You may have realized by now that we're kind of excited about the Dismemberment Plan's upcoming reunion tour, which begins tonight with a performance at the Black Cat, which they last played in 2007. We really couldn't have timed our piece on "The City" any better, though -- the band opted to play the Emergency & I classic during their appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. more ›

Good morning, Washington. Supporters of Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Barack Obama are riding high off their caucus victories in Iowa last night, but locally, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to suffer some bumps in the road after one year in office. Just weeks after the resignation of Attorney General Linda Singer, Fenty's former deputy chief of staff, Neil Richardson, has also resigned. Richardson, who was a key Fenty aide during his mayoral campaign, had been moved out of Fenty's "bullpen" in October and placed in an office called Serve DC, where he was tasked with creating a volunteer program to help the school system. Yesterday Richardson decided that the demotion, which came, according to the Post, after Richardson complained to the mayor that he was not listening enough to the public on key decisions, wasn't worth sticking around for, and tendered his resignation. WTOP has excerpts from Richardson's resignation letter, which reiterates complaints heard from others about Fenty's dictatorial governing style. more ›

>> 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] more ›

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. more ›

Traditionally Christmas decorations stay up through New Year's Day, which means today is the official start of the "chucking your dried-up tree onto the sidewalk without regard for your neighbors or trash collection schedule" season. Allow DCist to help point you in the proper direction for Christmas tree disposal. more ›

>> Yesterday we profiled Five Four, the hardest working all girl band in the city, with the cutest shoes, in a Three Stars piece. Tonight you can see those shoes up close and personal at DC9, $8. If that's not the dose of local music you were hoping for tonight, how about Meredith Bragg at the Black Cat, or Gist at Iota? more ›

When in the closing days of 2006 we looked back on the year in D.C. voting rights, we optimistically hoped that 2007 would finally be the year that saw some movement on enfranchising the District's residents. Movement, yes; resolution, not so much. So as we wind down 2007, we're again left hoping that maybe the coming year will be the one. more ›

Good morning, Washington. The week surrounding the holidays is almost always a certifiably slow news period, so you can bet good money every local media outlet in the country is shamefacedly relieved to be able to find their own angle on the terrifying fatal San Francisco Zoo tiger attack. Sister site SFist has the roundup of Bay Area coverage, and the Examiner steps up to the plate with the D.C. version of the story -- the National Zoo is "prepared to finetune safety protocols." Phew! More scintillating post-Christmas reporting below. more ›

Good holiday news for District oenophiles: via the Examiner, the D.C. Council is considering legislation that would boost the amount of wine you can could have shipped to you from outside the city to two cases per month, per home or business. Currently an individual is limited to only one quart of wine per month if you don't have a manufacturer's, wholesaler's or retailer's license. more ›

Happy Christmas Eve, Washington. With the frenzy of last-minute shopping and travel out of the city largely complete, folks staying here for the holiday are being treated to a quieter, gentler D.C. than normal, and it turns out in more ways than one. Over the weekend the Post took a look at a recent decline in the murder rate, reporting that only nine homicides have been logged in the District in the 37 days since Nov. 17. That adds up to roughly half the average murder rate for the rest of the year. Are the District's murderers just feeling the holiday spirit a little more deeply this year? Chief Lanier, naturally, credits the work of her detectives, noting a sharp increase in the number of homicide arrests made during the same period. more ›

As we noted this morning, 80 percent of D.C. travelers will be headed out of the city by car, so we thought this photo by m hoek was especially appropriate for Photo of the Day today. If we go by his tags, it looks like this was taken with a medium format Diana clone toy camera. more ›

Happy Almost Holidays, Washington. With both Monday and Tuesday counting as a holiday for the federal government this year, most of D.C. is staring down a nice, long holiday break today. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, federal holidays are great for a lot of other reasons besides a day off - you don't have to feed parking meters, for instance. But The Examiner reports that that fact isn't stopping people from shoveling coins into meters on holidays anyway, especially those fancy new multispace meters: last Veterans Day, the city collected nearly $1,500 from multispace meters. DDOT says it is going to put stickers on the new meters along K Street to remind people that they don't have to pay on holidays. more ›

Via Dr. Gridlock, it looks like WMATA has put all its new fares into their web site so that customers can figure out how much they'll have to pay come January 6. more ›

