>> Jenna Bush has been named 'Person of the Year' by Reliable Source. [WaPo] >> The owner of Tunnel Fine Wines & Spirits, which recently opened at 3rd and H Streets NW, was robbed at gunpoint in the store and shot in the leg late last week. [Penn Quarter Living] >> An elderly couple died in a house fire on the 3100 block of Oliver Street NW this morning. [WTOP] >> Area charities are......

Last week we pointed out a Hollywood Reporter story that says there's a FOX television show in development inspired by the life of D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. Lanier's life is certainly the stuff of a good drama -- being a 39-year-old single mother who dropped out of high school after getting pregnant at 14, only to work her way to the top to become D.C.'s first female police chief, can't have been easy. Yesterday......

Tuesday and today Howard University is hosting the Children's Defense Fund National Summit, which includes panel discussions on the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Initiative, a project that seeks to end the cycle of poor minority children ending up destined to be shuffled in and out of the country's prison system. Yesterday Bill Cosby appeared on a panel titled "The Need for Personal and Community Responsibility" in conjunction with the summit, along with NPR's Juan......

>> Little children don't like President Bush. [YouTube, embedding sadly turned off] >> Director Ridley Scott set off a bomb at Eastern Market yesterday, but Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio were not there, so stop asking us about it. [Reliable Source] >> A U.S. Park Police officer reportedly shot and wounded a driver on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Riverdale this afternoon. [WaPo] >> The FBI has launched a new Web site, BankBandits.com, in an......

Can't anyone get D.C. right? Today the Post's Reliable Source reports that Nicole Kidman's newest thriller, The Invasion, makes a number of relatively amateur mistakes in trying to use the District as a backdrop, even though a good part of it was filmed here. Among those: - Kidman, who plays a D.C. psychiatrist, buys magazines at one of those big sidewalk newsstand kiosks -- the ones all over New York but not on any corner......

>> "The Smithsonian Institution today replaced Gary M. Beer as chief executive of the museum complex's embattled business unit after an inspector general's report found that he had abused his institution-issued credit card and billed $95,000 in expenditures that were unauthorized or lacked evidence of a business purpose." [WaPo] >> Video of Marion Barry getting measured for his wax statue at the new Madame Tussauds wax museum. [Reliable Source] >> Some Orange Red line......

>> "A public meeting on taxicab meters scheduled for Wednesday has been canceled, apparently because too many people were interested in attending and the D.C. Taxicab Commission couldn't guarantee them parking." [Examiner] >> A former escort linked to embattled Sen. David Vitter is set to testify that alleged D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey's escort service provided illegal prostitution. [WTOP] >> Libertarian billionaire Robert Levy would like to give all D.C. residents a handgun. Or......

>> "District of Columbia Public School students already had been warned that they might not have air conditioning when they return to class Aug. 27. Now school leaders say there might not be enough textbooks to go around immediately, either." [Examiner] >> The Ballston and Virginia Square Metro stations have reopened after an Orange Line train struck and killed a woman earlier this morning. Police are still investigating what happened. [WTOP] >> Can you......

>> Artomatic comes to a close this weekend, after five long weeks of inundating us with massive quantities of art, free performances, lectures, concerts, film series, demonstrations and workshops, and spirited community building that even your old summer camp counselor couldn't match. If you haven't gone down to Crystal City yet, the old Patent Office location is only a few blocks from the metro, and the art fair only rises up every two (sometimes three)......

While we didn't get too many Sanjaya spottings over the weekend, it seems like a few actual celebrities mixed it up at this weekend's White House Correspondents Dinner. Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth, chatted with Karl Rove between cocktails and dessert. Crow and "Inconvenient Truth" producer David walked over to the presidential adviser's table, where David suggested that Rove "take a new look at global warming." David says Rove......

It's hard to know where to start this week, given all the news in Washington's food world. Chef changes, award nominations, scandals, and battles have enveloped us without us even noticing. Let's dig right in, juicy stuff first. Review Not, that Ye be Not Reviewed A couple weeks back we told you about a fight between New York Times critic Frank Bruni and restaurateur Jeffery Chodorow. Now, close your eyes, replace Frank Bruni with a......

Marion Barry dances with Council member Carol Schwartz (R At-Large) at Adrian Fenty's inaugural ball Saturday. Thanks to Amy over the Post's Reliable Source for the tip, who also mentioned hearing that in a moment of brilliant editorial planning, Fox 5 News apparently broadcast the YouTube video directly after a story about Barry's latest court appearance.......

>> Do college students like having fun? Well, DO THEY!? Sounds like a job for Laura Sessions Stepp! Pull-quote highlight: "[Professor Frederic D.] Homer and graduate assistant Rodney Wambeam wanted to know what students meant when they said they were in college to have fun. They wanted to know why students rarely included classwork in that definition. What they heard surprised them." That means if Stepp, herself, was surprised, it could potentially bring the total......

> > Totally uninformed theory: Wonderland robbery actually masterminded by the mild-mannered members of Norfolk & Western? Just putting it out there... > > Xmas In Washington play to feature Marion Shepilov Barry playing a heroic angel who sings "Stormy Weather" (WTFx10?!?) and comes to the rescue of Katrina evacuees separated from their children. Gloria Hightower says Barry's star turn comes from a desire to make the character "realistic"--which can only mean the following......

We're awfully sad today at DCist headquarters, after learning this morning that we missed out on spotting Borat (the faux-Kazakh reporter portrayed by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen) trying to gain entry to the White House yesterday, though sadly, to no avail. His visit to D.C. was a brilliant piece of publicity timing, coinciding both with the first official state visit of Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, as well as the upcoming release of his new film,......

