Registered voters in Wards 1 and 2 received a postcard in the mail a few weeks back announcing the special election scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 21 — but in the off chance you quickly tossed in the garbage, allow us to fill you in: In April, D.C. Board of Education member Jeff Smith resigned his seat in protest immediately after the D.C. Council gave preliminary approval to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s school takeover plan, so now…

Maybe we just have a short memory, but yesterday was the first day of the summer that felt oppressively awful in that distinctly D.C.-ish way. Apparently we weren’t the only ones — NBC4 says that a bunch of kids from the National Student Leadership Council who were visiting Capitol Hill became sick from the heat, requiring treatment in a Senate office building (they’re all fine). Today promises to be two degrees hotter. Md. Teacher Sentenced…

On December 30, 2004, D.C. Public Libraries closed four branches — the Anacostia, Benning, Tenley-Friendship and Watha T. Daniel/Shaw neighborhood branches — announcing replacement libraries in 18 months. That schedule was upended by DCPL management changes, leaving those communities without functioning libraries, and D.C. residents everywhere complaining about the sad state of a city that seemed to have the wrong priorities. But over the last few months, things have started to turn around. First, interim…

>> Roundly derided for over a month now in the media, Judge Roy L. Pearson has dropped the pants from his $67 million lawsuit against Custom Cleaners. In April, Pearson filed suit against the cleaners for misplacing his favorite pair of pants. Pearson has now altered his complaint to focus on the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Same Day Service” promises made by the shop. And now he’s only asking for a measly $54 million. Gee,…

Chris Palmer doesn’t fit the stand-up comic profile at all. Wildlife documentarian. Harvard Kennedy Scholar. Founder, President and CEO of the non-profit National Audubon Society Productions. AU Film Producer in Residence. And he won’t look the part either — perfectly-coiffed and suited for every performance, as demonstrated at right, with the proper Brit accent to match. It all started in January, when his daughter Kimberly showed him a flyer on stand-up comedy training at the…