The festival opens on June 18.

President Obama is mourning his fellow Chicagoan, the film critic Roger Ebert, who died today at age 70 following a recurrence of cancer.

Ebert wanted his iconic television set to go to the National Museum of American History. Instead, the set was destroyed.

Photo by bsoist On Thursday, Sommer related the news from the National Report Card that the District of Columbia Public Schools system made some incredible gains at the 4th grade reading levels. This afternoon, @ebertchicago picked up on the results, tweeting some high praise for D.C. schools czar Michelle Rhee: “D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s reforms are paying off: District students LED THE NATION in reading gains–across all ethnic lines.” That’s high praise indeed! Ebert’s…

This week we’d like to congratulate the -ist network’s Mother Hen, Gothamist’s Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine’s Wired Rave Award. If that doesn’t sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that’s right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making…

This photo of street art near Shaw was taken by Georgetown freshman Matt Kallman. Today will be mostly sunny with highs around 60. Nationals Opener Tonight: Tonight is the Nationals opening night, and tickets are flying back and forth for the game on Craigslist. (You can also find tickets for tonight’s sold out Moby show at the 9:30 Club) The Examiner, Post, and W. Times all have stories about the Nats. We expect the…