Good morning, Washington. A pair of potentially scary incidents happened overnight, but luckily both turned out to be a lot less serious than they could have been. In New York City, what looks to have been an improvised explosive device detonated and blew a hole through the front door of an Armed Forces recruiting station in Times Square early this morning. Thankfully, no one was injured, but officials are investigating the explosion for possible links to terrorism. Here in Washington, late in the day security officials nearly evacuated the Capitol yesterday after an unidentified plane entered restricted airspace. But the pilot was quickly reached by air traffic controllers and left the restricted airspace, so no evacuation was ever ordered.

Tax and Revenue Hearing Doesn’t Amount to Much: The Post reports from yesterday’s D.C. Council oversight hearing on the state of the embattled Office of Tax and Revenue, only to discover that hardly any D.C. Council members bothered to show up for it, probably because they weren’t expecting to get any real answers thanks to the U.S. attorney’s desire to keep the ongoing investigation under wraps. The Examiner points out a couple revealing items from the hearing: The CFO’s Office of Integrity and Oversight opened investigations on 52 employees accused of threats, thefts, embezzlement, bribery, assault, illegal drugs and falsification of documents in the wake of the scandal, and has fired six employees for lying about their pasts.

Cost of Accidents Higher than Congestion: A new AAA report indicates the cost of vehicle crashes in the D.C. region is more than $5 billion a year, compared with a $2.3 billion loss to congestion. The reports accuses local officials of refusing to allocate enough resources to improve traffic safety.

Briefly Noted: Catania wants to bar the city from doing business with Iran … Massachusetts Gov. to speak at Howard Univ. … Major delays along I-95 after big accident in Howard County … Safeway domestic violence shooting leads to 28-year prison sentence.

This Day in DCist: In 2007 we wondered if there was a Santeria feud happening in Mt. Pleasant, and in 2006 we took a look at whether February was usually a good or a bad month for crime in the District.

Photo by AlbinoFlea