D.C. Council members Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and District Office of Planning director Harriet Tregoning met with reporters this afternoon at a miniature street festival designed to highlight today's Car Free Day event. F Street NW between 9th and 8th will continue to be closed to motor vehicle traffic until about 3 p.m. while vendors meet with residents to promote various businesses that can help D.C. residents live in......

Earlier this month, we described a new report from a federal court monitor that placed heavy blame on the District for its inability to provide special education services for its nearly 11,000 special needs students. As Post columnist Colbert King put it somewhat dramatically at the time, “the courtroom drama I witnessed this week underscored a sad reality: The one true safeguard between the city's most vulnerable residents and acts of governmental injustice is the......

The D.C. Council earlier today passed an amended version of the noise bill first introduced by Tommy Wells and Mary Cheh that was born out of Ward 6 resident David Klavitter's crusade to put an end to amplified street preachers keeping him awake at his home near H Street NE. But Wells and Cheh actually voted against this bill, after it was basically gutted by an amendment introduced by Ward 5 Council member Harry Thomas......

Though it is District law that cars must stop for pedestrians in every crosswalk, let's be honest -- very few actually do so. When I choose to walk to work, I'm often left to navigate the harrowing crosswalk at Connecticut Avenue and Wyoming Avenue NW, where even a sign reminding drivers of their responsibility to stop is regularly (and at high-speed) ignored. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) is hoping to change that. Cheh's office......

Good morning, Washington. Glover Park's unlikely strip club row along Wisconsin Ave. saw a scary crime over the weekend, as police are still looking for a suspect after an employee at Good Guys was doused in gasoline and set on fire by an angry customer. The victim, a 26-year-old man, has third degree burns over 80 percent of his body and is currently listed as stable but critical. The assailant had been kicked out of......

As the housing market continues its downward spiral, D.C. officials are getting on board to recognize there may be some kind of problem going on. WTOP reports that the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking has signed a contract with the D.C.-based Center for Responsible Lending, which will begin an investigation into subprime mortgage lending in the city. The point of the investigation seems to be mostly getting a head count of people with......

The office of Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has released an alert to the news media on this slow August Wednesday afternoon, and that means it's going to get a lot more coverage than it probably deserves. For our part, we wanted to mention it also as an excuse to post the funniest video our staff could find of someone destroying a television. The winner is above. For her part, Cheh is concerned......

It sounded just like the political intrigue that makes for a good scandal. While running for office, a candidate for the D.C. Council accepted reduced rent for her campaign office from a local developer and allowed an unregistered political action committee to funnel money from developers to her campaign's coffers -- up to and beyond $100,000, in fact. The only problem? None of it seems to be true. The Post is reporting today that D.C.......

A few more tidbits keep trickling out about decisions made during the D.C. Council's action-packed final summer session earlier this week, and this one is ripe for a cascade of debate. Running enthusiast Mayor Adrian Fenty is determined to see the Nation's Triathlon, scheduled for Sept. 29, go forward this year, complete with a one-mile swim in the Potomac River. Last year, the swim part of the event was canceled after the health department determined......

Yesterday's legislative action in the D.C. Council, typical of end-of-session days, was jam-packed with votes. Here's a few more you may have missed: >> The Council moved ahead on a bill that restricts interest rates levied by the so-called payday loan industry, an issue we've looked at before. The bill passed on an initial reading, and if implemented would place a 24 percent annual percentage rate cap on interest charged by lenders. The Examiner notes......

If you've been waiting for an official endorsement of your plan to rollerskate to work, this is about as close as you're going to get. Today the D.C. Council unanimously endorsed legislation that designated September 18, 2007 as "D.C. Car-Free Day." The measure, which follows World Car-Free Day, currently celebrated in 1,500 cities in 40 countries, was sponsored by Councilmembers Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and council Chair Vincent Gray. Wells......

At a hearing before the Public Services and Consumer Affairs Committee yesterday, the D.C. Council heard testimony both for and against the so-called payday loan industry, which has often been criticized for predatory lending practices. The businesses market themselves as a way for lower income individuals who don't qualify for credit or a bank loan to get emergency cash. The industry's opponents charge that payday loans prey on our society's most vulnerable people by charging......

