, this week’s major highlight is the Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival, running all week long, mainly at the Jewish Community Center at 1529 16th Street, NW. Highlights include Peter Beinart and Rebecca Goldstein, plenty of panel discussions, a poetry reading, and an appearance by Madeleine Albright, who makes some time while planning her forthcoming libel suit against ABC. A full schedule of this week’s Festival highlights......

If the crowds at the two editions of Chef Geoff's are any indication, namesake owner/chef Geoff Tracy knows how to make elegant but simple and tasty food accessible to people who want to eat well without getting attitude. So when we visited LIA’S -- Tracy's new Chevy Chase restaurant -- we expected nothing less, even if it was the restaurant's first day of business. Although LIA'S (yes, it's all caps) is Tracy's third foray into......

Written by DCists Ryan and Colin Every morning, we enjoy thumbing our copy of The Washington Examiner. With strong local coverage that Express sometimes lacks, we have been glad to make The Examiner part of our morning routine. Yesterday's edition of the paper, however, featured an editorial that is as treasonous to Washington D.C.'s interests as it is uninformed and poorly argued. The piece offers 475 irresponsibly ideological words attempting to convince us that......

A recent issue of apartment industry publication Multi-Housing News discusses a development about to take shape in the Adams Morgan area. The imposing, nearly century-old, neoclassical First Church of Christ, Scientist building at the corner of Euclid and Columbia streets will be reborn as a mixed-use condominium building. The newly monikered Unity Square Condominiums is a $27.5 million redevelopment, headed by the church, in partnership with Chevy Chase-based First Management Group. The church will......

Just when we need encouragement to brave the oppressive evening air and go out among the living this summer, instead of ordering bad Chinese takeout again from the comfort of our air-conditioned sofas, along comes the Restaurant Week parade. There is not one, not two, but three chances to get out there in the next month or so and test drive that swanky new place you’ve always wanted to try or the neighborhood favorite you......

Food with a Side of Sexy? In Wednesday’s Food Section of the Washington Post, we were served alternately sexy and prudish food features. Sexy: In response to a reader who asked Tom Sietsema’s opinion on “sexiest food," he responded, “Mangoes in the bath tub get my vote. Or caviar on scrambled eggs, served in bed.” Hmm. Mangos in the bathtub. I had not yet thought of that. What else would you add to the......

If the new super-posh retail (think Jimmy Choo's, Tiffany's, etc.) and condo construction going on in Upper Northwest have deterred you from venturing further up the western side of the Red Line, it's time to buck up and take a trip to the D.C./Maryland line to Indique Heights -- the new bigger and better outpost of Cleveland Park's Indique. The highly praised work of chef and co-owner K.N. Vinod is worth braving the urine-tinged smell......