Happy Friday, Washington. Although, let’s be honest, this particular Friday would be a whole lot happier if it was a payday also. January’s always an awfully long month once those holiday credit card bills start coming in, and the idea of having to pay rent once again in only a week might seem a bit daunting – just ask the folks who live in the historic wing of the Kennedy-Warren apartment building next to the National Zoo. The Post reports that a group of tenants of the building are staging a mass rent strike in protest of a $233 monthly renovation surcharge their landlord is trying to impose. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, lived in the building at one time, but now it is home to a mix of wealthy tenants in the newer units and middle-income residents living in the older part of the building still subject to rent control. Rent control advocates argue that the building’s owner is using extravagant renovations as a tactic to kill rent control. We don’t have any good reason to withhold rent from our landlord here at DCist HQ this month, but if you, say, have any bright ideas about how we can keep some extra money for ourselves this month, leave ’em in the comments.

Here We Go Again: Looks like Mayor Fenty is getting more serious about the idea of trying to bring the Redskins back to the District. NBC4 reports that the mayor has decided to put together a proposal to ask Dan Snyder to consider leaving FedEx Field for a new stadium in the District, most likely at the RFK site. The proposal has not even been started yet, but Fenty apparently wants to start pumping up the idea now, and has asked CFO Natwar Gandhi to start crunching the numbers on erecting a 100,000-seat domed stadium in the District, the kind that also could be used for Super Bowls.

Noose Found at Nationals Stadium: A noose was found at the site of the new Nationals stadium yesterday, and officials have since announced that two workers would be fired as a result. The noose appeared in a break room for construction workers on Tuesday, and the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission conducted an investigation after it was reported. The two employees to be fired both work for Truland Systems, an electrical subcontractor. A Truland employee had only two months ago been accused of making racially insensitive remarks.

Briefly Noted: A teenager died after being struck by a car Thursday night in Silver Spring … Parking cameras will double ticket revenues, study finds … Medicaid expected to improve in D.C. … Alexandria reaches settlement with taxicab companies.

This Day in DCist: In 2007 we talked to Henry Rollins and Ted Leo about why shutting down all-ages shows in the District was a bad idea, and in 2005 we welcomed Postie Joel Achenbach to the blogosphere.

Photo by Matt Adams (smada77)