Photo by maxedaperture

Good morning, Washington. So I go on vacation for a week (many thanks to Eddie, Martin, Heather, and Mike for filling in while I was gone!), and Connecticut Avenue gets invaded by bears? This year’s spring weather may have been the second warmest in history, but hopefully the local climate hasn’t changed so much that we’re poised to be overrun by vicious, godless killing machines. Haven’t we got enough to worry about?

MLK, Jr. Memorial Stranded by Greek Economic Crisis: Among the victims of the devastating financial crisis in Greece: the planned Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Michael Ruane reports in the Washington Post that the large pieces of stone destined to make up the city’s newest memorial are stranded at a shipping dock in China, with no way of getting to the United States. Greece had originally offered to transport the materials for free, as a way to honor the legacy of the civil rights leader, but now that the crisis has hit, the country has had to back out of the plan, unable to find any Greek shippers still willing to take on the job. Thanks to the snafu, the schedule for the installation of the memorial may well be thrown out of whack.

DCPS Enrollment Predicted to Increase: The Office of the State Superintendent of Education expects a large influx of Pre-K students to lead to the first increase in D.C. Public Schools enrollment since the early 1970s, Leah Fabel reports in the Examiner. After decades of declines, that’s a pretty big deal, but it also speaks to the challenges still ahead for the older grades. “Kindergarteners and fourth- and fifth-grade students are expected to increase enrollment slightly next year, while other grades will likely see a small decline as some parents continue to opt for charter and private schools or move to the suburbs.”

Briefly Noted: Police investigate suspicious death in Silver Spring … Retired D.C. police lieutenant injured in carjacking … Teenager shot, killed in Anacostia … No Md. employees enroll same-sex spouses for health benefits … Alexandria increasingly home to more and more senior citizens.

This Day in DCist: In 2009, we were trying to nail down the identity of The Real World house, and in 2007, a handful of the city’s long-closed library branches finally started to see some progress.