Any D.C. resident with a laptop who regularly makes a trip to New York or Philadelphia on Amtrak has probably longed for wireless internet access on their journeys. On Monday, Amtrak announced it has installed wireless internet, but just in their stations. Sadly it’s not awesome, free internet, but regular old T-Mobile Hot Spots, which costs money. The hot spots will be available at Union Station, Baltimore Penn Station, Wilmington Station in Delaware, Philadelphia…

Good Friday to you, Washington. Are you getting psyched for the weekend already? No? Did we mention how nice the weather’s going to be yet? Predictions are for mostly sunny skies and low humidity levels on Saturday with below-normal high temperatures in the low 80s and overnight lows sinking down to, get this, the low 60s. It’s like Christmas in August! District Plagued By Lead Concerns: It’s sure starting to feel like we’re having…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I’ll admit, it isn’t easy for me to talk about crime in the District with many of my friends, particularly those who live in the suburbs or outside the metro area entirely. In the minds of those who don’t often visit, Washington is still the murder capital of the United States, still caught in crack wars, still a place into which one…

As April showers wane and spring becomes summer, much of Washington looks toward the shore for respite from city life. Just a few hours (and one long bridge) separate us from Ocean City, Md., home of crabs, boardwalk fries and recently-transplanted Fractured Prune donuts. Local Ocean City businessmen, unwilling to rest on these laurels, have begun stocking the ideal summertime accessory: the flask/flip flop hybrid. WUSA told us about it last night, but the shoe…

Almost a month into the District’s crime emergency, a stricter curfew is in place, surveillance cameras are being installed, and more police are working longer hours on city streets. But is the additional show of force being efficiently applied? Maybe not. One resident explained their grief with the beefed up police presence in today’s edition of D.C. Watch’s online newsletter, The Mail. Describing a recent experience on U Street, she wrote: By now, if you…

Not by Ashton Kutcher, but by Yellow Arrow, an arts and technology project initiated by the New York based mixed-reality and entertainment company, Counts Media. The May issue of Spin magazine reports that in June, Yellow Arrow and its M.A.A.P. (Massively Authored Artistic Publication) makers will be documenting the District’s punk-rock scene by placing their signature yellow arrow stickers on various well known sites around the city. Which hardcore sites could you visit to find…

A few weeks ago, we were invited to sit down and talk with Café Milano executive chef Domenico Cornacchia. Armed with standard questions about culinary school, creative freedom, menu design, and career aspirations, we had hoped to learn what we could about the top man in the back of the house. None of those questions told us more about Domenico Cornacchia as the one we thought would get glossed over more quickly than the rest:…

(Written by Kanishka Gangopadhyay and Catherine Andrews. All photos by Catherine Andrews) Just south of the convention center and north of Mt. Vernon Square is a fairly dismal block of real estate occupied by a venerable leather bar and a Morrocan restaurant. On Friday the two welcomed an unlikely new neighbor, Avenue — the latest entry into the District’s “velvet rope” scene. Tempted by the promise of an open bar, a few DCists stopped…

It seems that with the runup to the elections, there has been so much focus on how the Bush administration has handled the past four years. Adding to the intense focus is PBS’s highly acclaimed documentary series Frontline, which presents an in-depth look at the state of the American military establishment tonight at 9 p.m. on WETA. In collaboration with The Washington Post, the documentary, titled “Rumsfeld’s War,” promises to showcase a battle for control…

The District is declaring victory in its multi-year initiative to reduce speeding and agressive driving. When the Photo Radar Speeding Reduction Program started in July 2001, of the nearly 50,000 vehicles clocked, there were about 15,000 violations. In July 2004, of the nearly 1.4 million vehicles monitored, there were 61,000 violations. If you do the math, and the District has, as of last month, only 4.4 percent of vehicles monitored were driving agressively. In July…