Which stories did DCist readers think merited the most attention this year? Top 10 Most Commented Posts of 2007 10) D.C. Judge Seeks $67 Million for Lost Pants (105 comments) 9) Columbia Heights Listserve vs. Ross (107 comments) 8) Saving the Single Beer (108 comments) 7) This City Doth Protest Too Much (109 comments) 6) Solo Marines Often Refused Entry to Some D.C. Bars (113 comments) 5) Bars Claim Loss of Business Over Smoking......

Flickr user christaki has a couple perfect Christmas: Day After photos in the pool right now (you can see the more amusing one in the Morning Roundup). This is the sad one, where the poor trees, which yesterday basked in the glory of bundles of prettily wrapped gifts, get stripped and thrown to the curb. Even worse, the ones in this photo may have never even made it to the bike rack of a......

Good morning, Washington. Getting going on a Monday is normally difficult enough, but we were having a few technological difficulties this morning as well, so thanks for your patience and bear with this truncated Morning Roundup while we get up to speed. Tax Scandal Triggers Reviews in Counties: Neighboring jurisdictions are apparently taking D.C.'s tax office scandal to heart and initiating big reviews of their agencies. Property tax revenues are slated to be scrutinized in......

As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, the murder count in D.C. for 2007 stands at 169 as of today, which is the same number of total murders the city saw in 2006. The Post is reporting further that the 169th murder occurred over the weekend, and its victim was 25 year-old Timothy Spicer, a short-order cook at legendary U Street eatery Ben's Chili Bowl. Spicer's murder looks to be the result of a carjacking......

We've got more on that Dupont Circle fire we mentioned briefly in the Morning Roundup. As some commenters feared, the building in question does contain everyone's favorite Dupont neighborhood pizza spot, Alberto's, and the fire looks to have done some vaguely serious damage. Apologies for the poor photo quality, but a camera-phone shot was the best we could do so far. What you're looking at is 2010 P Street NW, home to Alberto's, a......

Good morning, Washington. Yesterday we started the Morning Roundup by noting the early stages of what seems likely to be the end of Sen. Larry Craig's political career. Today we have cheerier news: the resumption of another senator's work. Sen. Tim Johnson is back on the job after suffering a brain hemorrhage eight months ago. D.C. Has A Budget Surplus: NBC4 has the goods. Apparently the city collected about $100 million more in tax......

If you saw the Morning Roundup, you'll notice that we love this rain series from maxedaperture. He took advantage of a day off work to sit safe and dry under an awning while watching D.C. folks get caught in that massive downpour yesterday. This poor guy looks like he got the brunt of the entire storm, vainly trying to hurry across the street to outrun the wetness, and the black and white makes the......

As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup today, there are plenty of ways to define the start of summer. For music lovers in the D.C. area however, once Fort Reno starts, you know the lazy days of fire fly catching and swimming pool splashing are officially upon us. We told you last week about the opening lineup for this summer's series on June 18, but we're happy to tell you now that the full......

As mentioned in the Morning Roundup and widely reported in today’s Post and Examiner, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today his selection of Dennis Rubin to take over the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Rubin resigned from his post as Atlanta's Fire Chief on Monday, effective April 13. Once approved by the City Council, Rubin takes over a department that has had its share of issues, from Chief Ronnie Few’s résumé embellishment to the enormous......

Last night, Northeast D.C. saw a robbery, a high-speed chase, gun shots directed at police, an injured cyclist, and a barricade situation, all rolled into one. Police cars, flashing lights and emergency vehicles woke up many residents late last night around a normally quiet stretch of Capitol Hill. NBC 4 notes that investigators have said the incident "started around 9:30 p.m. after three suspects robbed a man at gunpoint at 41st and Benning Road Northeast......

Woooeee. As noted in the Morning Roundup, the DCist staff party was a bit of a killer last night. Ask DCist Adam about his recipe for Tom & Jerrys. Or, alternatively, if you want to live, don't. Here's some bits and pieces to send you out the door and, if your weekend is anything like ours, into a frenzy of holiday parties. >> Be careful if you're headed out and around the Shaw Metro stop......

Happy Friday, Washington. DCist had our very own staff holiday party last night, and as you might imagine, we're all a little worse for the wear this morning. So we hope you'll forgive us for a late-breaking, hastily tossed together Morning Roundup. As soon as our heads stop pounding, we'll resume our regularly scheduled blogging. Metro Cries 'Uncle': After boat loads of Metro commuters sent in thousands of angry emails and messages reacting, shall we......

The sad reality of Dan Tangherlini's departure from the helm of Metro has long since set in, and we have shifted from transit-geek depression to equally geeky curiosity over his potential replacement. As was reported on Tuesday and confirmed on Wednesday, D.C. native John Catoe Jr., currently second in command at the L.A. Metropolitan Transit Authority, has been asked to come home and run the trains and buses here in Capital City. The Post and......

Good morning, Washington. Excuse us if we're a little grumpy. It might just be this hard-hitting report from NBC 4 that increasing numbers of professionals are hiring personal assistants to get their "frazzled lives" under control. Why can't we get us a personal assistant to give us some Morning Roundup love, hmm? Then we could lounge around in our robe and sip our coffee at our leisure. Someday, someday. When bloggers rule the earth. But......

