Animal rights groups in Maryland are not happy with a ruling that deems pit bulls to be "inherently dangerous." more ›

The District might be ranked second among U.S. cities in pedestrian friendliness, but there are still plenty of intersections around town where it's not always the safest to tread. DDOT identified the 24 most dangerous intersections for pedestrians. more ›

Hey, did you guys read the news this morning? We're basically living inside Thunderdome! "Report: D.C., Baltimore among most dangerous cities" shouts the headline on WTOP this morning -- the story opens by informing us that we should all be locking up our wallets and never leaving the house ever again: "The list...lists D.C. as the fourth most unsafe city with more than half a million people." Egads! Of course, once you get past the lede and actually look at the study, there is good cause to not start preparing for martial law quite yet. The District actually finished as the 22nd "most dangerous" city on the list (PDF). We also thought that we'd quote this reaction from Houston Mayor Annise D. Parker in full, since it does a nice job of condensing all the issues with these rankings that we've read so far this morning: “These rankings represent a gross misuse of FBI data...Everyone with the slightest knowledge of this issue knows the rankings are not credible, but the publication persists with them, presumably because rankings are popular and sell books. Unfortunately, they also do real harm to the reputation and economy of the cities that come out on the losing end, often through no fault of their own.” Good, now we can all feel safe enough to go out and do the other thing that the media is telling us to do ad nauseam this week! more ›

We reported this morning that a woman fell on the tracks on the Red Line to Glenmont at the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station around 9:30 a.m. DCist has now learned that the woman narrowly avoided being struck by an oncoming train -- largely due to the quick thinking of Houston Transit Authority employee Eliot Swainson, 46, who was in D.C. serving as a volunteer for Metro. Swainson, who was stationed on the Glenmont platform at the Chinatown stop this morning, was able to direct the woman to safety on the track while a train passed overhead, preventing her from being struck and allowing her to be extricated safely a short time later. more ›