Medical Montel: Between infomercials for blenders, financial counseling, and security companies, Montel Williams may soon be busy here in the District. The talk show host is part of a group that's applying for one of the medical marijuana licenses up for grabs; he's the public face of a dispensary in Sacramento, Calif., already. (Williams has MS and has been actively supporting laws allowing medical use of pot for a while.) That California outfit is fairly popular—one online reviewer recently called it the Neiman Marcus of Marijuana. No word on whether that means Williams' group will try to set up shop in Mazza Gallerie. +2

No Parking, Seriously: Should your car be stolen in the District, the police may not find it, but the Department of Public Works will. Just ask Brandon Bray, whose car was stolen, then left for six weeks in a tow-away zone in front of a school, where it accumulated $300 in parking tickets, some of which were there so long that they melted to the windshield. He now has the car back, and won't have to pay the fines. Guess that "tow-away" thing doesn't mean much, though. -1

Knock First: Metropolitan Police Department officers were very eager to get inside a home a few years ago, after someone stopped for a traffic violation told them her son, who dropped a gun as he ran from the stop, lived at that address. The only problem? He didn't. Police spent 45 minutes with a battering ram, drill, and crow bar breaking into the home, doing more than $10,000 in damage to the door and the interior walls—then refused to pay for it, because they had a warrant. Never mind that the information that led to the warrant was erroneous. Eventually, the homeowner sued, and five months after they first complained, got paid back for the repairs they did. Still, let that be a lesson: Don't live in a house the cops might want to bust into. -2

Ni Hao Saxa: Vice President Joe Biden was at the Verizon Center to see the Georgetown Hoyas beat the Duke Blue Devils a couple of years ago, along with President Barack Obama and thousands of others. But only now is the true depth of Biden's devotion to the team becoming clear—his first stop, upon arriving in Beijing yesterday, was at a gym to watch the Hoyas (on a preseason tour of China) play the Shanxi Brave Dragons. The visiting college team won, 98-81. Look for the Brave Dragons to drop out of the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll as a result. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 63 Today's score: 0 Today's Needle rating: 63

Pandas Stay Put: People think of the District as a transient place, but the dirty little secret of most people who move here for work is that once they arrive, they find they kind of like it. And they stick around (just ask former Sen. Byron Dorgan, who recently signed up with a D.C. law firm instead of moving back to North Dakota). That rule goes for pandas, too. Chinese officials, in town for President Hu Jintao's state visit, announced that the pair of pandas at the National Zoo will extend their stint in D.C. for another five years, in exchange for $2.5 million. Remember, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian—you're required to get a D.C. driver's license once you've been here 30 days or more. +4

WTOP Gets Owned: In the famed "glass-enclosed nerve center" from which all-news radio WTOP monitors the region, there's only one big story today–the station's been sold. Deseret Management, a for-profit arm of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, sold 'TOP and other Bonneville International stations in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati to Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., which operates out of Minnesota, for $505 million. No word yet on rumors that weather and traffic will now move from the eights to the sixes. +1

Park Underneath, Please: The days of vast, and often empty, parking lots standing between the sidewalk and D.C. retail could be coming to an end. New rules proposed by the Office of Planning and Zoning would require stores to put parking lots under or behind their main building, instead of in front. Prediction: If that makes it into law, AAA will declare this yet another piece of D.C.'s war on cars. Oh, and also, streetscapes around town will look a lot better. +2

D.C. Council Bonanza: Say one thing for whichever D.C. voters actually bother to turn out for the April 26 special election for an at-large D.C. Council seat—they won't lack for choices. Two candidates officially declared their interest in the race today, Republican Patrick Mara and Ward 1 activist Bryan Weaver, and Vincent Orange (who is rapidly becoming the Harold Stassen of District politics) tells the Post he'll probably run, too. By the time Election Day arrives, is there anyone who's registered to vote in D.C. who won't be on the ballot? +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 52 Today's score: +9 Today's Needle rating: 61

Forget Fenty, Write In Ahmadinejad: Turns out the University of Michigan wasn't the only place hacking into D.C. elections computers recently. Iranian and Chinese hackers also managed to access a test site set up by the Board of Elections and Ethics to demonstrate online voting for overseas Washingtonians. This doesn't explain the long delays in counting ballots that plagued the BOEE on primary night. But it does explain the unusual number of write-in votes for "Death to Zionist Swine" the system reported. -2

Scared Yet?: The endless announcements and warnings that terrorists might KILL YOU DEAD while you ride Metro apparently haven't had the desired effect. So in a bid to completely terrify passengers, officials have turned to a guest announcer: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The message will be re-recorded for other municipalities, too. Of course, terrorists aren't anywhere near the biggest threat to people riding Metro; Metro is. -3

Not a Snack: Authorities arrest Nicole Corbett and Fernando Booker in Manassas for child endangerment after Corbett's 2-year-old daughter ate their marijuana. If Law & Order hadn't been canceled, you could expect to see this as the plot of an upcoming episode; instead, you'll have to settle for watching it as a public service announcement. Just say no. -2

Extracurricular Activities: College kids learn a lot of life lessons while they're in school—how to handle independence, how to drink beer directly from a keg while hanging upside down, just how many Advil they need to recover from a hangover. One thing Howard University undergrads won't need to learn anymore: How to sneak their overnight guests past hall monitors. Howard will allow some upperclassmen to entertain visitors past the 2 a.m. curfew enforced up to now. And while the Washington Post story reporting this detail didn't say it, we will: Yes, by "entertain," we mean "pass out from drinking too much before actually having sex with." +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 50 Today's score: -4 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 48

Over the years, there aren't many things I've written about more than Monk and Mann's training center.

