By brownpau
A Metrobus crashed into an Alexandria apartment last night. No one was injured as the resident wasn’t home and the driver had just offloaded his passengers due to a door problem — just before the bus started rolling away — but both apartment and bus appear to have been totalled. WJLA has more, and here’s some video of the scene from Associated Press:
By brownpau
Via DCist we have a Washington Post report that last week’s UMD “cougar” may actually have been a large Savannah (serval/domestic feline hybrid). So I guess all you people who couldn’t resist making cougar jokes last week all feel pretty silly now. Me, I’ll settle for saying the title of this post with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.
(Flickr photo of a yawning Savannah Cat courtesy drlisa)
By brownpau
A line of thunderstorms swept over the Metro area around 1PM this afternoon; we got home from church just as the darkening sky let loose its first drops of rain. While it stormed, I ran wget on the ABC 7/News Channel 8 webcam and got this time lapse video. Watch for the two bolts of lightning.
The storms caused a few injuries today, and capsized boats at the Aquapalooza festival on the Potomac.
By Ben H. Rome
Metro Center, courtesy of brianmka
No, no, this isn’t about the current administration.
We’re talking WMATA and their plan to rehabilitate the Red Line during a four-year stretch. Meaning that aside from rush hour, the most-used line in the system will see off-peak and weekend delays for an entire presidential term.
And if approved, it’ll come right at the time when daily ridership records are falling left and right like so many dominoes. Continue reading
By brownpau
So I was running a bit late for work this morning and took a cab. As we passed through downtown, WTOP on the radio warned of traffic around 18th and K Streets NW, as a pedestrian had been hit by a car around that intersection. As luck would have it, the taxi had just arrived there, and sure enough there was a backup of about half a block — nothing too bad, and I got to work just fine.
Well, guess who hit the pedestrian: Robert Novak, in his black Corvette. He says he didn’t even know he’d hit anyone till a passing biker told him. Police detained Novak on the scene for about an hour and gave him a citation (no arrest); the pedestrian, as yet unnamed, was brought to GWU with arm pain. WJLA has posted a raw video interview with Novak immediately following his emergence from an MPD cruiser.
Update: Additional info, commentary, and schadenfreude from Washington Post, DCist, Politico, TMZ (where he blames NPR for distracting him), Think Progress, Wonkette, and The Carpetbagger Report.
By brownpau
Photo of Hart Atrium courtesy hellek23d
Some drama over at the Hart Senate Office Building when a suicidal middle-aged Chinese man threatened to jump from the seventh floor of the building atrium. Continue reading
By brownpau
December, 1998: “I shall steal this priceless edition of Shakespeare’s First Folio from a Durham University exhibition! The perfect historical literary crime! Ha ha!”
July, 2008: “I wonder if this First Folio I stole is authentic? I shall bring this to the Folger Shakespeare Library and leave it with them for analysis. No way they can tell if it was the stolen one, and what will they do if they can? Call the FBI who in turn will alert Scotland Yard? I think not! Ha ha!”
(The suspected thief was apprehended by authorities back in the UK — in the town of Washington, of all places — then questioned at Durham and released on bail.)
By Tom Bridge
Welcome, everyone, to We Love DC!
We’re going to be doing this a little bit differently than other blogs have done it. We’re going to be focusing on feature length content for our site, with an emphasis also on the hyperlocal microblogging. You can see that we have two columns here. The column in which this post is listed will be for featured entries, many of which are in the style of a recurring column, but there will also be coverage of news & events as they happen here.
The second column, called the Daily Feed, will be more oriented around the little local things we see happening all the time. The great photos we capture on the street, the news stories that just need to be posted. But sometimes, that picture’s just worth all 1000 words, and we won’t go all James Joyce on some of those posts.
Who are we, exactly? Well, most of us have been DC Bloggers in one form or another for years. This blog is the result of some hard work by a lot of people. We’ll have full introduction posts for each author (we’ve got a special feature planned) in the next week, starting Monday. You’ll recognize a lot of familiar faces if you’ve been reading Metroblogging DC. Don, Tiff, Max, Wayan, Ben, Carl, and others. You’ll also get to meet some new folks, including Paulo (our awesome WordPress master) and John Athayde (whose design is represented here).
We’re not finished implementing features and design elements just yet, but we felt we have a pretty good start here already. If you’ve got suggestions, or, even better, want to join us, please put something in the comments. If something’s not working right for you, please let us know.
And Happy Independence Day, everyone!
Armed Freedom, courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol
By Tom Bridge
You might’ve heard about the craziness at World Bank today, what with a guy showing up and claiming he was a terrorist and had a box full of explosives. Turns out the guy wasn’t actually carrying explosives, and was then detained by the DC Police. There’s still a shelter-in-place order in effect at the World Bank, but man, talk about excitement!
Me, though, I’m just wondering when one of these suspicious packages actually contains explosives.
By Ben H. Rome
Wow, busy week across the NHL. Lots of moves with the July 1 Free Agent Turkey Shoot, and the Washington Capitals are right in the thick of it.
McPhee managed to re-sign Mike Green on Monday, June 30, effectively sealing up a potential weak spot and relieving many diehard Caps fans. So one less headache to worry over when Tuesday hit.
And hit it did.
Biggest news? Smoking-hot goaltender Christobal Huet bolted for more money and a suddenly very dangerous team in the Chicagoland area. Can’t blame the Blackhawks there – missing the playoffs by three points with an average goalie squad made any potential FA goalies legitimate targets.
Unfortunately, it forced McPhee to take a Vegas-sized risk by approaching – and signing – Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore for a more-than-modest two year deal worth $9M. BIG risk. HUGE. Now, if this was 2003, then it wouldn’t be a big deal (ok, maybe it would be, considering his lackluster play the next few years) – but despite his sudden transformation from mediocre back to the old Hart and Vezina winner with the ‘lanche last season, it really remains to be seen which Theodore the Caps got on this deal.
The goalie situation really is crucial to the Caps’ success in the next year. With Huet bolting for more lucrative waters and Kolzig “bolting” to Tampa (for what will probably be his final year or two of his career) as a mentor for the Lightning’s fresh-faced netminders, the play of Theodore is going to either sink or rocket Capital play. All the offense in the world isn’t going to matter if the goalie position is leakier than Montgomery County’s water lines.
There’s still more signings and moves to be had, for sure, as McPhee is still faced with UFAs Cooke, Fedorov, Bournedienne, Arsene, Riazantsev, Stana, Morgan and Werner. It will definitely be an interesting summer on ice.
Green Winds Up, courtesy of clydeorama
