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Washington woke up to a happy surprise today: Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s female giant panda, gave birth to a cub on Sunday night.

Another long-running neighborhood festival seems at risk as D.C. officials are pushing for the annual Fiesta D.C. to move from Mt. Pleasant to Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s the day before Bike to Work Day, and Capital Bikeshare announced this afternoon that it had hit two million rides since the system went online in September 2010.

Despite the fact that there’s little that’s truly Chinese about the District’s Chinatown, the annual celebration of the Chinese New Year — 2012 is the Year of the Dragon — took place yesterday. Plenty of the city’s great photographers were on hand to capture the color and character of the parade, and here’s but a small sampling of yesterday’s festivities.

Yay! It’s Repeal Day, the day on which we celebrate the 1933 constitutional amendment to abandon the wrong-headed policy of prohibition. Everywhere but in the District, that is.

I kid, I kid — it really is nice to see the Nationals getting so excited about anything, especially considering that their recent hot streak (nine wins in their last ten games) has unfortunately coincided with a similar streak by the team they are chasing in the standings.

With the end of the year approaching, museums are mostly holding new exhibits until the upcoming year, but many are offering holiday festivities. But keep in mind if you’re entertaining relatives in town this month: the Smithsonian museums are closed on December 25.

Image by Walter Meayers Edwards. Courtesy Kodachrome Culture from the National Geographic Museum >> The Phillips Collection opens Paint Made Flesh June 20. This survey of figurative painting since the 1950s brings together 43 provocative works from private collections and museums around the world. The exhibit includes work by Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Alice Neal, Lucian Freud, Eric Fischl, and Julian Schnabel. $12. >> During the post-World War II boom years,…

Kenny Hunter – 2009, Like Water in Water, courtesy Connor Contemporary Art Big news in the art world this week is the opening of the ginormous art event that is Artomatic on Friday. Back for another landmark year, Artomatic promises more of what you’ve come to expect from this come one come all art extravaganza. We’ll have more Artomatic coverage for you soon, so check back in with us tomorrow for a run down…