As illegal graffiti continues to appear on D.C.'s streets, the D.C. Council sought a way to do more than paint over it and send the taggers to jail, only to repeat the process again and again. Council member Jim Graham's office contacted The Midnight Forum, a non-profit with a mission to empower youth through hip-hop, through both the entertainment side as well as teaching business and life skills. These two groups, together with Columbia Heights/Shaw......

Yesterday we showed you how someone had added a spoof image on a Metro rail car suggesting that "Rapture" is a behavior that's banned on the transit system. Today, WMATA's director of public relations, Lisa Farbstein, sent us the agency's response to the mystery culprit. "We may be a big agency, but we have a sense of humor too!" Farbstein wrote in an email. Tragically, the sign above won't be added to any rail......

Photo by Jeffrey Lewis from ArmsControlWonk, snapped on the Red line this morning around 9:30 a.m. while traveling between the Woodley Park and Dupont Circle stations. Used by permission. National security and nuclear arms control blogger Jeffrey Lewis of ArmsControlWonk was on the Red line this morning when he noticed a rather odd new sign prohibiting certain behavior on Metro. Next to the usual diagrams picturing how you must not block, crowd around or......

It's always interesting to compare collegiate news coverage with larger news outlets whenever a story breaks out of a campus publication. In the case of today's news about the apprehension of one suspect in the recent spate of hate graffiti on the George Washington University campus, the differences are pretty tangible. Both the Examiner and the Washington Post have stories up about the arrest by University Police of an unnamed student for his or her......

Editors Note: We enjoyed the tour diaries J. Tom Hnatow wrote for us as part of These United States' last tour, so we asked him if he wouldn't mind doing it again as the band embark on their first ever intercontinental tour of the UK and Europe. He graciously agreed. Look for his dispatches from the road abroad over the next few weeks. Tuesday, October 16, 2007 We walk (and walk and walk) from Baker......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too – two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

Good morning, Washington. We've just been catching up on the rather scary looking but thankfully not terror-related explosion in Manhattan yesterday. Naturally, our parent site Gothamist has complete coverage of the steam explosion that occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6 p.m. yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the explosion, which killed one person and injured 30, had New Yorkers worried for a while, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said......

Mayor Adrian Fenty has announced plans to begin removing graffiti from private property without first getting approval from owners. The move comes after a recent increase in graffiti vandalism across the city, and a subsequent effort to clean up tags more quickly. Owners of buildings with new graffiti would first be asked to give consent to remove it, with notices left giving them information on how to to pick up graffiti-removal kits or paint vouchers......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

On Friday the Washington Post ran a story about the city's plans to step up their graffiti removal tasks after a recent rash of tagging in Wards 1, 2 and 4. The graffiti began appearing six to eight weeks ago, stretching from the Logan and Shaw neighborhoods to communities in upper Northwest along Georgia Avenue and 13th and 14th streets. Banneker Community Center near Howard University, under renovation, was among the places hit. But the......

Despite a show of some kind coming up, we haven't heard much from the Borf folks or John Tsombikos in awhile. It's probably best for young Mr. Tsombikos, since he is still not allowed to handle art supplies according to his probation. The last time we heard his name, we watched a "video communique" projected on a wall on 12th Street, in which some kids dressed like Zapatistas claimed Tsombikos was "purged." But while Borf's......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

Good morning, Washington, and good job. Having just gotten back into town yesterday after almost two weeks away, let me go ahead and say that I really like what you've done with the place in my absence. It's warm, it's beautiful, and it's supposed to last until at least Friday. Demonstrators Protest Fenty School Plan: A group calling themselves Friends of Fenty set up shop outside of the mayor's home yesterday in order to protest......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

D.C.'s new police chief, Cathy Lanier, is busy woman. Last night she told the standing room only crowd at the ANC2F meeting, which serves Logan Circle, some of Shaw, and nearby areas, that she had three meetings with community groups between 6 and 9 p.m. that night. Both frank and funny, the chief answered questions from locals and the ANC commissioners, and frequently cited the need for more police officers. She also discussed increased police......

What does a young graffiti artist brought down in his prime do? Go back to tagging of course, but this time for a living. Borf, the notorious Virginia-based graffiti artist that spent the better part of two years brazenly tagging everything in the District from garbage cans to highway signs (a sampling of his work is pictured here), may just have found his dream job. After being sentenced to a month in jail last February......

Good morning D.C. We hope you enjoy today's slightly more seasonal high of 46 before we return to 70 by the weekend. Channel 9 is also warning that a few (gasp) flurries may make an appearance this evening. Metro Safety Under Scrutiny: Investigators are looking into several aspects of Sunday's Metro train derailment near the Mount Vernon Square station. D.C. Fire officials say they didn't receive information about the accident fast enough, leading to a......

Welcome back, Washington. You're probably still busy with Holiday merriment, but we're here working hard for you. Err... rather, we'll be posting today between yelling at football games and re-heating the Christmas roast beast. Also worth noting is the beginning of Kwanzaa and observance of Boxing Day. While Kwanzaa is mainly an American week of celebration, we have special envy of Boxing Day, a holiday virtually everywhere else in the English-speaking world. It's a whole......

You have to give Steven Pearlstein credit. It's easy to be wrong about stuff: to call Tysons Corner a choice address, to fault Reston for not having bums and graffiti, or to assert that building churches is a better use of public money than constructing a tunnel for the Orange Line extension. Anyone can pen those garden variety inanities. It takes balls to compare Route 7 to Midtown Manhattan. That's some grade A crazy; we're......

You know, back when I was growing up in Southern California, graffiti used to mean something. Of course, it meant territories and violence and "don't you dare wear that red jacket over here," and fun stuff like that. But now it's gotten all existential and angsty — just look at this stuff (and also, what?). Flickr user AlbinoFlea gets a little laugh documenting our emo street art around town, and takes a particularly good......

FRIDAY: >> From the amount of Evites and mass emails running around inviting folks to giant group outings to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, we're guessing that's what a lot of you are doing tonight. As of now, only the 5:15 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. showings at Gallery Place still have tickets available, but the Loews Georgetown has plenty more options. Jagshemash! >> Paging John Hodgman! Director......

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher. Last month the brave city councilors of Manassas, Virginia refused to vote against gay massage therapist Howard Daniel’s application to operate a business from his home, despite protests by members of a local church. Instead, the Council refused to vote at all, leaving Daniel’s with no answer, but many questions about whether homophobia in his community had limited his business opportunities. As the Post reports: Daniel's application hadn't actually......

We wouldn't want anyone to think that we revisit these topics in a deliberate, cynical way, but there's no denying that certain subjects are evergreen here at DCist. Church parking, smoking bans and ticket presale passwords: we know you can't get enough of them. Neither can we. Yet there's one topic that towers above all the others. We're referring, of course, to Borf, aka John Tsombikos. As you might imagine, we were fascinated to......

If you love French film, then the festival that opens this week, C'est Chic, is right up your allée. Between October 12 and 28, recent French releases will be given special screenings at three excellent venues, the National Gallery of Art, La Maison Française, and the AFI Silver Theater. You can purchase a pass ($60 for members of La Cinémathèque) through the Web site of La Maison Française, which will get you 13 films for......

This graffiti's sentiment notwithstanding, today the Democratic voters of the city will express their concerns and hopes for the city through their ballots, and, in the process, likely determine what most of the city's government will look like for the next few years. You can find your polling place here, and the Post's election guide here. Redskins Fall To Vikings: You probably don't need to be told, but we'll say it anyway. Last night the......