But fear not: there’s still a dwindling stock of (202) numbers left to be handed out.

The (202) area code has long been running low on phone numbers, prompting the introduction of a new (771) area code.

Yesterday D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Vince Gray announced a number of arrests in connection to thefts of electronic gadgets, which have spiked in 2012.

No matter how much you love that new Gmail interface or the gas station-bought disposable cell phone, they have no place in Mayor Vince Gray’s administration. Or so he claims.

The D.C. time and weather hotline — which, to our surprise, a whole bunch of city residents still cared deeply about despite the advent of the Internet — has finally bit the dust.

So says the Beeb, which notes that Washingtonians should now have “fully restored” service on however many devices they haven’t been able to obsessively tap on of late.

An international interruption in BlackBerry services is now affecting North America, which means that a majority of people inside offices on Capitol Hill and along K Street are probably running around wondering if they should crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside.

UPDATE: Looks like we might have helped to blow the service’s cover — we tried calling the service again later this morning and were greeted by a message stating that Verizon would no longer be maintaining the service. Those of you who still use the service will have to keep your fingers crossed that another organization picks up the contract to keep the hotline alive.

Federal officials announced today that many smartphone users in Washington will receive alerts regarding “national or regional emergencies” — similar to those familiar Emergency Broadcast System television announcements — on their cell phones beginning by the end of the year. According to the New York Times, the service, which will also be installed in New York, will be available to those who have a special chip inside their phones and will pass along messages like “alerts issued by the president, information about public safety threats and Amber Alerts for missing children.”

I remember once as a kid calling the time service over and over, on a bored rainy day. It seemed so funny to me that you could call a number and get the time of day, as if you couldn’t just look at a clock. Well, it turns out you won’t be able to do that, nor get the weather via hotline, anymore.