>> So Mayor Fenty and Schools Chancellor Rhee have scheduled 23 simultaneous school closure hearings at each of the proposed 23 schools to be closed. Logistics nightmare questions aside, what is a parent who has a child at more than one of the schools supposed to do? Pick which child they think is more important? [WaPo] >> The D.C. government has scheduled another gun amnesty buy-back on Saturday, only two weeks after the last......

Good morning, Washington. We're getting off to a late start this holiday week morning, which is really just as well, since there's not too much local news to report anyway. But let's get the ball rolling with a few stories ... Police have shut down yet another brothel operation in Glover Park. This time, it's the Venus Spa at 2352 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Where oh where will the guys who work at the Russian......

The D.C. Council voted 10 to 3 today to give Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee the power to fire nonunion central office employees. Council members Marion Barry, Phil Mendelson and Harry Thomas Jr. were the only votes against giving Rhee the power to fire. Thomas tried to get the council to approve an alternative bill that would have affected fewer workers, but the Council voted that alternative down 10-3 as well. The Washington Post story......

WTOP's Mark Segraves got a hold of a partial list of the folks who've been receiving tickets to use the city's free luxury box in the Verizon Center -- the one that the D.C. Council is so miffed they're being boxed out of -- and there's some fun tidbits he discovered.Most of those invited to D.C.'s Luxury Suite at the Verizon Center by Fenty either contributed the maximum $2,000 to Fenty's campaign or worked on......

Good morning, Washington. We hope not too many of you were making your way into the city from Montgomery County this morning, as two separate water main breaks forced road closures in Takoma Park and kids to get the day off from school in Germantown. We'll admit it -- we're pretty envious of the students at Fox Chapel Elementary School, who get to spend the day doing whatever they please while we had to show......

Good morning, Washington. Are ya ready for some embezzlement scandal news? Of course you are! This morning's update comes not from the embattled Office of Tax and Revenue, but rather from the D.C. Public Schools front office, as the Examiner reports that Eugene Smith, the former director of internal audits for DCPS, entered a guilty plea yesterday to charges of stealing nearly $50,000 from a charter school account. Smith was fired by the school system......

Good morning, Washington. We hope you had a pleasant and restful evening despite the howling wind and bitter cold. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee had a bit of a rough night last night herself, as she was greeted by throngs of angry Ward 5 parents at the first community meeting that allowed her to present the school closures plan to the public. Ward 5 D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. had set up the separate meeting......

Last week, the Fenty administration announced an aggressive plan calling for the closure of 24 schools within the District of Columbia Public Schools system. Parents and concerned members of the community are now being invited to attend a series of public meetings where they can raise concerns directly with Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso. We've posted the full schedule below. Wards 1, 2 & 6: *Monday, Dec. 10 from......

Good morning, Washington. The pernicious effects of this year's drought could continue to haunt the region during next year's holiday season, according to WTOP. Turns out that young Christmas trees and seedlings being grown in Maryland and Virginia were especially affected by the lack of rainfall, meaning that thousands of area children could suffer the indignity of having to make due with a sub-par decorative plant with which to entice entice Santa to leave them......

Mayor Adrian Fenty, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso announced their plans to "right-size" D.C. public school system today that will include the simultaneous closure of 24 schools. School closures have been high on the to-do list for several years now as student enrollment has dropped from 55,000 to an estimated 49,600 students this school year. The new school closure plan differs from a previous one offered by former Superintendent......

>> 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......

Good Morning, Washington. Birds may finally be heading south for the winter now that overnight temperatures are dipping down towards freezing, but if you can believe it or not it's actually looking like Wednesday is going to be warm again, with temperatures predicted to be back up in the 70s. Well, at least if it's going to be tough to find a cab tomorrow, it'll be pleasant enough to walk or bike. CapitalWeather.com points out......

Morning, Washington. We hope you were out enjoying the fantastic weather, especially since the environment has been front and center in the news this weekend. As you must have heard, our former Vice President turned Global Warming Guru had to shove over the Oscar on his mantle to make space for half of a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe after the news you were inspired to go check out the 20 amazing houses built on the......

Via the Examiner, someone has posted a video of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to YouTube where she openly discusses the obstacles she’s come across in trying to overhaul our troubled public school system. The 12-minute clip shows Rhee speaking to the Democrats for Education Reform about a week ago. She describes the school system as running “counter to the way any good organization operates,” and insists that "the only way" to get to......

Mayor Adrian Fenty will continue to send his children to a private school in the District this year, reports the Examiner. Unlike Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso, who have both enrolled their children at one of the District's best public elementary schools, the Mayor and his wife have chosen to send their seven year-old twins to another year at the private school they have attended since preschool. The mayor......

