Good morning, D.C. Thanks for your patience this morning. A technical snafu left us unable to publish for a while, but things should be back to normal now.

Speaking of patience, the National Zoo is teasing us with the possibility of a brand new panda cub. Mei Xiang, who was artificially inseminated in March, has apparently been “nest building, licking her paws, cradling toys and eating more than usual.” So as is typical with the mysterious reproductive systems of pandas, she’s either pregnant, or actually not at all pregnant and only seems like she might be. The zoo’s female panda has had false pregnancies four out of the last five years, with the exception of 2005, when she gave birth to Tai Shan/Butterstick. At least zoo officials are saying we could know for sure either way by the end of the week — fingers crossed?

Death of 12-year-old Ruled a Strangulation: Results of an autopsy on the 12-year-old girl who was found dead in a Northeast apartment shows that she died of strangulation and that her death was a homicide. Police had originally suspected that Marisol Caceres had died from stab wounds. The apartment where she was found showed no signs of forced entry. An investigation is underway.

Closed Summer Jobs Site Threatens to Sue: After reports emerged that teens at one of the job sites associated with the District’s youth summer jobs program were sitting around for nearly a month with nothing to do, the city shut it down and shuffled all the kids to different jobs. Now the Post reports that leaders of the East of the River Academy are threatening legal action against the city because they say officials did not follow proper complaint procedures. Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry has come out on the side of the Academy, saying the city “illegally and irresponsibly shut [the] program down.” Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles responded with a letter arguing that due process is by definition shorter when the program in question only runs for a short period of time in the summer.

Briefly Noted: China opens its new embassy in D.C. … More than 230,000 federal stimulus checks remain unclaimed in Maryland, Virginia and the District … Variable speed limit technology to debut on I-95 … Fire destroys haunted house attraction at Six Flags … Thieve steal tires from PG County Delegate’s Cadillac.

This Day in DCist: Last year, Metro was figuring out how to explain that they kill birds all the time, and the year before that, we looked at the trend of open kitchens in restaurants.

Photo by staceyviera