Sinclair Skinner sure is trying his best to grab our attention these days. First, it was a call to investigate Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham after he had a dust-up over the Council tickets to the Lady Gaga concert at Verizon Center. Today, he upped the ante again. In light of a report about the allegedly improper awarding of Parks and Recreation contracts which vindicates former mayor Adrian Fenty but throws him under the bus, Skinner took to a podium outside city hall and delivered the following statement in response, which, well...it stands on its own, really. Enjoy! more ›

Folks subscribed to WMATA's emailed press release service were treated to dozens of news alerts today - except they were from 2003, and full of very, very old news. The errant emails were the result of "technical difficulties," according to Metro spokesperson Angela Gates, and the transit agency's IT department was working to discover the source of the problem. We luckily noticed the 30 or so press releases we got from Metro today seemed funny right away, but the Washington Post's Get There blog wasn't so lucky: they quickly posted a story about how SmarTrip cards weren't going to be available for a couple of months, only to have to pull it down and replace it with an explanation about the press release having been from 2003. Chief Metro spokesperson Lisa Farbstein was able to joke about the snafu later in the afternoon, after the bad alerts had finally stopped. "Well, at first we were feeling nostalgic," Farbstein quipped in an email. more ›