Remember those billboards that popped up in the 1980s that counted up the national debt, dollar by dollar? Pretty scary, huh? Well, District voting rights activists want something similar for their cause. Today the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would allow the city to place two large LED billboards — one outside the John A. Wilson Building and the other outside the new Washington Nationals stadium — that would display the amount…

>> D.C. police will spend $3 million in the 3rd Police District on an anti-gang initiative. [WaPo] >> Montgomery County Del. Jane Lawton, 63, died of an apparent heart attack this morning, collapsing after giving a speech in downtown Washington. Lawton also served as a four-term mayor of Chevy Chase. [Md. Moment] >> If you have an elderly relative living at either Carolyn Boone Lewis Health Care Center in D.C. or Ruxton Health of…

Good morning, Washington. It looks like California’s still on fire, and likely to remain so. Most versions of the aforelinked AP story include the phrase “firefighters all but concede defeat,” and the Post is calling the resulting evacuation the largest in modern history. It all sounds pretty grim. Good luck, West Coast. Yet More Stadium Parking Controversy: The Post reports on the latest in a seemingly neverending series of deliberations over parking at the…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. This week, I (carefully) picked up and began reading The Power Broker, the epic (and massive) Robert Caro biography of infamous New York master builder Robert Moses. Bob Moses, it turns out, was one of the best-trained civil service experts of the age when he first began working for the city. He was, as Caro describes him, a consummate idealist, passionately dedicated…

>> 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…

How do you like that wind, D.C.? And the still pretty cold temperatures? Well this nonsense is here to stay through the weekend, with the possibility of some wintry mix on Sunday. Lovely. We feel sure, however, that spring is still just around the corner. It has to be! So let’s try our best to keep on the sunny side of life until it gets here, current temperatures be damned. For instance, instead of focusing…

>> Soon-to-be Mayor Fenty has named Brian K. Lee as interim fire chief and attorney Matthew Cutts to chair the Sports and Entertainment Commission, as well as three mayoral appointments to the D.C. Board of Education: Laura McGiffert Slover, Tonya Vidal Kinlow, and Herb Scott. [WaPo] >> The Yellow Line extension is Coming! The Yellow Line is extension is coming! On Sunday. [AP via WTOP] >> Eric Schaeffer of Signature Theater reveals the wild partying…

Ahhh, the stadium parking saga would be hilarious were it not so maddening. WTOP is reporting that the city may finally have found a solution to what is sure to be a lack of parking at the new stadium — RFK. No, seriously. RFK. The old stadium. Where the Nats are playing now, and where you park NOW. Read for yourself: City and team officials are looking at alternatives for parking at the new stadium….

My, that was fast. After Adrian Fenty overwhelmingly won the Democratic mayoral primary, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who had long endorsed Cropp and actively warned of the dangers of a Fenty victory, seemed to accept the defeat gracefully. He promised Fenty the necessary funds for a transition team, appeared alongside Fenty at a Capitol Hill hearing on D.C. voting rights, and even submitted legislation giving Fenty a hefty raise. But today WTOP reports that the…

It’s rainy, it’s windy, and every day it gets colder. But it could be worse, Washington — you could be Anthony Mereos. The Silver Spring man is facing a $80,000 fee for illegally clearing trees from land he purchased for $65,000 (he denies cutting the trees down). Mereos had intended to use the land to build a home for his family. But wait! It gets worse: [Mereos’ laywer Shawn] Whittaker said the county is using…