Photo by jimbographer.

Good morning, Washington. Happy (observed) Emancipation Day! Don’t forget that most of the city’s government has the day off today — thanks both to the holiday and the second city-mandated furlough of the year. Mayor Vince Gray won’t be kicking up his heels though: he’s still on the autonomy warpath, and plans to join student activists at a midday protest of the 2011 federal budget, which the Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed yesterday. We’d put the chances of Gray getting arrested again as relatively low, but hey, you never know.

D.C. Schools Feeling The Squeeze: Despite the fact that Gray’s proposed 2012 budget would increase overall funding for D.C. Public Schools by $67 million, nearly forty percent of the city’s schools will lose funding, reports Bill Turque. Some schools, like Amidon-Bowen Elementary and School Without Walls, would face severe cuts in per-pupil funding, leading to reductions in the number of teachers and staff members.

Fly The Hardly Reassuring Skies: The recent incident in which an overnight air traffic controller at National fell asleep on the job — accurately described as “outrageous” and “ridiculous” by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — was but the tip of the iceberg which led to the ouster of federal air traffic control system head Hank Krakowski, notes Ashley Halsey III. But anyone who has any trepidation about flying probably will want to avoid reading Halsey’s piece, as an FAA official summed up the state of airline safety as such: “But everybody knows it’s a matter of time [until a major accident happens], and I hope when that time comes we don’t look back on it and say, ‘Yeah, I guess we should have fixed that.’ ”

Briefly Noted: Did Led Zeppelin actually play the Wheaton Youth Center in 1969?…Fire in office building at 2400 N Street NW causes $100,000 in damage…Foreclosures down sharply in D.C. region…Sekou Biddle may have taken GGW’s instant runoff voting experiment a little too seriously…Lululemon murder court hearing postponed…Pedestrians struck in Bethesda, on G.W. Parkway…D.C. leads in green building certifications…”It’s not the dying that troubles Vernon Peterson, who trudges past his own headstone most days at this all-black burial ground in rural Loudoun County. It’s what happens afterward, when he’s no longer around to look after Rock Hill Cemetery.”

This Day in DCist: Last year, it turns out a D.C. police officer’s tale of being carjacked in Baltimore was slightly embellished and District CFO Nat Gandhi laid the smackdown on Michelle Rhee.