Holy Huge Metro Fare Increase, Batman: Metro budget officials are meeting with the WMATA Board today to propose a radically altered fare schedule for Metrorail and Metrobuses, that could have some customers paying $2.10 more than the current fare for a single ride during peak hours. The possible fare changes are multiple and fairly complicated, but on the whole are designed to encourage passengers to make use of SmarTrip Cards instead of cash or paper…

Staffers at the Washington Times just don’t get a break, do they? Apart being regularly lambasted for working for a money-bleeding newspaper owned by the odd Rev. Sun Myung Moon, now they’re getting a in-depth look into the struggle for the paper’s leadership. This week The Nation features as its cover story a 4,200-word expose on the battle between current Editor-in-Chief Wesley Pruden and Preston Moon, the reverend’s son. According to the piece, Pruden, now…

The Washington Times has been scorned by Linda Cropp, and they’re not going to let her get away with it. Not quietly, anyway. It appears that at a Council breakfast meeting yesterday morning, a Times reporter, who was the only journalist present, pulled out a tape recorder. Seeing the device, Chairman Cropp asked the Times to stop recording. After being refused, she calmy pronounced the meeting over. The Times took the affront to the pages…

The church parking debate, once the province of irate residents and their neighborhood listservs, has gone mainstream — D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams took it on yesterday at his weekly press briefing. The Washington Times is reporting that Williams brushed the issue aside, claiming it was his right as the city’s chief executive to arbitrarily enforce District parking laws. Claimed Williams: There’s a zone of discretion for the executive…especially when it comes to something broad and…

It’s hardly a secret that the American people tend towards the larger side. It’s even less a secret that obesity correlates with poverty — the poorer the American, the more likely that they will eat unhealthy foods. And as the Washington Times reported yesterday, donations to local food banks seem not to be helping the problem any. The Times reported that local food banks and soup kitchens are increasingly dealing with donations of candy bars,…

Our email list is blowing up this morning with tips to check out this piece in today’s New York Times, a feature taking a look at the once again bustling U Street drag. The Times claims it can hear hipsters sneering in the opening paragraph, and a few of our favorite locales are omitted, but they avoid calling the area the U District, Hipster Handbook style, and overall it’s a pretty neat little read. NYT…

A funny thing happened during our lunch break. After perusing the Post and reading about how Freddy Adu is gearing up for the upcoming D.C. United season (and how his play with the club team will affect his status on the US National Team, which is preparing for this summer’s World Cup), we headed over to Deadspin where they linked to an article in The Times Online reporting that “agreements are imminent with the player…

Mayor Returns Smoking Ban Unsigned: An unsigned-by-Mayor-Williams smoking ban now heads to the U.S. Congress, which has 30 days to review the legislation. Read: he didn’t veto it, but he’s allowing it to be enacted sans his signature. Williams stated in a Post article that he fears the ban would go “too far in restricting the freedom for individuals to dine and work where they please.” Actually, we think it’s smoking that does that, not…

Good morning, Washington. Either you’re in the throes of a long weekend courtesy of the holidays, or toiling away at work. We at DCist are glad to be back — albeit at a slower pace this week — bringing you the news and events one post at a time. And while Christmas has come and gone, both Hanukkah and Kwanzaa kick off today, extending the celebration for the week to come. In the Spirit of…

If area newspapers decided Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore would take the cake 2-1. Now, if one placed additional weight on a paper’s circulation, Democratic candidate Tim Kaine would have enough votes to rule unchallenged for the next 30 years. Either way, newspapers don’t decide elections, but they do offer up editorial endorsements. And endorsed they have! With Virginia voters heading to the polls on November 8 in an election that has…