Category Archives: News

News, Talkin' Transit, The Features, The Mall, We Green DC, WTF?!
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Talkin’ Transit: The Great Pedicab Predicament

Photo courtesy of
‘Pedicab’ courtesy of ‘afagen’

Yesterday, we received a late-day heads-up from a reader that there was an issue brewing with the pedicabs that offer rides to tourists and residents along the National Mall.

The entire issue seemed odd, as pedicabs have been operating on the Mall for a couple years now and haven’t had any issues up until yesterday, when they were told they would be arrested and their bikes impounded for soliciting and servicing customers on Madison and Jefferson streets, the two main boundary avenues of the Mall.

If the Park Police was correct, the Mall was going to lose a 100% eco-friendly form of transportation that serves hundreds of riders each week. The cabs provide jobs for the area and a friendly ‘green’ option for people to utilize. Taking away the Mall from them would kill a sizeable portion of the pedicab business.

So I set out to contact Ben Morris, the owner of National Pedicabs (and the company affected by this), and his DC operations manager, Danny Cochrane, as well as Sgt. David Schlosser, the National Park Service’s Public Information Officer, to find out just what the heck was going on.

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News, Talkin' Transit, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Joe Biden, Sad Panda: Amtrak, MARC Penn Temporarily Suspended

Photo courtesy of
‘Locomotive’
courtesy of ‘wfyurasko’

I have no idea how Joe Biden is going to get home tonight.

Apparently, the train tracks at BWI are flooded, which has suspended train service between DC and points north. Amtrak is reporting a water main break near the tracks at BWI which has rendered the area impassable. It’s likely there won’t be a fix until this afternoon at the very earliest, from what we’re hearing on Twitter.

The MARC Penn line is also affected.

News, Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Fedorov, Hero

Photo courtesy of
‘090127 Fedorov’
courtesy of ‘Dan4th’

Big night for Sergei Fedorov, who put in a beautiful goal with just 5 minutes remaining in the 3rd to sink to the Rangers and send the Caps onward to the 2nd round of the NHL Playoffs for the first time since 1998. I’m not sure what exactly Coach said to the Caps in the 2nd intermission, but I suspect it was the kind of pep talk that involved biting the head off a bat or something.

Looks like we’ll be facing the Pens in the second round. Sorry Ben Rome, your boys are going DOWN!

News, The Daily Feed
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Five Members of the House Arrested

Photo courtesy of
‘PHOTO Tradewinds 2009 090306-M-7404B-011CB’
courtesy of ‘Exercise Tradewinds 2009’

At the Darfur protest outside of the Sudanese embassy, Rep Ellison (D-MN) and Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD) were both arrested after crossing a police line. No word on charges at this point aside from violating a police order.

Update: It’s now being reported that five members of the house have been arrested. The afore-listed Reps Ellison and Edwards, as well as Rep John Lewis (D-GA), Rep Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Rep James McGovern (D-MA).

For those of you scoring at home, that’s 1% of the House of Representatives currently under arrest.

Update 2: Huffington Post now has the video from the arrests. Let’s be clear: of all the reasons to get arrested, protesting genocide in a civil fashion is probably just about the best of them. This wasn’t an arrest for a violent mob getting out of control, just an arrest to make a point. And, let’s be honest, no one can be for the Sudan at this point. Expelling 14 aid agencies is just plain ridiculous when your country’s in that kind of shape.

News, Sports Fix, The District, WTF?!
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DC Sweeps New York

Victory.jpg
‘Victory’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

How’s that for some sweet victory?

The Nats beat the Mets, 8-1 on the stellar pitching performance by rookie Jordan Zimmerman (now 2-0), and off the bats of Jesus Flores and Austin Kearns. The usually virile bats of the Mets were struck dumb by Zimmerman for almost 6 innings, and then kept quiet by Hinckley, Mock and Wells for the rest of the game. The Nats are still not that great at 4-13, but we’ll talk more about that tomorrow on Sports Fix.

The Caps forced game 7 against the Rangers today, which will be played on Tuesday at the Phone Booth. The Caps have won two straight against the Rangers, both routs, and they looked as good as you’d hope going into a final winner-take-all matchup. Simeon Varlamov had 29 saves, and is at 90% plus for Save Pct. Not bad for a guy who didn’t start much at all this season.

