Photo by Michael DeAngelis

Good morning, Washington. If you’re a D.C. public school student, teacher, or administrator, this is the last real free weekend you have before the school year starts on Monday. So make it count.

Post Profiles Vince Gray: If you’re sick of candidate profiles, you probably shouldn’t read today’s Post take on D.C. Council Chair Vince Gray. But if you’re still undecided, give it a shot. It says exactly what you’d expect of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s biggest challenger — he’s thoughtful, process-oriented, and brought needed discipline and consensus to the council. About the only bad things anyone has to say in the whole profile is Attorney General Peter Nickles, who claims that Gray was too quick to give in to whoever was the loudest member of the council on any one issue. (The City Paper profiled Gray in late July; this week they’ve got a sharp-elbowed take on Fenty.)

If You Hate Socialism and Think Barack Obama Might be a Muslim…: …you should join Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and lots of freedom-loving Americans at the Lincoln Memorial for good ‘ol rally on August 28.

Pepco Promises Improvements After Repeated Power Losses: The story has been surprisingly consistent over the last few weeks — massive storm, thousands of people left without power. According to WTOP, Pepco, which has taken its lumps for being too slow to restore power to affected households, has outlined a plan to make sure that people don’t lose power to begin with when a big storm hits. The plan includes increased tree trimming, replacing under-performing feeders (power lines serving more than 1,100 people), and improving automation so the grid can’t can identify and respond to outages more quickly. The five-year plan is set to cost just over $250 million.

Two D.C. Legislators Question Whether Rhee Will Stay Or Not: The Examiner reports that D.C. Council member Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5) and Council Chair candidate Kwame Brown are wondering if Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee will stay in the District, even if Mayor Fenty wins his re-election contest. Both question whether Rhee will remain on the job, especially considering that she’s set to marry Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson a few days after the District’s Democratic primary.

Briefly Noted: Virginia congressional representative becomes a slug for a day … Bank of America ordered to pay D.C. $13.5 million for tax office scam … Virginia budget surplus spurs calls for fiscal changes.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2009, we discovered that a disgraced New York Times plagiarist had become a life coach and a window-washer was saved after his scaffolding on a 11-story building collapsed. In 2008, the then new Smart Bike program was talking expansion and another local band called it quits.