Good morning, Washington. With the Christmas holiday looming, things are slowing down in workplaces around the region. Well, most workplaces, anyway — D.C.'s firefighters seem to be keeping plenty busy. Yesterday, of course, there was the fire at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Since then there's been a two alarm fire at the Chinatown Red Roof Inn, and this impressive gathering of firefighters just south of Logan around 6 p.m. last night. Here's hoping their holiday season calms down. More On The D.C. Quarter: The Post follows up yesterday's news with a longer article on the District's inclusion in the Treasury's state quarter program. First, the good news: the city government gets to decide on the design, and Mayor Fenty is promising that the process will involve "maximum resident input" — so it sounds like "No Taxation Without Representation" has a real shot at appearing on U.S. currency. The bad news: state flags aren't allowed in the designs, making the other half of the winning choice from yesterday's poll a no-go. Also, it turns out that we're only getting a quarter because Puerto Rico is. That stings a little, but I suppose we'll take what we can get. Maryland Gives Seventeen Year-Olds The Vote: Well, in the state's primary, anyway. WTOP reports that Maryland's Attorney General has issued an opinion that will ensure citizens can vote in the state's presidential primary on February 12, provided that they will be eighteen by the time of the general election. Both parties had requested such a measure. Briefly Noted: "Capitol Steps" creator passes away... Long-awaited "Stop Snitchin'" sequel nears release in Baltimore... Car crashes into Reston home... Surveillance photos of robbery suspects released... This Day In DCist: One year ago we chatted with Nethers and suggested some last minute gift ideas. Two years ago we checked out some new shopping options. Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user Nivad more ›

The Examiner ran a story on Monday about Bloomingdale's recent round of talks with the city regarding opening a new store in downtown D.C. Along with the recently approved development at the Old Convention Center site, sources in the Fenty administration told Michael Neibauer that the talks have included the controversial Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 9th and G Streets NW as a "possible option" for the store. more ›

Christmas seems to have come early for the District. more ›

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 the campaign. The rest of the tickets, with only a few exceptions, went to friends, family and the mayor's senior staffers of the mayor.

If you really must attend a holiday concert, make it something musicologically interesting. In what has become an annual tradition (see the 2005 and 2006 installments), the Folger Consort is presenting the most appealing and satisfying Christmas concert in the city. More than just a concert, it is a staged production of the Second Shepherds' Play, an English mystery play from the Towneley cycle. more ›

Say what you will about the $515.7 billion spending bill the House of Representatives passed yesterday, there is a silver-lining for the District -- the ban on the use of public funds for needle-exchange programs was finally lifted. more ›

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 up and actually do work. Isn't it supposed to be Christmas break already? more ›

Big news from the Washington Post: D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer has resigned after less than a year on the job. more ›

It's Friday, Washington, and reactions are still rolling in to Metro's approval of its largest fare hikes ever. We all knew this was coming, but we're curious to hear if any of our readers actually plan to make changes to their commuting habits come January 6, when the increases will go into effect. Do you think you'll ride Metro any less, or finally make the leap to using SmarTrip? Let us know in the comments. more ›

Good morning, Washington. It turns out that House Pages don't need lecherous congressmen's help to make scandalous headlines: two have just gotten busted for inappropriate behavior in a House elevator. They've been dismissed, bringing the year's total fired pages to five — two others were caught shoplifting, and one was booted for fighting. Needless to say, it looks like the program — the oversight of which has been in turmoil — will be getting... more ›

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... more ›

Mid-December has arrived, and with that comes the inevitable flood of best-of lists. The Washington Area Film Critics' Association has, for the previous five years of its existence, been in the habit of trying to get their own list out ahead of most of the other critics' societies. We can't really blame them. Considering the fact that none of the critics from the city's biggest newspaper are members, not to mention the fact that the... more ›

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,... more ›

Flying food? Perhaps you've noticed the odd little vehicle with wings near 8th and H, NW selling empanadas and other Mexican fare. It's On the Fly, a new food business started by one of the founders of Zip Car, Gabe Klein, L'Enfant cafe owner Christopher Lynch, and architectural designer Michel Heitstuman. The car is one of the first in a planned series of food carts and small stands that will swarm the city. This... more ›

A Giant Food opened this morning on Alabama Ave. SE in Ward 8, making it the only full-service grocery store in the Anascostia ward. It's also the first supermarket to operate in the neighborhood in over a decade. On Saturday the Post ran a story highlighting the lengths Ward 8 residents have had to go to up until today to purchase groceries. The "Camp Simms" Giant joins a bank and a hardware in a shopping... more ›

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,... more ›

Remember those billboards that popped up in the 1980s that counted up the national debt, dollar by dollar? Pretty scary, huh? Well, District voting rights activists want something similar for their cause. Today the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would allow the city to place two large LED billboards -- one outside the John A. Wilson Building and the other outside the new Washington Nationals stadium -- that would display the amount... more ›