>> “Hundreds of guests at the Washington Plaza Hotel were evacuated this morning after smoke filled the hotel’s basement because of an overheated sump pump.” [WaPo] >> “The greens at East Potomac Golf Course are looking more brown these days due to a mix up by a government contractor who mistook herbicide for fertilizer.” [WJLA] >> “Sajani Shakya, a 10-year-old Nepalese girl who jeopardized her status as a “living goddess” by traveling to the…

Our post on a noise controversy in Glover Park yesterday mentioned that neighborhood’s newly created e-mail listserv on Yahoo Groups. That post got us thinking about neighborhood e-mail groups, and exactly how many there were around the city. These e-mail lists are generally open to the public and whether moderated or unmoderated serve as community forums for discussing neighborhood topics. The Columbia Heights list has even been such a hotbed of discussion it sparked a…

Today will be mostly cloudy with a chance of rain in the morning and highs around 60. The photo is one of the historical images posted by Petworth News of some D.C. streetcars. Hourly Car Rental Increasing: The Post profiles today the expanding popularity of the two major hourly car rental services in the region: Flexcar and Zipcar. The D.C. area is unique because it’s the only place both companies have gone head-to-head: “After three-plus…

Through Petworth News, we learn that the essayist, playwright and thinker Gore Vidal will be laid to rest at Rock Creek Cemetery in Northwest Washington. While this isn’t necessarily anything newsworthy, it’s an interesting item for future chroniclers of the city’s various monuments to note. According to Petworth News (where we snagged this photo), Vidal buried his longtime partner, Harold Auster, at the cemetery last month. The Vidal plot is located near a monument to…