It’s big news for D.C. flyers who need to escape our decidedly square environs and make it to hipper climes: direct flights from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to both San Francisco and Portland were announced today, along with Austin and San Juan.

Good morning, Washington. You know, it didn’t seem like that much of a storm. But apparently last night’s brief thunder and lightning wrought more than their fair share of havoc: lightning struck a shopping center in Maryland, badly damaging it. In fact, WJLA had footage of the shopping center’s laundromat last night — it had been completely obliterated. We had no idea! Still, it at least appears that the power system wasn’t too badly affected:…

>> Is the Rock and Roll Hotel haunted? While John Edward (not Edwards) or a similarly qualified expert has yet to confirm it, the staff says they’ve seen and heard a few eerie things. The owner explains that the club stands on the site of an old funeral home. Maybe they couldn’t get prime Indian burial ground real estate. [via Wonkette] >> The D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission hosts a community meeting tonight to discuss…

It might be one of the most disheartening experiences in Washington. You leave your house one day, walk out to your car, and you see a big piece of paper on the windshield. “Please tell me the clubs have just gotten more aggressive with their advertising,” you think to yourself, but no, it says, “DO NOT MOVE THIS CAR.” You rush to the street side of your vehicle only to find 40 pounds of orange…

We tip our hat to Grammar.police for pointing us to a May 1 piece in the Post we missed when we were on vacation where Blake Gopnik pushed the idea of renaming the Corcoran Gallery of Art to bring in more visitors. Saying the current Corcoran name has an identity problem, Gopnik suggests a name promoting it as a national center of photography: You could even imagine that the Corcoran Museum of Photography — why…

Ambivalent Images took this photo of a statue and monument in Lafayette Square across from the White House, but didn’t know who it memorialized. Well it’s Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, the French general sent to aid George Washington during the American Revolution. This statue was Checkpoint No. 3 in the 2003 Urban Challenge, which this DCist ran. Now on to the Morning Roundup … More on Anthrax Scare: While it looks…