Animal rights group PETA has accused the National Zoo of using animals as props for a recent fundraising cocktail party, saying that it subjected a cheetah, penguin and wallaby to conditions that they are not used to.

In this morning’s roundup, we told you how the tenure of Andrea Pringle, Vince Gray’s new Deputy Chief of Staff, was already off to a rocky start — local government watchdog Dorothy Brizill filed a formal complaint with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, accusing Pringle of voting in the District’s 2010 mayoral primary while living in Montgomery County.

In 2009, a local lesbian couple claimed that they were unfairly asked to leave the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring after a manager at the restaurant witnessed them in an embrace. Today, the diner’s back in the news for similar reasons.

Like everyone else, we’ve spent the morning pouring over the scintillating federal complaint [PDF] against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested this morning, along with his close aide John Harris, on charges of attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder, and attempting to use his office to influence the Chicago Tribune’s Editorial Board. Read all 78 pages if you have the time, but here…