Temperatures are expected to remain well below freezing again overnight, which can mean danger for the District's homeless population. The city has put out a reminder to call their Hypothermia Shelter Hotline should you spot anyone trying to sleep outside when it's this cold. By calling 1-800-535-7252, the Shelter Hotline can provide transportation to emergency shelters and distribute items such as blankets, gloves and jackets. If you live outside the District, Express has compiled a......

Good morning, Washington. It really is freezing outside, people are dropping like flies from this terrible cold going around town, and over in Iowa, we hear there's some kind of a fake election going on that's going to dominate the news cycle all day. It could all be enough to get us down, but yet, we carry on ... until we read this story about an 11-year-old boy in Burke, VA who has been......

UPDATE: Local new outlets have the story that Poke was captured just before 4 p.m. in Prince George's County and is in police custody, while CNN.com says he was shot dead during a shoot-out with police. UPDATE: Indeed, everyone is now reporting that Poke was shot by police during his capture and pronounced dead at the hospital. *** Police across the D.C. and Baltimore region are searching for Kelvin Poke, pictured right, a 45-year-old......

Good morning, Washington. Think good thoughts for Tian Tian, the National Zoo's male giant panda and the biological father of Tai Shan/Butterstick. Tian Tian underwent eye surgery yesterday to remove inflamed tissue from one of his third eyelids. He's expected to make a full recovery, but in the meantime he'll have to live with the shame of being the one to expose this whole pandas having third eyelids monstrosity. DCist has always held a......

>> Congress has taken away D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi's pay raise in the wake of the Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement scandal. Happy Holidays, Mr. Gandhi! [WaPo] >> What kind of person steals a wheelchair? [NBC4] >> Free holiday EP from Vandaveer. [You Ain't No Picasso] >> Marvin is already expanding. [Prince of Petworth] >> Christopher Hitchens sings at the Reason Secular Christmas party. [via City Desk] Photo by AlbinoFlea......

>> Three students at a controversial Massachusetts clinic where D.C. special education students have been farmed out for years were mistakenly subjected to electric shock treatments as part of a prank. [Examiner] >> A woman was shot outside the Brightwood Supermarket on the 100 block of Kennedy Street NW. Police said she was a bystander caught in a drive-by shooting. [NBC4] >> "Oh yeah, Linden would kill me if I didn't add that DDOT......

The annual visit of the Mariinsky Theater's traveling opera troupe from St. Petersburg came a little early this year. The themes that unite the Kennedy Center double-bill of Verdi's Otello and Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades are self-destructive obsessions and tenor heroes who become villains. Who better to perform The Queen of Spades than the Mariinsky Theater, which hosted the world premiere of The Queen of Spades on December 19, 1890? The opera is thoroughly Russian,......

Fans of Petworth bar Temperance Hall better get up there for their Sazerac cocktails as soon as possible—the bar is on its way out. Don't throw out your arms in plaintive questions to the heavens yet, though. While the bar will go, a bar will stay; the property has been sold to the folks behind Columbia Heights' The Wonderland Ballroom. Following a tip from Prince of Petworth, we caught the Wonderland owners, Matthew McGovern......

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......

We've reached another Friday, D.C., but if those light flurries that accompanied you on your way into work this morning gave you visions of a leisurely Saturday snowball fight, you'll likely end up disappointed. Very little accumulation is expected from these flakes, and the weekend will see temperatures back in the upper 40s, with a possibility of some light rain on Saturday morning, according to CapitalWeather.com. If this update doesn't satisfy your weather nerd urges,......

>> A fire forced students to evacuate a dorm at Catholic University. [NBC4] >> "NEWSFLASH: The Nazis killed millions of people. This gay rights organization raises money for AIDS research, breast cancer and the arts, among countless other charities." [Blade Blog] >> "Wizards players are donating $20,000 to a woman whose former boyfriend doused her with gasoline and set her on fire." [AP via WTOP] >> A D.C. man in his 50s was hit......

>> The Capitol Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. this evening on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. >> Washington-area writers Michelle Brafman, Merle Collins, T. Greenwood, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Faye Moskowitz, Barbara Mujica, Jessica Neely, Amy Stolls, Hananah Zaheer, and Christy J. Zink will be at Politics and Prose to read from their contributions to the latest anthology, Electric Grace: Still More Fiction by Washington Area Women.......

If the powers that be think we're going to go easily or quietly, they're wrong. The Post today exposed a devious little plan to chip away at the District's identity, starting with phasing out the city's postmark and replacing it instead with one bearing the name of our northern neighbor, Maryland. According to a Post study, of 235 letters mailed from every quadrant and zip code within city limits, only 24 -- 10 percent --......

Via Silver Spring, Singular, we find this amusing/embarrassing video spoof based on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air put together by Darryl Williams, the new principal of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. Back in October, the Washington Post ran a profile on Williams as he transitioned into his new job at Blair, taking over for popular former principal Phillip Gainous. From the looks of things, Williams is already making his mark on......

>> A gas main break closed Route 1 in Alexandria this afternoon. Expect delays. [WaPo] >> The suspicious death of a two-year-old Silver Spring boy has been ruled a homicide. [WTOP] >> Authorities have arrested and charged a Clinton, Md., woman with attempted murder and other arson-related charges for her involvement starting fire in a Gaithersburg apartment building on Thanksgiving morning. [NBC4] >> An Oak Hill Thanksgiving: "Just days before, a riot broke out......

