Photo by Rukasu1

Good morning, Washington. In case you missed our Tweets about this last night, on Wednesday afternoon, Washington Post education reporter Bill Turque put up a blog post that was critical of his own newspaper’s editorial stance on controversial DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee. We linked to and quoted from it in our end of the day roundup. Several hours later, however, the Post had completely removed the sharp-tongued rebuke from their web site. It was down for a couple hours. Then around 11:30 p.m. last night, it reappeared, only this time, with the strongly worded passages removed, but absolutely no note attached for the readers explaining that it had been edited since it was originally posted. Trouble is, this thing got linked to all over the place on Wednesday, hours before it was yanked down and replaced. The original version was widely read. And now the Washington Post is trying to pretend like it doesn’t exist. Erik Wemple has more.

Metro Board to Vote Today on Emergency Budget Fix: The WMATA Board is set to vote today on the best way to plug the last $16 million out of an unexpected $40 million budget gap that sprung up on the transit agency at the end of this fiscal year. Last night, the board heard testimony from hundreds of area residents, and we’ll have more on that shortly. The bottom line of most of those who showed up to testify seemed to be: we’re willing to pay more to make sure this transit system doesn’t start sucking even more than it already does.

Council Deadline on Contracts Extended: D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray agreed to allow the legislative body’s own deadline to stop payment on the $875 million in contracts that Mayor Fenty never submitted for approval last year to be extended yet again, as Nikita Stewart reports in the Post. “Gray (D) told Gandhi on Wednesday to continue paying the vendors as Gray tries to resolve the dispute without disrupting services, council sources said.”

Briefly Noted: Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell gives GOP response after the SotU … Teen shot and killed in the 800 block of Barnaby Street SE … Former Sen. Mathias’ funeral set for Tuesday … D.C. Judge claims ex-lover stalked her … No charges for Fairfax officer in traffic shooting

This Day in DCist: In 2009, President Barack Obama made fun of Washington’s lack of flinty toughness when it comes to dealing with winter weather, and in 2008, we looked at which books are the favorites of local college students.