Politico hit it hard with the story of how the Washington Post was hoping to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars by charging influence peddlers to attend exclusive meals with Post people and decision-makers.

Now come a flurry of memos in the wake of the crisis. Here are a couple of them:

Read More “Washington Post “Salon” Scandal: The Memo Trail” »

If you believe weather.com, temperatures over the next several days in the Washington area will stick in the mid-80s, with mostly sunny skies. It’ll be a glorious and active holiday weekend for everyone.

Yet the nice, mild weather is worth noting not just because people will be able to go biking and sailing and drinking.

It could be among the most newsworthy weather developments in the history of the Smithsonian Institution.

Read More “Record-Setting Folklife Festival Weather?” »

I’m glad that an alliance of nonprofits are joining hands to create an organization to promote investigative journalism. That’s important stuff.

I just wish that their “declaration” kicking off their collaboration read a bit more like a classic declaration and less like the annex of a Department of Commerce IG report. Here’s an excerpt from what’s known as the Pocantico Declaration:

Read More “Investigative Journo Orgs Can’t Write!” »

So the latest debate on the demise of newspapers hovers over copyright law. Thinkers out there are saying that if only the feds enhanced news outlets’ ownership of scoops, then they’d be able to net more Web traffic and thus more revenue, thus staving off insolvency.

Read More “Hey Jeff Jarvis: This Doesn’t Feel Like a Free Ride!” »

Harriette Walters, mastermind of a nearly two-decade tax scam that cost D.C. taxpayers almost $48 million, will get 17 years and six months for her crimes, a sentence handed down by federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan. The 52-year-old will also have to make restitution for the $48 million that she stole. In addition, she has to pay $12 million in tax payments to the federal government and $3.2 million to the District. Walters is a former mid-level manager in the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue who engineered a complicated tax-assessment scam.

Management of the Washington Post is impressed with how the paper handled the Metro crash and the death of King of Pop Michael Jackson. Memo, after the jump, says it’s now time for the sports section to shine.

Read More “Washington Post Happy with Coverage” »

It’s almost as if Washington really paid attention to the summer solstice. This town hops like mad in the springtime—from the Cherry Blossom festival all the way through Pride Weekend, the place is mayhem. Street closings, marathons, road races, everything—don’t even bother driving near the downtown/federal core on a weekend. You’re just going to get stuck in traffic.

Read More “Weekend in Review: City Emptying Out!” »

From an email to Post employees:

Pay tribute to the King of Pop with a commemorative poster, available for
sale at the main entrance of NW for $5.

As an employee of The Washington Post, you’re receiving first notice about
this special opportunity.

Late last week came the news that editors at the Washington Post had discontinued Dan Froomkin’s popular White House Watch Web-only column after a five-and-a-half-year run.

This wasn’t just another media-personnel story for the trade publications. The act of a powerful news organization cutting off the head of a Bush-bashing media figure gave the Internet free license to indulge in Idiot Time.

Read More “Why Did the Washington Post Sack Dan Froomkin?” »

From this point forward, the Washington Post newsroom pledges to start buzzing long before, like, noon each day. More reporters and editors, says Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, will start coming in earlier.

The reason for the switch? Check out the memo after the jump.

Read More “WaPo Adjusts Working Hours” »

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Expresses deepest condolences, as is standard practice to start these briefings.

Confirms nine fatalities, the final count. “As a government and as a city” there are only four people whose identities have been confirmed.

Three of the four are residents of the District of Columbia. One lived in Hyattsville. Fenty contacted three of the four families personally. Says can’t imagine the “horror and disbelief” of the families.

Fire department has completed its work as the lead agency. Debbie Hersman and the NTSB will now become the lead agency in this matter. Fenty thanks the feds for making all kinds of resources available.

Next up at the mic is D.C. fire Chief Dennis Rubin. He says that fire and EMS and various agencies have done an “absolutely incredible job” of doing their thing. Highlights—timeline begins at 5 pm, had units on location within six minutes. “Obvious this was going to be a major national event.” Then they did coordination with inbound agencies. First injury person was transported 21 minutes later; last person was transported 6 hours and 51 minutes later.

