With the books finally closed on 2007, we can take an official look at the crime statistics for the year. The Washington Post did so yesterday and found that, as expected, violent crime in the District was up last year as compared to the previous year. You can view some of the District’s 2007 crime data at the MPD’s site over here. It shows that 2007 saw 181 murders, up 7.7 percent from 2006, which…

>> The Yes! Organic Market in Brookland was robbed just after All Hands on Deck ended over the weekend. [Free Ride] >> Don’t be alarmed if you see and hear a lot of military flights at odd hours today and tonight. [WTOP] >> Progress on the O Street Market development. [Fifth and Oh] >> “What’s next? The Lucky Lemur? The Gray Chinchilla?” [metrocurean] Photo by soleil1016…

Good morning, Washington. Are ya ready for some embezzlement scandal news? Of course you are! This morning’s update comes not from the embattled Office of Tax and Revenue, but rather from the D.C. Public Schools front office, as the Examiner reports that Eugene Smith, the former director of internal audits for DCPS, entered a guilty plea yesterday to charges of stealing nearly $50,000 from a charter school account. Smith was fired by the school system…

How about that first snow storm of the season, Washington? CapitalWeather.com says that “yesterday’s clipper system actually significantly ‘over-performed,'” which is why we ended up with 2-4″ of snow for the region instead of the 1″ we were originally expecting. The Examiner was concerned about your commute this morning thanks to overnight lows that were forecast to drop into the low 20s, allowing for ice to refreeze on the roads in time for this…

Good morning, Washington. It’s Friday, and the city is still reacting to yesterday afternoon’s announcement about how our new taxi meters are going to work. We already told you about the $4 flag drop, which many people are already saying is too high, and the fact that taxi roof lights will go on and off automatically to indicate whether a cab has a passenger, which everyone seems to agree is long overdue. One more thing…

Good morning, Washington. Have a good Halloween? We have to admit, this year’s midweek scheduling kind of put a damper on the holiday’s opportunities for costumed revelry. It didn’t stop us from eating a ridiculous amount of candy, though. Naturally, we feel that the children are to blame: if more kids had stopped by we wouldn’t be stuck with this glut of chocolate and dearth of willpower. Perhaps this is why our childhood neighbors…

>> Candey Hardware on 18th and Connecticut is closing its doors for good tonight. [Free Ride] >> Police Chief Cathy Lanier has scheduled another “All Hands on Deck” weekend after four murders took place in D.C.’s Fifth District over the past week. [WJLA] >> Surprise, surprise, the O Street Market development plans are being delayed. [ANC2C02 Forum via 14th & You] >> Va. Sen. John Warner is back in the hospital for a third…

Good Morning, Washington. In an apparent attempt to rule the D.C. media landscape through terror and intimidation, the Washington Post has published the scariest local news story we’ve ever read this morning: apparently, these disgusting-looking creatures called camel crickets are infesting area basements due to the lack of moisture in the ground thanks to the region’s rather serious drought. Described as “a mix between a spider and a cricket” and accompanied by disturbing photographic…

On Monday morning at a little after 11 a.m., we noticed a pair of beat cops walking along U Street NW near 12th Street. In many other cities, this would certainly be nothing to take note of, but in D.C., the cries from neighborhood associations and individual residents for more officers to patrol on foot have been heard for years. Police Chief Cathy Lanier thus rightly made a big deal out of increasing the number…

Over at the Examiner, Scott McCabe points us to the rage of L’Enfant Cafe co-owner Christopher Lynch, who was reportedly arrested and jailed for several hours last week after being caught riding an unregistered scooter. After hearing similar stories from a friend and a pizza delivery driver who works nearby, McCabe posted a rant on the door to his restaurant, decrying the mixed up priorities of the MPD, who in his view are aggressively targeting…