Still in the office, D.C.? Yeah, us too. We hope you're only sticking around because you don't need to travel this holiday season. If so, enjoy the empty halls, bask in the quiet, and call it a day early. If not — well, good luck on the roads and at the airport. It sounds like they're going to be predictably nasty. There Seems To Be Some Sort of Holiday Occurring: And consequently you can......

We missed this when it happened a couple of weeks ago, but is it really ever too late to point and laugh at New Yorkers? We didn't think so. So, people are probably aware that Five Guys franchises are proliferating across the Eastern U.S. like nuclear weapons in central Asia. The greasy, peanut-laden fingers of our locally born burger stand have spread as far as Delafield, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; and Miami, Florida. They've even broken......

>> The District's next sales tax holiday starts Friday, Nov. 23 and lasts until the following Friday, December 2. [WJLA] >> Mayor Fenty and Schools Chancellor Rhee announced today that every D.C. classroom will have a working desktop computer by February under a $4 million technology initiative. [WaPo] >> Maryland voters will get to decide in a special November 2008 referendum on whether to allow the state to install up to 15,000 slot machines......

>> D.C. Council members have rejected a plan to give a developer city-owned land worth $6 million on which to build a new Radio One headquarters. [WJLA] >> Five new restaurants are coming to Columbia Heights. [Prince of Petworth] >> Traffic was temporarily halted at Union Station this afternoon as Amtrak Police investigated a report of a suspicious package near Gate A in Union Station. Regular service had resumed by 4 p.m. [WaPo] >>......

FRIDAY: >> It’s been over six years since he last had a properly released album, but crooner Bilal (left) has still managed to catch people’s attention with some of his latest material. Too bad it was illegally leaked and now his label is threatening never to let the refined product see the light of day. Regardless, his Black Cat performance should be noteworthy. 9 p.m., $22. >> We’ve told you about Deleted Scenes many times......

D.C. officials are apparently stunned to find that the money they've spent on the new Nationals stadium isn't translating into the sort of unconditional loyalty they might like. Turns out the team's 2008 Dream Foundation Dream Gala (it's dream-related, see) will be held at National Harbor in Prince George's County, Md., and the Examiner reports that Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray and just about every other D.C. leader is throwing a temper......

>> A second suspect in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a Prince George's County woman is under arrest after he was ID'd by a Metro transit investigator. [NBC4] >> D.C. firefighters and medics responded to the scene of an accident in Cleveland Park today that left a woman seriously injured after she crashed her car through a wall of her brick carport, collapsing part of it onto the car. [AP/WJLA] >> "If you're......

Anyone who has spent time attending neighborhood association meetings in much of D.C. knows that 99.5 percent of the topics discussed there tend to revolve around the basic conceit that residents want a say in the kinds of businesses that are near them. More often than not that means putting pressure on existing businesses to operate in certain ways, but without a doubt a major topic of conversation at the meetings we've attended is......

>> D.C. firefighters were called to a rowhouse fire in Columbia Heights this afternoon. The blaze broke out about 5:15 p.m. in the 1300 block of Otis Place, NW. [AP/WJLA] >> As if Adams Morgan could somehow be ruined by the introduction of beer and wine sales at a grocery store? Have they been to Adams Morgan? [Examiner] >> SmarTrip cards are now available at more Giant stores. [Free Ride] >> "Good lord, have......

With jambalaya simmering in the corner, and people waiting in line to get a haircut, you wouldn’t have thought you were in a bar, let alone at a rock show. But last week, upstairs from haircut-and-a-shot night, The Red & The Black was in fact hosting a lineup of several very different styles of local music. Despite a modest midweek crowd — consisting mostly of other bands — one group from Baltimore introduced a unique......

Mark your calendars: WMATA put out a release earlier today announcing the dates of a series of six public meetings at which you can voice your opinions about the proposed Metro fare hikes, which would go into effect in January. The full set of proposed increases is here, but the basics include raising the base fare of Metrorail from $1.35 to $1.65, keep bus fares the same as long as you use SmarTrip cards (add......

You’ve gotta love a man who can make the “All The World’s A Stage” monologue not sound like something you’ve heard 80 zillion times before. That man is Joseph Marcell (best known as Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), offering the most nuanced of performances in the generally strong cast of Folger Theater’s As You Like It. Granted, his Jacques is one of the more interesting roles in a Shakespeare work that has its......

Outside of her relatively small but loyal following, the United States has not seen much of Sinéad O’Connor over the past decade, though she has continued to release albums and perform. Despite having a massive hit with the Prince-penned "Nothing Compares 2 U," she is remembered equally for the controversy she generated with her infamous appearance on Saturday Night Live and her refusal to have the national anthem played before a concert in New Jersey.......

Good morning, Washington. Can you feel the excitement in the air? That's right: it's Taxi Decision Day. Will District residents get a shiny new meter system, or have to make our peace with zones for the foreseeable future? Or will we be treated to a metered zone hybrid/abomination? It'll be just a few hours until we find out. Immigration Measures Elicit Passion, Lawsuits: The Post reports on the scene in Prince William County, where......

>> A police officer from the Seventh District is claiming his commander ordered him to give special treatment to a member of Mayor Fenty's staff who was caught talking on her cell phone while driving. [Examiner] >> "District Fire and Emergency Medical Services officials are investigating the death this morning of a recruit who became ill during training exercises yesterday." [WaPo] >> AOL plans to cut 2,000 more jobs, including 750 from their Dulles offices.......