Read More “Fenty Presser Liveblog” »

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Reports scene as being “as horrific as you can imagine.” Describes one train as being “almost squeezed completely together.”

Confirms the figure of six fatalities, as previously reported by WJLA-TV. Calls that a “working number,” meaning that the hospitals haven’t been cleared and the scene hasn’t been cleared. Fire officials continue searching the scene.

Fire Chief Dennis Rubin says that there’s a total of 76 people transported.

Also: Responder injuries: two, minor.

Rubin: One of trains is compressed 85 percent. Will make certain train is clear of living and dead before turning over the train to investigators. They’re doing a “primary search.”

Police Chief Cathy Lanier: There’s a reunification center set up for families. Please call 3-1-1.

Nine NTSB investigators are on the case. FBI evidence response team is on the case as well.

Fenty: Largest fatality count in four-decade history of Metro.

FBI guy: Team will be assisting NTSB. Evidence-response people are completely on top of this. Cautions against jumping to any conclusions about what happened.

NTSB promises to gather “factual information” about the accident.

Jim Graham: Metro board will meet tomorrow at 2 p.m.

From our correspondent-in-the-field Mike DeBonis:

Olga Bryant, who works at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was on the rammed train this afternoon. She said that the train had been stopped for around 10 minutes and that the operator had reported that they were having some electrical difficulty. She says that the train’s lights and the power were on prior to the accident. Bryant was in the second car of the rammed train, and thus fairly well removed from the impact. She stayed on the train for about 20 minutes after the crash.

She was traveling with Garrett Dorsey, another Walter Reed employee. Dorsey said that despite the crash, he’d get on another train “tomorrow.”

Bryant said, “I’d have to get on it.”

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is talking right now about the accident. He started out with some boilerplate about working with Metro, and Metro working with the feds. Said the response from first responders was six minutes.

Fire Chief Dennis Rubin states that at first it was believed to be a minor incident. Then it became a huge multijurisdictional cataclysm.

Have treated 70 people.

Four black tags, meaning they have succumbed to their injuries: Four dead.

Chief speaks of “stellar job” by other agencies. Says “many people” have simply left on their own and thus are not part of the official count.

Fenty says that Metro boss John Catoe will address transpo impact.

Catoe gives condolences to families of those who lost their lives—four people. What happened at 5:02 is that one train was stopped and was awaiting orders to continue. Then was plowed into by another train.

Catoe says “we will try to find out exactly what happened.”

Catoe defers question on “standard procedures” for a train that has been stopped on the tracks.

The line will be out of service until the investigation is complete.

Catoe also says that he won’t give info on the driver who was killed until the family has been notified.

Family members looking for information on what happened to their loved ones are being urged to call 202-727-9099. Do not go to the scene of the accident.

Mike DeBonis is calling in from the site of the Red Line collision near the Fort Totten station.

UPDATE 6:40 p.m.:

One Red Line train had been stopped on the tracks. It had just begun to move when it was struck from behind by a speeding train.

Brenda Payton was on the speeding train. “We just felt a big crunch and saw smoke and stuff. We got off the train as fast as we could.” Payton is from Fort Washington, and she was heading home. Another woman on that train, Anastasia McKeown, says that just before the impact, the ramming train slowed down. “Then we felt an impact just after that. You could tell we hit something that wasn’t an animal.”

Though McKeown was in the last car, she saw one of the plastic partitions in the ramming train fall on someone’s head. McKeown had back and neck injuries. A triage area for victims has been set up outside Jarvoe Jarboe Printing Co. People there are mostly folks who’ve been injured but are not in critical condition.

As for the stopped train, here’s one account of what happened. Dennis, who declined to give his last name, says his train had just barely started to move when the impact happened. Dennis stepped out of the train and could see “three or four people on the ground, all bloody.” Dennis was in the fifth car, one removed from the impact. After staggering out of the train, he spotted a woman on top of that sixth car, and blood was streaming down. “The interior of that car just got crushed,” said Dennis.