Photo by angela n.

Good morning, Washington. Yay: “climatically speaking, we are at the peak of summer heat and average temperatures head downhill after this weekend,” writes meteorologist David Streit. Thank goodness, because this humidity and heat is becoming seriously old hat. But with that peak will come some more miserable heat — while tonight’s forecast in the low 70s should make for a beautiful evening for stooping, dining outside or enjoying a neighborhood stroll, we’re looking at record-breaking temperatures this weekend.

What Can Brown’s Debt Do For You? It seems like it’s the question of the week: how much will Kwame Brown’s significant debt cost him in the race for Council Chairman? One person who definitely cares is VIncent Orange, who has asked the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade to reconsider their endorsements of Brown. It looks like Orange might just roll the dice and hope that the vote will be a referendum on personal spending — so will it work? Alan Suderman digs into the history and looks around at the other spat of issues which have plagued the rest of the Council and concludes that Brown probably shouldn’t worry too much.

SYEP Payday: Glitches Were Involved How’s this for predictable: “The first full payday of the District’s historically rocky Summer Youth Employment Program went smoothly overall, although not without some glitches,” says the Post. Turns out that while the program did better at paying participants this year, some youth were not paid, including more than 120 employees of the Mayor’s Conservation Corps. All told, the city is only investigating complaints from less than one percent of participants, so it’s hard to complain that much.

New Education Standards: The D.C. State Board of Education voted to adopt new national standards in English and math, joining Maryland and two dozen other states. (Virginia has decided to continue with its own standards reform program.) The Common Core State Standards Initiative aims to establish a national base for what children should be learning — you can check out more detail on the standards here and here.

Briefly Noted: Two girls seriously injured after being hit by car in Northeast…Virginia man due in court on terrorism charges today…Freeman Klopott digs into MPD’s sexual assault statistics…Fenty wins Ward 2 straw poll handily…Anonymous political posters apparently need copyright protection…Who smothers an entire playground in peanut butter?

This Day In DCist: Last year, we checked in on renovations to the fire-damaged Georgetown Neighborhood Library, and in 2008, we wondered what was making people wait in the heat around the Capital Hilton.