Good morning, Washington. If by chance you switched over to NBC4’s local news broadcast last night toward the end of the Academy Awards telecast, you might have thought you had accidentally turned on your DVR. Two planes had clipped wings at a Washington airport, they reported. But didn’t that happen the Sunday before? Yes it did, as a matter of fact. This time, two United Airlines planes clipped wings on a taxiway at Dulles Airport, while a week ago two U.S. Airways planes clipped wings in much the same manner at National Airport. No injuries were reported in this latest incident, and the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Are Victims in Fatal Pedestrian Accidents More Likely to be Foreign-born? It will be no surprise to DCist readers that the Washington metro area has seen a high number of fatal pedestrian accidents over the last couple of years. Well the Examiner reports on a pair of new studies from Inova Health Systems and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that show a disproportionate number of pedestrian victims were of Hispanic or “other” ethnicity (not black or white.) The theory is that immigrants are less likely to own cars and so tend to walk more, and that many come from countries where pedestrian traffic laws are not enforced, so they are used to crossing in the middle of the street. Officials in several local jurisdictions are planning pedestrian safety outreach programs that will reach out to immigrant communities.

Staffing Shortages in Park Police, Transit Police: If you’re looking for a job in law enforcement in the Washington area, you’re in luck: Two different stories this morning indicate there are plenty of vacancies with the Metro Transit Police and the U.S. Park Police. Both agencies say they are making recruitment a bigger priority to fill their staffing shortages, and both could be facing a bit of a morale problem due to increased challenges in recent years related to things like anti-terrorism responsibilities.

Briefly Noted: D.C. teen dies in stolen vehicle crash … Suspicious fires at Northwest apartment building … Two D.C. teens killed when their car flipped over a railing … Police blocked protesters of a white nationalist conference at a hotel near Dulles.

Photo by m hoek