As the City Paper noted this morning, today is Mexican Independence Day, and plenty of Mexican joints around town are celebrating with special deals and great menus. But there's also a lesser-known South American independence day taking place this weekend, and there's now food to celebrate it. more ›

Find some good sneakers. more ›

SoberRide, the program which offers free, dispatched taxi rides to people who have had too much to drink around the holidays, has been saved from a budget crisis just in time for Independence Day. News Channel 8 reports that several donors -- ranging from big corporations like MillerCoors and GEICO to individuals -- chipped in to fill a $31,000 gap in the Washington Regional Alcohol Program's fiscal budget which had threatened the viability of increasingly-popular initiative. more ›

You may still be figuring out where you'll be spending Independence Day, but WMATA has its plans for the Fourth all set. There's no real surprises: since Independence Day falls on a Sunday this year, Metrorail will be operating under a "special" Sunday schedule, running trains between 7 a.m. and midnight. Metrobus routes will operate on a regular Sunday schedule on July 4th. Parking at all transit authority lots will be free and reduced fares will be in effect all day. Because of the large crowds, bicycles will not be allowed on Metrorail. more ›

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WMATA has released a schedule for Independence Day -- and it includes a change from what we first told you last week. Metro will open at 7 a.m. and close at 3 a.m. on Friday, July 4. This schedule is different from what was published on WMATA's holiday schedule on their web site last week (it said it would close at midnight), but that schedule has since been updated. more ›

A typical weekday morning for yours truly involves catching the next train out of Van Ness-UDC to Dupont Circle. And more often than not, there's a train waiting for me at the station when I get there. No problems, right? more ›

Since 2001, the Smithsonian American Art Museum has honored one artist annually with the $25,000 Lucelia Artist Award. In order to be eligible, artists must be under the age of 50 and either American or living in the United States. Each of the five distinguished jurors, including artists, critics, curators and scholars, nominate three artists in recognition of their contribution to the art scene in the U.S. and abroad. Following initial selection, the jurors examine... more ›

When the Drive-by Truckers rolled into the 9:30 Club on July 15, 2006, it was the closest I’ve ever come to actually losing consciousness at a rock show. The gig was beyond sold-out, more vacuum-packed with sweaty bodies than any other supposedly sold-out 9:30 show I can remember. On top of that, the show fell on one of those spongy, airless summer nights that that can make the period between Independence Day and Labor... more ›

In times when security fears, whether justified or not, begin to creep over our lives, it's important to remember that the tiny chipping away of legitimate rights can be a slippery slope to unwarranted governmental authority over our lives. We wrote in June about photographer Chip Py's experience in downtown Silver Spring, as well as Kate Mereand's similar confrontations all over D.C., and their subsequent formation of DC Photo Rights, a Flickr group dedicated to... more ›

Welcome back to work, Washington. We know many of our regular readers are off celebrating Independence Day already, taking vacation time for a few days to make this upcoming middle-of-the-week holiday less of an inconvenience. For those of you still at your desks, we salute your dedication to the American work ethic. For those of you who'll be heading to the airport some time this week, we were going to beg to be stuffed in... more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they... more ›

Everyone needs a vacation, even musicians, and the summer is quite naturally a time that the classical music world slows down. So this is it for your Classical Music Agenda, until August. This week's installment will be a little longer than normal, because there are several interesting things happening over the next couple months. If you want to hear some music this summer, you can, and here's where. HEADLINES: >> The most important classical music... more ›

Opera is a serious musical genre, the summa of high dramatic art. For some serious thoughts about the season just concluded by Washington National Opera, you could read the Opera Season in Review from last week. In a less exalted but equally important way, opera is about ostentation, and in that vein, there is one more glittering event that always makes the end of the season final in Washington, and that is the annual Opera... more ›

Happy Day After the Fourth of the July, Washington. We hope you managed to get some sleep last night despite the all-night fireworks marathons taking place in many city neighborhoods. Not that we're complaining — since the view of the National Mall fireworks from the north was largely obstructed by a giant cloud of smoke, locals putting on their own displays pretty much saved Independence Day for many of us. There will be more... more ›

By DCist contributor Amy Monroe There’s no disputing the fierce and even patriotic love of zinfandel among certain members of the American wine-drinking public. Indeed, Carole Migden, a California state senator from San Francisco, introduced a bill in February to make zinfandel California’s official state wine. But following objections from some of the state's makers of chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon (all of which earn more sales dollars than zin), lawmakers instead proclaimed zinfandel a... more ›

Hate to say it, but last night's Food Network premiere of Sugar Rush, featuring Cakelove’s Warren Brown, gets mixed reviews from us. On one hand, Brown is great to look at and has fun with his interviewees. But on the other hand, he’s like a smiling deer in headlights when it’s just him and the camera. Next time, do a few head rolls and shake out those lanky limbs, Warren. more ›

One of our favorite monuments in this city is the District of Columbia's World War I Memorial, honoring those from the capital who fought and died in the Great War. This DCist's late great uncle, who grew up in Foggy Bottom before George Washington University gobbled it all up, was a World War I vet. So we stop by when ever we stroll through West Potomac Park. more ›

OK, we admit it. We watched Peter Jennings' news special last night: "The UFO Phenomenon: Seeing is Believing." We were curious. Theories were explored, conspiracies debunked, history explained. Fortunately, living here in the nation's capital, we have missiles at the ready, super ray guns, or something like that, which will shoot down any extra terrestrial saucers that dare tread into our protected air space. But we thought it'd be good to revisit an episode in... more ›

Scary stuff in the Post today. Dangerous train cargo passing though the District still poses a great threat to the city as D.C. lawmakers and environmentalists accuse "the Bush administration of waiting until after the Nov. 2 election to decide whether to require railroads to route hazardous materials around Washington." The fear? Trains carrying chorine gas and other caustic and lethal substances derailing just blocks from the Capitol sending Bhopal-style plumes of gas across the city. more ›