Good morning, Washington. Sure, you’re probably bummed out to be back at your desk at work on Monday, sorting through email, looking at the meetings you have scheduled for the week and wondering why you ever came back from the shore. In our ongoing effort to make you feel just a little bit better about the choices you made through the course of your life that led directly to this situation, we’ll try: a) hey, at least gas prices seems to be going down just a little! or b) things could be worse, you could be working for the city’s summer jobs program! Any luck with those? No? Well, go ahead and move on to the really depressing headlines, then.

Storm Causes Power Outages, Damage: It’s really been the summer of wild thunderstorms, hasn’t it? Sunday afternoon’s storm caused power to go out for about 1,800 customers in Northeast, overturned boats at the Aquapalooza Festival in the Potomac, forcing rescue efforts, and a woman in Silver Spring appears to have been struck by lightning.

Another Violent Weekend: It’s the height of summer, so we shouldn’t exactly be surprised that more violence plagued the city again this weekend, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. Last night a man was shot and killed outside a housing project near the Washington Convention Center, and two people were wounded in a separate shooting at 15th and W NW, at the edge of Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park. Six people were shot and injured on Friday night along a section of North Capitol Street in Eckington. One suspect has been arrested in those shootings, but police are still looking for one more.

Briefly Noted: Elderly woman dies in early morning fire in Alexandria … Plan for new MPD forensics lab and First District police station could be delayed due to Council questions over funding … Mayor Fenty is going to the Olympics … More dead ducks pulled from the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

Photo by lovedc