DC United edged the Red Bulls 3-2, in a real nail-biter. DC United lead 1-0 at the Half, but the Red Bulls scored two goals in the middle of the second half, and the situation looked very dire for the boys in black. It wasn’t all lost, though, as Luciano Emilio scored in the final minute of the game to tie the match at 2. I was content to think we’d pull out a tie and save the point, but Chris Pontius had other ideas, and put a right-foot shot into the upper corner of the goal with just seconds on the clock to capture the win for United.

What’s that, New York? Is that the sound of crying I hear? Perhaps gnashing of teeth for ruining your weekend? Excellent. Just what were going for.

Downtown, Life in the Capital, Monumental, News, The Daily Feed, The Mall
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$78M for Mall Monument Renewal

Photo courtesy of
‘DC WWI Memorial Inscription’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

The Post has the news this morning that the Department of the Interior will be spending almost $80M on DC-area monuments and memorials to bring them back to their former glory. I’m most pleased to see that the DC War Memorial will be picking up $7.6M for a badly-needed rejuvenation project. The last one was back in the 1980’s, so it’s about due.

Also on the list is the Seawall at the Jefferson Memorial, and Rock Creek Park’s infrastructure, as well as a bunch of money for the C&O Canal in Georgetown.

Business and Money, News, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Acting CFO of Freddie Mac Dead in Fairfax County Suicide

Fairfax County Police are reporting that acting CFO of Freddie Mac has committed suicide in his Fairfax County Home this morning. Police arrived on the scene in the 5am hour this morning, after being summoned by family members, and found the body of David Kellerman, interim CFO of Freddie Mac.

Details are scarce, and the Police continue to investigate, and are no longer confirming the suicide diagnosis that a police spokeswoman gave. They are, however, confirming there was no foul play.

Life in the Capital, News, The Features, The Hill, The Mall
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A Conversation with Eleanor Holmes Norton

IMG_2874Eleanor Holmes Norton, courtesy of Tom Bridge

This weekend, DC bloggers from DCist, Greater Greater Washington and We Love DC, amongst others, got a chance to sit down with DC’s Delegate to the Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton this past weekend and talk about DC Voting Rights, the recent support for Gay Marriage among the DC Council, and the sorry state of Park Service Parks in the District of Columbia, and about federal funding for transit in the city. Read on for the notes from our conversation with the Congresswoman1 Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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The Zimmermen

Photo courtesy of
‘ready to slide’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Congratulations to the Nationals for locking up Ryan Zimmerman for 5 years at $45M. Zim’s been the face of the club since he was brought up almost immediately after being drafted in 2006, and it’s nice to see him get the contract that he deserves.

Tonight will mark the first MLB start for Jordan Zimmermann, who will be filling the fifth starter slot for the Nationals. Frankly, he couldn’t be much worse than anyone else who’s started for the Nats this season, as their 1-10 record indicates. He was part of a big shuffle of personnel yesterday that sent 40% of the Nats bullpen down to AAA after blowing leads in three straight games against the Marlins this weekend. It looks dicey for the Nats, but we’ll see.

Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, News, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Livestreaming the Egg Roll

Photo courtesy of
‘White House Easter Egg Roll’
courtesy of ‘dbking’

The White House is livestreaming everything from the Easter Egg Roll… including the chef’s cooking lessons from Top Chef Spike Mendelsohn, Art Smith of Art and Soul and Jose Andres of Zaytinya, et al. You can also catch other adorable things like DC United soccer players reading to kids (swoon) and Ziggy Marley on the music stage.

If you’ve got a specific star or act you’re following, you can check out the PDF schedule to see when you can catch the stream from your desk. It’ll be like you were really there. Except not.  Hello, Web 2.0 at the White House, we missed you…

Life in the Capital, News, Technology, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Maryland Students, Legislators Still Tussling over Film

Photo courtesy of
‘White Booby on Letterbox plateau’
courtesy of ‘drewavery’

I figured after the Maryland Legislature threatened not to fund U-MD for next year, the screening of Pirates 2 was all over but the crying (and the mopping, and the disinfecting), but that appears to not be the case. Apparently a group of students is intending to hold a screening anyway, and hold a free speech discussion before the movie. Of course, that means the legislators who threatened to withhold funding are doing so again.