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee plans to ask the D.C. Council to suspend personnel laws to give her the authority to terminate several hundred DCPS employees she plans to fire without having to reassign them to other jobs. A story on the front page of today's Washington Post indicates at least some Council members may be skeptical of Rhee's plan, which reportedly includes adding new upper-level managers while at the same time downsizing the central......

Good morning, D.C. If you live in Wards 1 or 2, don't forget to turn out to vote today in the special election for District I member of the State Board of Education. There's only one name on the ballot, that of veteran education reporter Mary Lord, but as we mentioned before, there's also a write-in candidate, first-year teacher in DCPS Jason Crawford. Check out each candidate's web site and decide for yourself. If......

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy......

Good Monday morning to you, Washington. We can officially declare that the dog days of August have arrived today, now that the House has finally, finally adjourned for their summer break. News junkies will want to note that before heading home they passed a modified version of the defense budget, which will increase spending for defense health care and military housing, among a list of other expenditures. Of course what Washingtonians really care about is......

Good morning, Washington. If you're the sort of person who likes to start thinking about their lunch break just as soon as they sit down at their desks, we have excellent news for you in the form of a planned DC Vote rally for voting rights between noon and 1:30 p.m. today. Anyone who'd like to show their support for voting rights is encouraged to meet on the north side of Constitution Avenue between First......

Now that it turns out there's almost nothing more embarrassing than watching self-made videos of goofy Americans asking leading questions to presidential candidates, we'd like to suggest you take a valuable lesson from the experience by choosing not to enter your workplace this morning wearing wraparound sunglasses, a Viking outfit or a salmon-colored suit jacket. We'll leave the choice of affecting an over-the-top southern drawl up to you, but you can probably guess where......

Some D.C. Council members are dismayed at proposed $200,000 salaries that newly confirmed Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has offered to her deputy chancellor, Kaya Henderson, as well as her chief of staff. The pay range for District jobs at that level is normally $57,000 to about $153,000 at the most. Mayor Fenty's office is defending the salaries, claiming the administration now has the authority to hire staff at whatever level it chooses. Meanwhile, Carol Schwartz......

The D.C. Council is meeting for the final day of its summer session as we speak, and as we mentioned in this morning's roundup, a confirmation vote for deputy mayor for education Victor Reinoso has been postponed until at least September. But other key Fenty school takeover appointments are expected to be confirmed today, including Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Allen Lew, acting director of the new Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization. Yesterday, Lew......

Welcome back to work, Washington. Actually, we're curious -- are any of you checking in on headlines from home today, having gone ahead and taken the rest of the week off? If so, we never liked you in the first place. Despite the tornado watch and humid, drizzly conditions, we hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration and of course, didn't have any fireworks-related accidents. ABC7 is reporting that at least nine people......

As is usually the case on this day in D.C., there is very little news to roundup, thus our rather loose definition of 'morning' today. We certainly hope you're having a relaxing and fun holiday so far. As you gather up beer and meat (or faux-meat) and head to your respective barbecues, take care. We've mentioned it before, but the entire city will be under added security measures today in the wake of the attempted......

Happy Friday, Washington! Oh, wait. It's Tuesday. But we're not going in to work tomorrow! Oh, wait again. We have to come in on Thursday. And Friday. This is confusing. We'll have some more info for you later today on how to avoid the crowds and have a stellar 4th of July celebration -- just as soon as we can wrap our heads around the idea of stumbling to our desks on the 5th, totally......

Welcome back to work, Washington. We know many of our regular readers are off celebrating Independence Day already, taking vacation time for a few days to make this upcoming middle-of-the-week holiday less of an inconvenience. For those of you still at your desks, we salute your dedication to the American work ethic. For those of you who'll be heading to the airport some time this week, we were going to beg to be stuffed in......

Acting D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is already making big headlines just days into her as yet unconfirmed tenure. On Sunday, the Post ran a short but crucial story about how Rhee has suspended hiring new principals until she can be sure she's looking at the best possible candidate pool. The story also details how Rhee has spent her first week on the job -- by meeting with parents, teachers and employees to reassure them......

Good morning, Washington. Enjoy that cool temperature outside while it lasts (60° right now!), because the heat will be back before you know it (i.e. this weekend), so much so that you'll probably need to switch on the old A/C come Sunday. Mayor Fenty's nominee for Schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, knows a little something about sitting around in expectation of feeling the heat herself right now -- there's the questions about the secret way Fenty......

As we mentioned in the Roundup this morning, Mayor Adrian Fenty has fired D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, and announced this morning at a press conference that he would be replaced by Michelle Rhee, in a new position as D.C. Schools Chancellor. The Post has a good story up already with some details of Rhee's background: she's the the founder of New Teacher Project, a nonprofit group based in New York that trains mid-career......