Good morning, D.C. If you’re like us (and presumably since you’re reading this, you are), you love to follow local news, especially for those few stories that come up every now again that manage to combine two of the local media’s favorite tropes: fear mongering and funny names. For example, just when you thought the intersex fish problem in the Potomac had drifted off into the ethereal plane of being old news, the Sierra Club rescues us all from feeling generally safe and short of transgendered animals this morning. The environmental group has asked the federal government to ban nonylphenol ethoxylates, or NPEs, from industrial and household detergents. NPEs are a class of toxic chemical compounds that are believed to cause male fish to develop female characteristics.
Amended Strip Club Bill Passes Council: The D.C. Council preliminarily voted 9 to 4 in favor of Jim Graham’s (D-Ward 1) bill to relocate strip clubs displaced by the city’s new baseball stadium in Southeast to Ward 5. Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) proposed six amendments to the bill designed to limit the clubs’ impact on the community, which Graham accepted without a vote. The amendments include a requirement that there be a 1,200-foot buffer between the new clubs and a 600-foot buffer zone between the clubs and churches, schools, libraries and playgrounds. Another amendment to the bill lets the businesses move back to specifically zoned areas within 5,000 feet of the new ballpark.
Police Will Work Overtime in Response to Violence: D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier is putting all 3,300 MPD officers on overtime this weekend, adding foot patrols and expanding the city’s network of surveillance cameras in the wake of a particularly deadly weekend. The Post has more details about Lanier’s plan to curb violent crime this summer.
Briefly Noted: Teen tries to to hire a hit-man to murder his parents … Report says Greater Southeast Community Hospital is not maintained in a safe and sanitary manner … Council votes to close the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. and the National Capitol Revitalization Corp..
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we took a closer look at the origins of Loving Day, and in 2005 we told you the best ways to get to Adams Morgan on a weekend.
Photo by apium