First New York, then Philadelphia, and now Montgomery County. The trans fat ban bandwagon just got a little bit longer. According to the Post, yesterday MoCo became the first county in the nation to ban trans fats, endorsing restrictions that have become all the rage in recent months with health advocates. The ban will kick off next January for restaurants and in 2009 for establishments offering baked goods, and will force food providers to use......

We hope you had a relaxing, if not warm, holiday weekend, Washington. Mixed in with the egg decorating and good cheer, we sure noticed a lot of grumbling about the ongoing cold snap (along with those flurries on Friday night), so let's get right down to the all-important question: When will this misery end? CapitalWeather.com is breaking it down like so: Most of this week will still see cold temps in the morning, with......

Ever since legislation was introduced in the D.C. Council that would mandate vaccinations for the HPV virus, the issue has moved to the forefront of the public health debate around the country. With an increasing number of states considering a mandatory vaccine -- at least 20 to date -- debate has raged between advocates that believe that a vaccine could prevent a serious public health crisis, opponents who claim that it infringes upon the rights......

Via FreeRide, we read that WTOP's Mark Plotkin spent part of his live chat with washingtonpost.com yesterday afternoon to call out Ward 3 residents for not caring enough, if at all, about the District's lack of voting rights in Congress. Q: In your experience, do people from Ward 3 generally not support statehood/voting rights? I grew up in the ward - Forest Hills represent - and have found so many people on my parents block......

When Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty announced last week that he'd chosen Cathy Lanier, a 16-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, to replace Charles Ramsey atop the police force, local media didn't do much more than throw together a few details on her history and her ideas for fighting crime in the District. The City Paper, though, started digging. The paper trail they uncovered on Lanier makes for relatively interesting reading by City Paper standards, though......

We're barely getting over the September 12 Democratic primary and already we're hearing whispers of the 2010 election. Jonathan Rees, the Ward 3 candidate known for his, let's say, "creative" use of online resources to run his campaign, may be smarting from his trouncing on Tuesday (he mustered 29 votes for the council seat, or 0.21 percent of the total votes cast), but he's not out. Not at all. In a posting on a DCPages.com......

What a night, eh Washington? If you're like us, you were up late listening to Kojo and Jonetta break down the election results as they came in on WAMU. Our favorite moment of the evening came just before 10 p.m., when Mayor Williams told co-host Jonetta Rose Barras she was crazy to suggest that anyone believed he had waited too long to decide if he would seek a third term. For the record Jonetta —......

We've followed the candidates for the last 16 months, and today is the day everything will be decided. We opted not to endorse any candidates, but we are going to put our betting skills to work and pick the winners for the D.C. races. Mayor: Love him or hate him, Adrian Fenty is taking this contest. Not only has he led competitor Linda Cropp in the polls since late July, his recent endorsement by the......

Everyone else has taken their shot, so why not the City Paper? Today the weekly's local politics column, Loose Lips, threw its support behind a number of candidates for next week's D.C. primaries. But more surprising than the picks was the biting tone in which they were delivered -- this is no Post endorsement, they seemed to remind us. Columnist James Jones sided solidly with candidates that bucked the establishment and railed against those beholden......

Brown Not Out: Well, we're a little red-faced today. Yesterday we guessed that mayoral longshot Michael Brown was bowing out of the race. He did, after all, send us an email in which he announced that a press conference held yesterday would include "major announcement regarding his plans for the future." Coupled with his fast-shrinking campaign finance account, we thought, "This guy is toast." How wrong we were. Brown didn't duck out of the race.......

When you're facing six opponents for a local political race, getting attention and the necessary funds can be a bit of an uphill battle. What better way to overcome such a climb than with political gimmickry? Robert Gordon, who is running for the Ward 3 seat on the D.C. Council being vacated by Kathy Patterson, may have just found his ticket to victory -- The West Wing. In an email sent to DCist, Gordon announced......

When is a race for elected office too crowded? If you live in Ward 3, never. An addition today to the roster of candidates seeking to replace Council-member Kathy Patterson, who is running for council chair, brought the total to seven, among them DDOT spokesman Bill Rice, Sam Brooks, Cathy Wiss, Mary Cheh, Erik Gaull, Robert Gordon and Jonathan Rees. There are even rumors that another three candidates might join the race, leaving a crowd......