Good morning, Washington. Yesterday afternoon Roll Call had the story of a potential suspect finally being identified in all those strange Senate bathroom fires from the last few months. Capitol Police Officer Karen Emory recently has been suspended in connection with the fires, although it still hasn't been confirmed whether she is definitely a suspect in the case. No charges have been filed, but color us a little disappointed if it turns out a......

This weekend the Capitals decided not to add a great goalie to pull them up from the dregs of the standings. After losing seven of eight games, the Caps were in last place. This gave them the first chance to pick up Ilya Bryzgalov, a goalie placed on waivers because he didn't enjoy playing backup on the Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks. Two years ago, Bryzgalov posted one of the greatest playoff shutout streaks in......

>> Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods [AP via CNN.com] >> "The District has awarded a contract for managing its troubled Medicaid transportation program to a St. Louis-area company that the Missouri governor's office called 'scurrilous' after the company paid millions of dollars to resolve a fraud investigation." [WashTimes] >> "In the lingo of anti-smoking zealots, smoke flow from dwelling to dwelling is called “seepage” and for now, it seems, there’s nothing a renter......

It's not every day that British bands come to D.C. in a red doubledecker bus. The BritBus tour stopped downtown yesterday, bringing three new groups — Jyrojets from Scotland, The Crave from Brighton, and Julia Jones from London via Wales — around the country at a top speed of 45 miles per hour. According to bassist Tom Swann from The Crave, it took four days to get from Denver to St. Louis, and although the......

When DCist talks, the Washington Capitals listen. We'd like to thank the Caps for taking our suggestions to heart at the trade deadline. We'll certainly have more advice for them this summer, when free agents become available. Now if they can just slide down two or three spots in the standings, they'll be one of four teams in the lottery for the first-overall pick. They'll have a great chance to avoid picking up a couple......

The George Washington University women's basketball team is ranked #8 in the country by the AP, riding a 14-game winning streak to a 21-2 record. They're undefeated in conference play, and have only lost to then #1 Maryland and then #5/6 Tennessee, and beat then #10/11 and current #9 Georgia. The team includes the Adair twins from Anacostia - 6'4 Jessica, who leads the team in scoring, and 6'3 Jazmine. But only 661 people per......

Most come to DC9 expecting – to some degree – a warts and all show that leaves a little to be desired. One thing you don’t tend to expect is the kind of polish that came from The Hatch last night. Formed at Washington University in St. Louis, relocated to L.A. to record and practice, they’re now calling New York home, hunkering down in an apartment/rehearsal space and starting a residency at Piano’s next month.......

It's that time of year again, when D.C. residents brace for the annual rankings of the Most Dangerous Cities. But don't cringe just yet, because amid crime emergencies, ubiquitous shootings and terrifying police impersonators — not to mention Fox News style headlines — we've actually continued our slide down this disreputable list. D.C. now ranks as the nineteenth most dangerous city, sliding six slots from number 13 last year. The rankings are based on 2005......

We reported on the city's succesful challenge to the Census' 2005 D.C. population estimate earlier — the city argued that the Census had undercounted in D.C., and the Census Bureau agreed, adding more than 31,000 people to their estimate. That turned a loss of 21,000 people to a gain of 10,000, which would be DC's first population increase since the 1950s. But unfortunately for D.C., if a person uses the Census Bureau's website to see......

The following is the first in a two part point/counterpart series by DCist Sports regarding Alfsonso Soriano and his future with the Washington Nationals. Today Matthew Bourque argues for trading him. Jeff Beam will provide the case for keeping Soriano tomorrow. When Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals landed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained oblique muscle, baseball lost its most prolific hitter. On Monday, an inconclusive MRI had experts believing that......

With a disastrous April in the books, is the honeymoon over for the Nationals and their fans? Over the weekend, the Nats dropped two out of three to Albert Pujols and the red-hot St. Louis Cardinals. The team has now lost seven out of its last eight, the lone victory coming Friday. For Nats fan who could actually watch the games on TV, the biggest story was Albert Pujols' 14th home run of the month.......

The Nationals enter the weekend needing reverse some serious negative momentum. Thursday night’s 6-2 loss to the Cardinals in St. Louis made for five straight. The Nats haven’t led in a game since late Sunday, a streak now at 38 innings—during which they’ve been outscored 23-10. They now trail the Mets by 7.5 games in the NL East. Last night, recent call-up Michael O’Conner made an emergency start as John Patterson nurses his sore......

Yesterday, it finally came to a head. The issue everyone kept putting on the backburner finally rushed to the forefront of the Washington Nationals' spring training season. Alfonso Soriano, the highest paid player of the club, refused to take the field in his assigned role of left fielder against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Fla. Brandon Watson eventually took the field in Soriano's place, playing centerfield while moving Ryan Church......