From the comments already left in the Morning Roundup, it sounds like turnout is high and voting is going smoothly. But we'd like a bigger sample size. How was your experience at the polls? Did the lines seem long? Did the Diebold machines actually work? Are the "I Voted" stickers especially pretty this year? Let us know in comments. We'd love to see your cameraphone photos, too (provided you take them in areas where photography......

If you've been walking past the intersection of 14th and S streets NW recently (or checked out the small photo we ran in today's Morning Roundup and wondered what it was) you've probably noticed the new, patterned crosswalk in the road that dots the streets with white swirls and colorful stars. We got curious as to what exactly it was (Borf making a dramatic comeback, maybe?), how exactly it got there, and if it......

The news coming out of Transit on Thursday has not been good over the last few weeks. We've lost our man Dan at Metro, Virginia balked (again) on fixing its transportation mess and Maryland might be selling its transportation future to old political cronies. This week, however, we are excited to offer you a few crispy nuggets of good news. Metro goes express and gets the first batch of new rail cars, some unexpected......

Some commenters in today's Morning Roundup have been talking about this article on the front page of this morning's Washington Post, and we have to agree it's a distressing read. The lengthy story by Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz (read the whole thing, as the cool kids say) examines what appears to be a significant amount of Metropolitan Police officers who are being paid full-time, tax-free salaries while on medical leave for job-related stress......

Well, as we mentioned Tuesday in the Morning Roundup, it's official: Dan Tangherlini, patron saint of all things Metro, has removed his name from the list of candidates for WMATA's top job. Presumed mayor-elect Adrian Fenty mentioned Tangherlini's name as a candidate for city administrator back in September, and at a press event Monday, the two officially declared their partnership. Assuming Fenty wins the November general election, Tangherlini will serve as his City Administrator,......

We mentioned it briefly in the Morning Roundup, but considering he's been such a controversial figure in the region's upcoming election campaign season, George Allen's recent about-face on whether being called Jewish is an "aspersion" or a point of pride seems worth taking a closer look at. From today's WaPo:But people close to Allen have been reluctant to discuss his grandfather's religion in the past. Asked about it several weeks ago, campaign advisers either said......

Good morning, Washington. And what a good morning it is. It's the first day of meteorological autumn, the brutal D.C. summer finally behind us. And is it just us, or was it cool enough last night to very nearly feel "chilly"? So breathe deep the cool, non-swampy air, and maybe skip out of work a little early on this long Labor Day weekend to enjoy the...um...torrential rains. CapitalWeather reports that Tropical Storm Ernesto, which made......

For the Washington Wizards, it's "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." With an injured Caron Butler, the Wizards have lost four in a row going into tonight's game against Chicago, who are fighting for their own playoff lives. The fifth seed, which only a week ago looked like a sure thing, is no longer guaranteed. The team is banged up, but that's no excuse at this time of year. As of......

Just kidding. But as you may have noticed, today's Morning Roundup did not include the usual comments feature. Before you get all conspiracy-minded, let us say that comments have been disabled for a perfectly legitimate reason -- technical difficulties. Not because we're trying to stifle our critics, much less because we are fending off an attack from he-who-shall-not-be-named, but an unexpected technical bump in the road. There seems to be a slight hiccup in our......

Today and tomorrow, we'll be taking the opportunity to look back at the year in D.C. and the year in DCist. We'll retrieve for you what we've determined are the best and most interesting DCist pieces in dining, arts, music, and news. This year we've written over two thousand posts (generating over ten thousand comments), and we figured the best way to start the reminiscence was to bring back for you the most read DCist......

A snippet of news from Maryland today is the stuff that dream Morning Roundup's are made up. Funny and off-kilter, but real. It seems that some Maryland residents are a little peeved at what has come to be known as the state's "flush tax," writes WTOP. In order to raise money to upgrade the state's sewage treatment plants to protect the vulnerable Chesapeake Bay from pollutants, Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich this year endorsed a new......

DCist readers might be surprised to know that coming up with catchy headlines for the Morning Roundup is no walk in the park. They have to be timely, witty, incisive, and well-worded. Today is just not one of those days. There's just something about the rain and grey skies that doesn't bode well for the creative spirit. The picture above comes via furcafe. How it ties into the news or theme of the day this......

Good morning Washington. Normally DCist won't use our platform to ask you for help in a personal matter. But we must turn to you and say: "Help, our keg was stolen last night!" To celebrate good weather, 10+ DCists, surrogates and friends gathered at the Columbia Heights home of one of our contributors to eat, drink and plot how to introduce blogging to Loudoun County. And when we were all inside (we let our guard......

Ambivalent Images took this photo of a statue and monument in Lafayette Square across from the White House, but didn't know who it memorialized. Well it's Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, the French general sent to aid George Washington during the American Revolution. This statue was Checkpoint No. 3 in the 2003 Urban Challenge, which this DCist ran. Now on to the Morning Roundup ... More on Anthrax Scare: While it looks......

We hate to nit-pick the Examiner since it is for sure still trying to find its niche and work through the inevitable problems that come with starting a newspaper from scratch. But we feel it necessary to comment on something we saw on page 3 of the District edition. Yes, we already mentioned the "Speed cameras are working" article in today's Morning Roundup, but there is something we came across when picked up the......