Photo by mr.glos

Good morning, Washington. It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the exodus has begun in earnest — plenty of folks in the District are making for their planes, trains and automobiles to get home for the holiday, giving our fair city a distinct feeling of being a ghost town. If you’re stuck at work or staying put for the holiday, we’ll be here with news, insight, commentary and the biggest and best Black Friday door buster deals. Okay, everything but that last one, but we’ll be here regardless.

More Students Take Advantage of D.C. Voucher Program: The Examiner reports that some 1,600 students have used a federally funded voucher program to enroll in private schools in the District this year, an increase of 60 percent over last year. The $100 million program was renewed by Republicans in April after Democrats had ended it in 2009 after complaints that it drew students away from public schools and undermined D.C. Home Rule. Students who qualify get $12,000 for high school or $8,000 for elementary and middle school tuition at any of the 53 participating private schools. The program has divided local officials; at a hearing in February, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown argued for it while Mayor Vince Gray stood against it.

Prince George’s County Officials Get a Raise: With municipal budgets what they are these days, raises shouldn’t be expected. Unless you’re a senior Prince George’s County official, it seems. The Post reports that while county workers are enduring pay freezes, the county council and executive are scheduled to get a 3.4 percent raise next month. The political sensitivity of the raise seems to be obvious to at least some, though — three members of the council and executive Rushern Baker have said that they’ll return the money or donate it to charity. Raises are also in the offing for Montgomery County Council members, but they’ve also pledged to turn them back.

Second Stretch of ICC Opens: It was debated for years, took a while to build and cost a lot of money, but Maryland’s Intercounty Connector is slowly coming to life. Yesterday a second stretch of the toll road, running from Georgia Avenue to east of I-95, opened to the public, writes WTOP. The first seven miles of the road connecting Montgomery and Prince George’s county opened in February; the last stretch is scheduled to be ready by 2014. Once it’s done, it will have cost $2.55 billion.

Briefly Noted: More on the Georgetown University student detained in Egypt … Gray’s administration tries to sway the Post … Norton wants Secure Communities program scrapped … There are two good reasons that the Franklin School wasn’t a great place to occupy — lead and asbestos … Thieves seem to like high-end eyewear … Anacostia Freeway to close on November 30.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2010, the first renderings of the District’s first Walmarts appeared, IHOP threw open its doors in Columbia Heights and Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) had a fight with Giant over turkeys. In 2009, Gilbert Arenas sought one million Twitter followers (while not tweeting at all) and a compromise over the District’s same-sex marriage law seemed uncertain.