Good morning, Washington. We hope you had a relaxing weekend, although Saturday’s weather surely provided for a better chance of fun. Yesterday’s cold and windy conditions didn’t stop the annual Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown, however, as you can see by the variety of colorful shots uploaded to our Flickr Group. We also noticed that canvassers for both Senators Obama and Clinton (including former president Bill Clinton, it seems) appeared undaunted along U Street and 16th Street yesterday, despite the difficulty of holding flimsy cardboard signs in 30 mph winds. It’s really cold out there again today, although significantly less windy. The Capital Weather Gang says it should warm up slightly tomorrow, but rain is also expected, which should be a welcome relief to the Virginia National Guard — they’re still out fighting dozens of wildfires that broke out over night, causing serious damage and knocking out power to 24,000 customers in the Northern Virginia area. A state of emergency has since been declared by Va. Gov. Tim Kaine.
Big Brother is Officially Watching You: The Post has an A1 story this morning detailing the capabilities the MPD has as of today to watch live footage 24 hours a day on the department’s crime cameras. Up until now, police were only in the habit of checking a camera’s recordings after crimes were committed, but now, they’ll be monitoring live footage as part of a new initiative put forth by Chief Cathy Lanier. “I’d love to have the whole city wired like London,” Lanier told the Post. London has one of the world’s most extensive crime camera networks, numbering at 10,000 cameras, but evidence also suggest they don’t actually help to solve crime there.
Tax Office Server Dump was Benign: In an update to Friday’s unbelievable story about the discovery of two computer servers belonging to the embattled D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue behind the Ruby Tuesday in Columbia Heights, it turns out they were nothing sinister: the two 10-year-old servers are listed as being sold as in an online auction of excess D.C. government equipment last month. An unidentified woman reportedly dumped the servers after deciding it would cost too much to ship them out of state to the only potential buyer. The servers would have been wiped of any data before they were sold at auction. It’s not clear whether the FBI will now discontinue its review of the servers.
Briefly Noted: Banita Jacks to appear in court today … Plans to redevelop former GW Hospital now formalized … Southeast man gets 35 years in jacket dispute murder … Stolen tankers found, minus their fuel … Nearly 2,500 people apply for jobs at the new Nationals stadium.
Photo by SpecialEd98
