>> In case you hadn't noticed, it's starting to get pretty chilly out there. [Capital Weather] >> The D.C. attorney who wrote the 15,000-word gun ban brief was fired, just as the city prepares to defend its position to the U.S. Supreme Court. [NBC4] >> Examiner gets sassy on Seattle fans leading up to this weekend's playoff game. >> After the final 2007 crime count, Chief Lanier looks ahead to 2008. [Examiner] >> Viridian......

>> A man was hospitalized this morning after his Ford Expedition crashed into a Metrobus at 8th St. and Massachusetts Ave. NE. [WJLA] >> A 19-year-old Maryland woman got stuck in a two-story chimney about 12:20 a.m. Monday at her father's tire shop on Bladensburg Road. Firefighters were able to rescue her to safety. [WaPo] >> D.C. police responded to a shooting at an apartment complex at 6420 14th St. NW just after noon......

A month ago, the Washington Redskins needed to win out the rest of their season and receive a ton of help from the rest of the NFC in order to make the playoffs. And it needed to start in the short week between a Sunday's loss to Buffalo and a Thursday night game with Chicago. And then it needed to start after Sean Taylor's funeral. And then it needed to continue despite losing starting quarterback......

Torontoist discovered their city's most ridiculous holiday lights setup, with 80,000 lights and two––two!––synchronized music routines. Naturally, they snagged a video. Chicago tragically loses one of its most recognizable neighborhood icons, the pigeon man of Lincoln Square. LAPD leaves body in car at crash scene, then tows it. Massachusetts plus mullet equals PR mayhem. Londonist sleeps in a Haunted plague pit. UC Berkeley students strip naked and race through campus, NSFW floppiness ensues. Phillyist......

We're a little short-staffed today, so if you've got any picks to add for this weekend, please leave them in the comments. FRIDAY >> This weekend the Uptown Theater is playing the final cut of everybody's favorite movie about replicants running amock, and young Darryl Hannah being super sci-fi hot, Blade Runner. >> If an apocalyptic future isn't exactly what you're in the mood for, try on Seattle's dream folk rockers, Band of Horses, for......

The Washington Business Journal reported yesterday that the Washington Convention Center will be officially renamed to honor D.C.'s first elected mayor, Walter E. Washington. Apparently the D.C. Council approved the name change last year, though we can't recall having heard about it at the time. The idea is a fine one though, and Washington is certainly worthy of having his legacy honored. So what's the problem? As of Nov. 5, the building will officially become......

>> Seattle's Minus the Bear's latest release, Planet of Ice, finds the group continuing to delve into complex and progressive compositions while engaging in a brooding atmosphere that has added a new and intriguing element to their always fascinating sound. They'll be at the Black Cat with Subtle and ELA. 8 p.m., $15 advance, $17 at the door. >> Pulitzer Prize-winning author for Empire Falls, Richard Russo will be at Politics and Prose to......

If you missed the Green Festival at the Convention Center this past weekend, you missed an incredible event. Luckily event organizers will be posting video and audio of the plethora of speeches to their website in about two weeks. You'll also be able to download speech audio from this year’s upcoming San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago festivals. The Green Festival is sponsored by Co-Op America and Global Exchange. The event is largely volunteer-run, with 1300......

It's no surprise to this Hill resident, but it might be to those of you who live in relative cesspools like Logan Circle, Clarendon, Silver Spring, or "North" Cleveland Park: Eastern Market has been named one of the Nation's ten best neighborhoods. Thank you, American Planning Association, for giving credit where it's due. In its first annual "Best Places" awards, the APA heralds the Eastern Market neighborhood for "its continued success in balancing the demands......

>> Via Mid-Atlantic Art News, nearly every one on the Washington Post arts staff has been slammed over last Thursday's article on art in the White House Green Room. The Seattle Post-Intellgencer blog calls Post writer Jacqueline Trescott's race labeling of Jacob Lawrence as "the greatest African-American artist of the 20th century" a "disgrace," the staff photographer inept, and most hilariously, Blake Gopnik, who gets skewered though he wasn't even involved with the article,......

It's rare that any of the well-read political blogs based here in Washington take on issues that fit within DCist's mandate to stick mainly to local issues, but when they do, boy howdy, they can really make a mess of things for themselves. The American Prospect's Ezra Klein has already issued a mea culpa for a post he put up late last night on his personal blog, which wondered why there aren't more amenities for......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

These United States, DCist's favorite local alt-country Unbuckled alums and purveyor of tour diaries, is in the running for a spot in this year's famed CMJ Music Marathon. TUS has been touring relentlessly and doing all the good stuff bands should do, but are still doing all of their booking, promotion, traveling, managing and everything else on their own. Have you seen their tour schedule lately? That's a hell of a lot of stuff......

