Good morning, Washington. Think good thoughts for Tian Tian, the National Zoo’s male giant panda and the biological father of Tai Shan/Butterstick. Tian Tian underwent eye surgery yesterday to remove inflamed tissue from one of his third eyelids. He’s expected to make a full recovery, but in the meantime he’ll have to live with the shame of being the one to expose this whole pandas having third eyelids monstrosity. DCist has always held a…

Good morning, Washington. We’ll be standing by for a good chunk of the day to see what the Metro Board decides to do about the proposed fare hike – the Board is meeting at 11 a.m. for a session that is expected to produce a final vote on the fare hikes, which could go into effect as soon as January. Board members have indicated they would likely pass a fare hike that is slightly less…

Though it is not yet recognized as such by the jazz audience at large, the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival’s organizers have achieved their goals of mounting a world class festival by assembling a roster of top flight talent, which includes Latin jazz legend and festival artistic adviser Paquito D’Rivera (pictured). These jazz greats will grace stages across the city over the course of the nine day festival, which begins on September 9 with a Taiko…

As we head into the weekend, we’d like to make a small public service announcement. Though we’ve been enjoying unseasonably cool temperatures the past week, the heat is coming back, and we’ll be back to our usual late August sweatbox by tomorrow. We realize that the heat and humidity can make you cranky and irritable. But we beseech you to try to keep your temper cooler than the air outside. We fully grant you your…

Hey Washington — ever feel like you just don’t have enough to worry about when it comes to walking down the street in your own neighborhood? Sure, there’s the muggings and other crime, the street harassment, the killer Metrobuses, the screwed up pedestrian signals, the bicyclists vs. the drivers, and the occasional jaywalking sting, but really, who couldn’t use one more thing to add to the list of stuff that makes you never want to…

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy…

>> CNN White House Correspondent Ed Henry spotted Dave Chappelle hanging out outside the White House this morning. He’s reportedly feeling good despite his recent hospital visit, and joked about going after Tony Snow’s job. [CNN Political Ticker] >> The former mayor of the town of Dumfries, VA has been charged with running a brothel out of a sports therapy clinic he owns in a Prince William County strip mall. Melvin Bray lost his…

“Reefer gets you raped. And you won’t care!” Such is one of the hilariously overwrought statements blasted across the screen, 30s public service announcement-style, during Studio Theatre’s hysterical production of Reefer Madness: The Musical. Based loosely upon the 1938 anti-marijuana propaganda film of the same name, the show’s setup involves a high school theater troupe dramatizing the devastating effects of reefer, using the tale of one high school sweetheart couple’s demise as its center….

Mayor Adrian Fenty held a press conference this morning to announce a slew of new cabinet-level nominations for his administration. Topping the list was his decision to go with current interim director of DCRA, Linda Argo, as his nominee to run the department. Argo was previously deputy director of DCRA, responsible for the agency’s public service enhancements. It’s a somewhat uncharacteristic move from Fenty, who has tended to focus his hiring efforts on bringing in…

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…