- Bryan Weaver on the death of Jamal Coates and the District’s epidemic of youth violence: “The best way to stop a bullet is an education and a job.” Read the whole essay.
- Oh, you thought D.C.’s FY2011 budget was in bad shape, what with the $175 million budget gap and not many places to cut spending? Vince Gray says that FY2012 is looking at a $400 million deficit. (Though that figure does include this year’s deficit.)
- Five people were taken to the hospital after a shoplifter unleashed pepper spray while trying to elude store management at Ballston Common Mall.
- So far, participation in free HIV testing at the Penn Branch DMV has been higher than expected.
- Unsuck DC Metro has the story of a Metro station manager who didn’t even leave his desk after riders informed him of an unconscious woman on the platform. One passenger called 911; Metro responded to an email that passenger sent and said that the station manager should have called Central Control.
- USA Today has your scaremongering map of the day, a graphical representation of the states that have the highest number of highway murders over the last forty years. D.C.’s had one. North Dakota’s the only state with none, while Texas has had the most, 38.
- The Nationals haven’t played particularly well in their new digs. But to be fair: the 2008 and 2009 versions of the team would have stunk up a stadium made exclusively of potpourri and those candles that smell like chocolate.
- Don’t you dare bring chewing gum or balloons onto to the grounds of the White House. Speaking of the executive mansion, it’s going solar.
- One for us Simpsons nerds: a collection of brainstorms from former Simpsons writer Bill Oakley, who opened up his vault to share what the process of writing for the show in its halcyon days was like.
Photo by msdeena.