>> D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s plans to hold a “major Katrina anniversary hearing in New Orleans” on Aug. 27 fell apart due to congressional vacation schedules. A new date for the hearings has not been set. [City Desk] >> Former Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) died unexpectedly Tuesday night in Alexandria from a pulmonary embolism. As we mentioned earlier, Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) also passed away last night unexpectedly, reportedly from natural causes, in......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-a-verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Last year, the DAM! Festival made an impressive debut in our fair city. As the festival gears up for its second year, they've got even more up their sleeve, including performances from indie heavyweights like Cat Power and Cloud Cult, and local favorites like The Beanstalk Library and These United States. The festival is happening this fall, from October 11 through 15. Founded and organized by BigYawn.net's Eric Boucher, this year's goal was to go......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Monday >> The Starlingtons may not seem like your typical Black Cat band, but they are breaking the boundaries of traditional country/bluegrass. Tonight they’ll be on the back stage with Portland Oregon’s Casey Neill and his own folk/punk rock fusion. 9 p.m., $7. >> In the mood to try something new? Chicago’s post-punk New Harbour has been around for a few years now, but just moved to the District. They’re playing their first show tonight......

Relatively few critics can resist the temptation to invoke natural imagery when describing the instrumental epics of Pelican. This should come as no surprise, as the Chicago quartet creates songs that truly move at a glacial pace—songs that sometimes spend as long as 20 minutes building up and tearing down a single melody. Over the past few years, the band has increasingly come to favor a more restrained approach, allowing the subtleties of guitarists Laurent Lebec and Trevor de Brauw’s complex interplay to come to the fore. This has earned them a number of comparisons to 90s post-rock icons like Slint and Mogwai as well as more contemporary acts like crescendo-obsessed Texans Explosions in the Sky. A quick listen to Pelican’s latest, City of Echoes, confirms these comparisons; over the course of eight tracks and 42 minutes (a downright lean runtime for Pelican) the record explores ideas of urban space through the use of shifting textures, scales and dynamics. One track on the album even consists almost entirely of two dueling acoustic guitar lines. So perhaps, you can see how we’ve managed to forget one important fact over the last few years: Pelican is a metal band....

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too – two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Over the past few weeks, events have conspired to place race squarely at the center of the debate over public education in the District of Columbia. After appointing Michelle Rhee the first ever Chancellor of District Schools, Mayor Fenty found himself faced with a barrage of criticism and innuendo from the Washington Post drawing attention to the fact that she was not......

Last night at the NBA Draft, the West got better by picking some young talent (Greg Oden to Portland, Kevin Durant to Seattle) and the East got better by trading for talent (Zach Randolph to New York, Ray Allen to Boston). The Wizards got better by selecting USC shooting guard/small forward Nick Young. Young averaged just over 17 points per game last year at SoCal and is known for his mid-range jumper and fearless......

>> Fort Reno continues tonight with LeJeune, Pup Tent and Engine Room. There's a bit of a chance of isolated showers this afternoon and evening, but nothing that should prevent the free concert from going on around 7:15. >> There's a stand-up comedy benefit show tonight starring Seattle comic Yoram Bauman --"the world's first and only stand-up economist" -- and four local comics: Tyler Richardson, Aparna Nancherla, Jason Weems, and Erin Jackson. Shows at......

If you approach the District every morning via the I-270 Interchange at the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County, you probably let an impressive barrage of expletives escape your lips on a daily basis about how bad a bottleneck the meeting of those two highways are. Luckily, Forbes magazine is here to tell you, you're not alone. Via WTOP, we learn today that the interchange in question has once again been named the 7th worst bottleneck......

FRIDAY: >> It may be that we've simply gotten so, so, so many press releases about The Horrors show tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel, and we've been beaten into submission to mention it. Give the punky-garage rock revivalists a chance for $12 at 8:30 p.m., and let us know if they're worth all the fuss. Seattle's Schoolyard Heroes open, plus locals Scanner Freaks. >> One of the most anticipated new hip hop albums......

>> Music junkies raised in an era of candy-coated pop or Seattle-based indie should check out a screening of The Day The Country Died: A History of Anarcho-Punk 1980-1984 at the Black Cat tonight. The flick features rare performances caught on tape before the era of ubiquitous personal video recorders, along with interviews from artists and activists. $5, 9 p.m. >> DC Rap invades the Velvet Lounge with another edition of Hell is for......

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

>> Wish you too were living the dream of working a flexible job from home? Free yourself from the shackles of your office in time to make it to the Warehouse Theater by 7:30 p.m. for a comedy-infused presentation by Michelle Goodman, Seattle freelance writer and author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube. Men are also encouraged to attend. And it's free. >> Gear up......