The lovely ladies over at The Reliable Source have the scoop that Tom Cruise, along with fiancee Katie Holmes and kids Isabella, Connor and indeed, baby Suri, are currently in Washington at the invitation of Redskins owner and new financial partner Dan Snyder. The entire Cruise fam is reportedly staying at The Danny's Potomac manse, out of which they ventured last night for a private, after-hours visit to Six Flags America, where we suppose they......

The ladies of the Reliable Source break Washington's heart this morning, revealing that Jenna Bush, who's lived in Washington and worked as a teacher for over a year, is preparing to leave the city and the country. The Source notes that she's moving out of her apartment and back into 1600 Penn until she's ready to leave for a new teaching gig, somewhere in Latin America. Says the Post:The move reflects the growing seriousness of......

Over at the former K's Deli in Tenleytown, it’s all about emmes. Out are quesadillas, Cajun fish, pastas and any trace of the amorphous global flavor that once dotted the menu of a restaurant that, when it comes down to it, wasn't really a deli. In is real New Yawk deli food — pickles, corned beef, the works. And K's has a new name to show for its return to basics — Morty's. See, once......

Puck Picks Penn Property for Newsy Noshing The second time I ever visited D.C., I saw a sign for the Newseum on I-66 and thought that it was the New-seum. I figured it was some kind of reverse museum that showcased all the stuff that was new, as in the latest in technology, science discoveries, and what have you. It turns out that it's a museum about the news (as if those elitists in that......

DCist is star-struck. Or perhaps we're just hoping to see some stars. Our friends at the Post's Reliable Source tipped us off to the fact that our old favorite TV show, "The West Wing," will be in town this weekend, casting extras for the series' final episodes. Gossips Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts were online this past Wednesday and reported that the show is scheduled to shoot around Cleveland Park this Saturday, but they gave......

Yeah, we heard the rumors last week too. By the looks of the constantly churning rumor mill, it appears that the cutely coupled Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (or Pitt-Jolie) just bought a house in Kalorama. Now, we'd love to get excited about the prospect of honest to God A-List celebrities being our new neighbors, but DCist has been burned once too often. The couple's real estate dithering, which began around the Thanksgiving holiday, is......

We may have missed the Miss America Pageant on Saturday night, but that doesn't mean we're unaware of the contest's results. While Miss Oklahoma took home top honors, we're proud to say that Miss District of Columbia did the city proud, placing fifth in the contest. But even better than that, Miss District of Columbia (whose sash was by the far the contest's longest), Shannon Schambeau, took home the ever-important Lifestyle and Fitness in Swimsuit......

Eamonn, Brother There is no stopping the Armstrongs, proprietors of Restaurant Eve in Old Town. Not only are they whizzes in the kitchen, their fecundity (both physical and entrepreneurial) has begot another place to eat. According to Tom, Cathal and Meshelle plan to open Eamonn's/A Dublin Chipper sometime this summer. The place will be a casual joint, unlike the formal (and so worth it) affair that is Eve. It looks like fish and chips will......

The Post's Reliable Source confirms today the news that Ana Marie Cox will be officially leaving her gig as the voice behind Wonkette to better focus on writing a follow-up to her debut novel, Dog Days, which is due to be released tomorrow. Wonkette will live on, jointly helmed by David Lat, who earned notoriety through his Supreme Court blog Underneath Their Robes, and Alex Pareene, a 20-year-old NYU dropout. Cox's book, which is published......

Last April, President Bush's iPod lineup was revealed to the world to contain some rather incongruous choices - from "My Sharona" by the Knack to a few Joni Mitchell songs. The world shrugged. But apparently what the leader of the free world is listening to is still a burning question, and so the Post's Reliable Source today reports that Bush's iPod Shuffle is now filled with some different tunes - everything from "American Pie"......

Washington has traded up in the area of celebrity worshiping, it seems. Gone are the days of grudgingly admitting that someone is "famous for D.C." Nicole Kidman, Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria may have left town but media darlings, humanitarians and the preternaturally pretty Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are ready to move in. Literally. A faithful DCist reader tipped us off to a People Magazine report that Brad and Angelina were seen leaving the......

Washington, D.C., may not be a locale frequently visited by the flaws and foibles of A-List celebrities, but the nexus of power and politics nevertheless yields a generous supply of dish. Washingtonians know where to get their gossip, and they have a decent array of choice: such as kitten-with-a-whip Wonkette, the above-the-fray Reliable Source Richard Leiby, the unbuttoned back pages of The Hill and Roll Call's "Heard on the Hill," the window into vicarious living......

Today will be partly cloudy with highs in the mid 50s. Hunger Strike at Georgetown: A hunger strike by group of 22 students at Georgetown has entered its sixth day. The students are members of the Georgetown Living Wage Campaign, which has been pressuring the university to increase the wages of its lowest paid employees for a year. David Swanson has posted a column and photos about the strike on his website and Indymedia, and......

In today's Reliable Source, Richard Leiby reports that comedian Chevy Chase unleashed a "potty-mouthed ... rant against President Bush" at liberal advocacy organization People For the American Way's annual "Spirit of Liberty" awards at the Kennedy Center Tuesday. (Disclaimer: this DCist works for PFAW) Thus far conservative news outlets Newsmax and online gossip Matt Drudge have picked up the story, although both rely on the Post's coverage. He is seen here before the show in......

As Richard Leiby reported this morning in the Reliable Source, first twin Jenna Bush has applied for a teaching position at the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School (wow, that's a mouthful) on 16th Street on the border of Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant. The school and the White House are both mum on Jenna's plans but Leiby learned that Jenna plans to stay in Washington, leasing a house in Georgetown. But getting......