Baltimore’s well-loved trapeze school is moving to D.C. after failing to find a permanent home in Charm City. (Hat tip to Ryan Sharrow.) I’m typically opposed to joinerish sporting trends (bocce, kickball, Donkey Ball.) but I have to admit this looks pretty awesome. My friend Nora took some classes in Baltimore and was doing some sort of complicated catch maneuver after her first class. You can watch here. Apparently, they hook you by offering a…

Among the thrilling matches of human prowess coming soon to our city: the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the US Air Guitar Championships. The Spelling Bee got started today, with the Round One Test, in which all 293 spellers spell 50 words on computers. The onstage action stats tomorrow. The Air Guitar Championship arrives on the 29th, at the 9:30 Club. Too bad the dates don’t overlap. Wouldn’t it be great if the competitors spent…

Photo by angelakleis. The last 48 hours have been rather calamitous, even by D.C. standards. It started with the rain, torrential rain, many inches of it, which snarled traffic all over, and stranded three drivers in flooded roads in D.C. today and three in Beltsville last night. Flash flood warnings have been extended to tomorrow morning. This morning, a manhole fire on Harvard Street cut power for about 1,600 customers, disrupted traffic lights on…

When news spread that the court would hand down its ruling today, D.C. gay rights activists made immediate plans for a gathering tonight, the flavor to be determined by how the justices ruled. Well, the court has decided to uphold the proposition, which bans gay marriage in the state. So tonight’s gathering, starting at 8:30, will definitely be a protest. One positive note, though obviously bittersweet: the justices ruled that about 18,000 same-sex marriages sealed…

Bravo has gone and done it. Producers are currently casting for the newest franchise in the Real Housewives series, and they’re doing it here. From the release: “We’re tapping personalities who are among Washington D.C.’s influential players, cultural connoisseurs, fashion sophisticates and philanthropic leaders – the people who rub elbows with the most prominent people in the country and easily move in the city’s diverse political and social circles.” What I don’t get: are…

Obama is set to nominate appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court seat vacated by David Souter at press conference this a.m. Sotomayor has been a front-runner for several weeks and received some, er, enthusiastic critiques from legal observers, like TNR’s Jeffrey Rosen, who quoted anonymous law clerks to portray the Yale and Princeton grad as “not that smart.” Sotomayor made her way to the Ivies after growing up in a housing project in…

Photo by Bullneck. Good morning soggy workbots. You can shake off that burger hangover during your extra long and wet commute. The heavy rain–two to three inches in the last few hours, with a few more to come–means flash flood warnings for large parts of the region until 11:30 a.m. Firefighters rescued three drivers trapped in their cars in a flooded stretch of Rhode Island Avenue. Adding to the fun, DC Alerts reports that…

Breaking news: Obama staffers are fixie-riding vegans. Or at least one of them is. I uncovered this total scoop at last night’s Young and the Guest List party, Washington Life magazine’s 4th annual oh-so-very exclusive affair to honor the most influential Washingtonians under 40. Invitees included Adrian Fenty and Jon Favreau, neither of whom showed up. But event organizers told me 15 Obama staffers had RSVP’d, so my goal for the night was to locate…

Breaking news: Obama staffers are fixie-riding vegans. Or at least one of them is. I uncovered this total scoop at last night’s Young and the Guest List party, Washington Life magazine’s 4th annual oh-so-very exclusive affair to honor the most influential Washingtonians under 40. Invitees included Adrian Fenty and Jon Favreau, neither of whom showed up. But event organizers told me 15 Obama staffers had RSVP’d, so my goal for the night was to locate…