D.C. Mayor Wowed by Beijing: Telling a member of the Post’s foreign service in an interview near Tienanmen Square, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams says D.C. has much to learn from the Chinese capital. “It’s almost the brashness. You’re overwhelmed by the vitality of the place,” he said.

Williams is on a mayoral delegation to China and Thailand.

Gang Vote New for Virginia: Officials in Northern Virginia say that they have encountered something new with the local affiliate of the Mara Salvatruchas gang: a town hall-esque vote to deem someone worthy to live or die. According to the Post, after gang leaders in Los Angeles green-lighted the killing of Scoop Escobar (a fellow gang member who apparently tipped off immigration authorities on a Mara Salvatruchas leader), a gathering of the gang voted overwhelmingly to kill Escobar (quite gruesomely, we should add … slit his throat).

“The whole idea of a green light and a meeting to agree on [whether to kill another member], that’s all new stuff to Northern Virginia,” [Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney William] Jarvis said.

DCist on the Mara Salvatruchas.

Mikulski, Pipkin Face Off. Barbara Mikulski, Maryland’s Democratic senator who faces a relatively easy re-election against Republican E.J. Pipkin of the Eastern Shore, seemed to hold her ground last night during last night’s debate on Maryland Public Television, despite the “increasingly acrimonious tone” of the campaign, as the Post noted. Here’s what the Post has to say and what the W.Times has to say.

Development Controversy: A “smart growth” proposal to build a mix-ed used retail and residential cluster around the Vienna metrorail station in Fairfax County is stirring the locals into a tizzy. They fear crowded schools and roads, the Post reports.