It's been a busy few days for the Redskins, as the deadline for roster cuts passed and the free agent signing period began. Washington sports fans might still be mourning the departure of LaVar Arrington, but the team is moving on and making some big changes. On Friday, the Skins cut five players in a last minute move to get under the salary cap. Linemen Brandon Noble and Cory Raymer, DBs Walt Harris and......

Robert Getzschman is, well, an odd man. (Just look at the picture on his myspace page. I would have gone for pasties myself.) Running The Frozen Food Section, a record label out of his native St. Louis, he decided to move up to New York's Lower East Side to pursue the "singer-songwriter thing." After stints there and in Boston, Rob moved to DC. The move to DC and subsequent job at an Apple store introduced......

Without a doubt, the highlight of the Maryland Terrapins' up and down (Clemson says "Hi") season last year were the two wins the Terps enjoyed over their hated rivals, the Duke Blue Devils. Their rivalry resumed last night in Durham and the Devils enjoyed the cozy confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium to the tune of a 76-52 walkover. This one was over early (letting everyone tune over to ABC for the new episode of......

The fact that the scene at the Edward Jones Dome went down against a soundtrack of frequent deadly silence tells you everything you need to know about where the Washington Redskins and the St. Louis Rams have found themselves this season. With big divisional contests taking place across the country, the Skins and Rams and their play-for-pride sideshow felt like it was taking place in an alternate universe. Probably the most interesting thing in......

After losing an absolute heartbreaker on Saturday night at Shea to the NY Mets, the Nationals bounced back yesterday, scoring six runs in the first inning and holding on to beat the Mets 7-4. Things were going so well for the Nats that Christian Guzman doubled twice and also drove in two runs, raising his batting average to an almost robust .194. Esteban Loiza pitched 6 1/3 inning on three days rest, striking out......

The summer of 2005 will go down in history as the summer D.C. became a baseball town, again. But it’s important to remember that, even without a long-standing hometown team, the District has always been home to baseball’s most important fans: the justices of the Supreme Court. No matter the batting order, the nine Justices of the Court have consistenttly ruled in favor of professional baseball, as a business, often at the expense of......

Who knew last night would turn into a squeaker? The Nats scored 4 early runs on 2 back-to-back doubles, and Livan Hernandez was on track for a shutout (which, surprisingly enough, we believe he hasn't done this season). And then ... well, the important thing is that they won. So make that win streak a season-best seven. And make that a 1.5 game lead on the rival Phillies, the Nats' largest lead yet and......

Since DCist's resident gastronaut Kanishka Gangopadhyay is off to St. Louis this week for work-related business, he delegated the weekly task of food commentary and critique to someone with an un-trained, un-sophisticated palette. After all, he wouldn't want someone one-upping him, would he? Much like last week, Capitol Hill seems to have cornered the market for food-related news. Barracks Row Dine Around: Barracks Row, the newly-renovated and ever-so-hip stretch of Eighth Street SE, is celebrating......

Thanks to another win last night, the Washington Nationals improved their first-place lead over the Braves and Mets by a full game. Not only that, but they extended their win streak to 5 games -- that's the record. Of course the Nats are ranked third overall in the NL behind the Padres and the smokin' St. Louis Cardinals, but when you see them ranked in order, the Nats look all the more impressive: Philadelphia......

After being swept by the woeful Reds (21-31) last Thursday, the Nats' prospects against the non-woeful Cardinals (33-18) looked pretty bleak. Friday's inevitable loss brought the team to .500, a low since late April, when the team record was just 11-11. Then Saturday's "L" put them under the halfway mark for the first time since the Nats' seventh game of the season, where they fell to division rival Atlanta. But then something happened: the Nats......

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. It's been a tough week for the Nationals, traveling to Cincinnati to face general manager Jim Bowden's former team. On Monday they lost by a not-deplorable score of 5-3. A day later, they improved substantially, taking the Reds to 14 innings before letting that one slip away 4-3. But if yesterday seemed destined to be the Nats' 23-inning 3-2 squeaker victory, well, it wasn't so. Cincinnati swept the series with a persuasive......

Our friends at Chicagoist point out that the Billy Goat Tavern, that Chicago institution parodied in Saturday Night Live's "Olympia Restaurant" sketches in the 70s, is planning on coming to D.C. This news may have many Chicagoans a little miffed, as the Billy Goat is a unique Chicago experiences akin to walking the Magnificent Mile or catching a game at Wrigley. Moving the restaurant to another time zone seems an odd decision for a restaurant......