I’ll give you one guess which party they belong to.

Fun & Games, News, The Daily Feed
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I dub thee…

kibibi1

Photo credit: Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Well, the voting public has spoken (all 10,000 of you, apparently) and the National Zoo has dubbed the two-month old baby female gorilla Kibibi (kee-BEE-bee).

The public was invited to vote on three names for the gorilla, including Kipenzi (kee-PEHN-zee) “loved one” and Keyah (KAY-yah) “good health,” over the course of several weeks. Kibibi was born at the Zoo Jan. 10 to 26-year-old female Mandara and 16-year-old Baraka.

According to the National Zoo, “Kibibi already has four teeth, has been riding increasingly on Mandara’s back and shows an interest in her environment, especially in food given to Mandara. In the coming weeks, she is expected to begin exploring her surroundings and manipulating objects.” I went to the zoo last weekend to check her out while my parents were in town visiting, and she’s pretty cute. She was basically doing what she’s doing in the above picture, just chillin’ with her Mom. Ahh, the good life.

News, The Daily Feed
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Passenger Buses, Train Collide in Riverdale

Photo courtesy of
‘EMD AEM-7 MARC #4902’
courtesy of ‘cliff1066’

The rainy day commute just got a lot worse if you’re on public rail. According to BNO News, a MARC train struck a passenger bus on the tracks in Hyattsville, and 40 people are being tended to after the incident. NBC 4 is on the scene, and reports it’s a pair of buses that collided, not a train and a bus.

Update 1: The accident took place at Queensbury Road and Rhode Island Ave in Riverdale Park:

picture-1

Update 2: WTOP is reporting it was a train and two passenger buses that collided, with six injuries requiring a trip to the hospital. Thankfully, no one was killed.

Business and Money, Media, News, Technology, The Features
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Geek Corner: The Kindle and Local Newspapers

Photo courtesy of
‘Kindle 2 Homepage’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

I fell in love the Amazon Kindle 2 when I visited my folks in Arizona this Spring. Reading a book on the svelte device was remarkably similar to grabbing a nice paperback, and settling in on the beach. I didn’t think that it would be so easy to read a book in any other format, but the Kindle’s proved me wrong. In addition to being a book reader, though, it’s also a portable terminal for a number of newspapers and magazines. The issues are delivered silently overnight via Whispernet, the cell network attached to the Kindle, which never fails to deliver an issue, never drops it in a puddle or forgets to the tie the bag shut, and always remembers where you live. So, what’s available for your average DC person?
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Crime & Punishment, Life in the Capital, News, The Daily Feed, The District, WTF?!
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Accepting Representation at the Point of a Gun

Photo courtesy of
‘Bang!’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

There’s a hard choice on the table. The Senate will be taking up the revised legislation that would grant the District a voting Representative in the House, but would do so only if we also accepted that all of the District’s gun laws would have to come off the books for good.

The decision puts DC in between a rock and a hard place, as representation that the city has long sought is within grasp, but comes at what could be a terrible price. So, it seems we’re stuck. Compromise one principle to get access to one we’ve been long after? Or stick to your guns (uh, or lack thereof) and keep the dream of true voting perception at arms length still. It seems a bit of a Foustian bargain for the city. What are our leaders saying?
Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Secret Service Van Runs Afoul of Baltimore PD

Photo courtesy of
”Hollywood’ Parking Ticket’
courtesy of ‘p_a_h’

This one’s got to be just about the funniest story I’ve read in a while. Jenna Bush’s Secret Service detail in Baltimore got in a little bit of a pissing match with the Baltimore Police, which ended up in their vehicles being ticketed and towed from just outside Federal Hill.

Nice to know that the rules do apply to the Secret Service, when they’re parking illegally in a neighborhood known for horrific parking conditions to begin with. What do you say, good call to tow the USSS away? Bad? Anyone who’s ever circled and circled and circled in Federal Hill looking for a spot says good call, I think.