For a decade, the beloved former Redskins said the Carver Theatre building was going to be rebuilt by their non-profit organization, called the Good Samaritan Foundation, and promised that the building would become an epicenter of goodwill in a neighborhood historically lacking in it.

It never happened. But every time I wrote that the training center still wasn't open — almost like "Saturday Night Live"'s repeating that Francisco Franco was "still dead" in every fake newscast — officials of the organization continued insisting that their actions would soon back up Monk and Mann's words.

It's not like they didn't use Good Samaritan Foundation to make themselves look good. Monk's son even spoke of the organization in the speech he gave during Dad's Hall of Fame induction in August 2008.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Still more on the neverending story? Karl Swanson holds no grudge against the Washington Post? Roger Phegley DIDN'T mess up the Bullets forever and ever? Clearing on the Road to 100 Losses?)

And, of course, they used the promise of a job training center on the other side of the river to raise money, literally millions of dollars in federal grants and through gala dinners and celebrity golf tournaments. Congress kicked in at least $775,000 in the 2003 and 2004 federal budgets, which, according to bill granting the sum, would be used “to acquire and renovate a building to expand outreach and mentoring services to at-risk District of Columbia youths.”

Now, we know there won't be a training center.

A charter school bought the property from Monk and Mann's organization and opened it up as a middle school. There isn't even a Good Samaritan Foundation anymore.

To learn yesterday that the training center won't ever happen, after all that talk from such major local figures, and all that money they collected from well-wishers to accomplish their allegedly noble goal, is just amazing. I can't say I didn't see this sort of bailout coming. But I'm stunned.

I hope they come up with a decent explanation for what went wrong.

In the meantime. I'm gonna have to go dig out my copy of the 1988 Super Bowl, with Monk and Mann making huge plays as the Skins crushed the Broncos and gave me the greatest day of my sports fan life. Good god, they were awesome football players.

***

Cleaning out some sports pages:

From Sunday's Post: Karl Swanson still talks to the Washington Post! Who knew?

And, J. Freedom du Lac provides an oral history of the Bullets 1979 trip to China.

The highlight of the proceedings for me comes with du Lac dusting off Roger Phegley.

Phegley, then a first-year forward with the Bullets, delivers period-piece quotes about the voyage, among them: "You'd take a picture of the huge crowd with a Polaroid, and that baby would develop right in front of their faces and the Chinese would just freak out."

Dig!

The story made me reconsider Phegley's local legacy. I've always thought the beginning of the end of the Bullets dynasty — Awesome Trivia: the team made four NBA finals appearance in the same decade a feat matched by only the Celtics and Lakers — came when the Bullets used a 1978 first round pick on the unknown from Bradley.

I mean, Phegley really was a bust with the Bullets.

But, looking back at the detritus chosen shortly after him, and it's tough to make a case that then-Bullets GM Bob Ferry screwed up by picking Phegley. Marty Byrnes, anybody? Frankie Sanders? Buster Matheney?

Sure, it had Larry Bird, but the Class of '78 was for the dogs.

(Here's a photo from the story of Phegley, Abe Pollin, Wes Unseld, Jerry Sachs...and some woman who doesn't rate a mention. If that's Irene Pollin, you know the Post got at least one phone call about the omission.)

Nice to see du Lac getting back to basketball. Back when he was at the Sacramento Bee, du Lac famously broke the news that Chris Webber  was rubbing naughty bits with Tyra Banks. The story got the Kings' serial underaccomplisher to, as Phegley would say, freak out on the media in general and du Lac in particular.

(Full disclosure: When du Lac was the Post's rock critic, he let me review a Jonas Brothers show for the paper, and we've since become friendly enough that he lets me call him "Josh.")

***

Nationals get blanked in Philadelphia.

Now at 50-94, the Nats' Road to 100 Losses starts looking like a driveway.

With the shutout/blowout, the Nats also re-took the Major League lead in Worst Run Differential, having been outscored by opponents by 131 runs on the season.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

He roundly defended the trip, calling the criticism he received the same-old, same-old: “I think you expect on every given day on every given issue that people will challenge you," he said.

While abroad, Fenty inserted himself into an international incident by attending a tennis tournament to which an Israeli player had been denied entrance; he later explained that away by noting that the tournament later agreed to allow another Israeli participate, making it, in Fenty's mind, A-OK for him to attend.

LL, for the most part, is willing to set aside the thorny issue of the tennis tournament. For one thing, WaPo's Marc Fisher was also there this afternoon, asking Fenty questions on tournament, so I'll leave him to weigh in on that aspect. But there's other extremely troubling facts about the trip that Fenty refuses to confront: the secrecy and the money.

Allow LL to lay out exactly, Mr. Mayor, what's wrong here.

It's not that you're traveling abroad. You yourself made foreign travel an issue during your council days by being a vocal critic—rightly so—of Mayor Anthony A. Williams and his extensive travel to various exotic locales. But LL does not begrudge you a vacation—in fact, when you traveled to the Caribbean with your family in 2007, it almost came as a pleasant surprise you wouldn't be dogmatic about your Tonyphobia. And LL even doesn't begrudge you the occasional trade mission.

What does rankle is unwarranted secrecy and undocumented money. This Dubai trip, financed by a foreign government with only the sketchiest details released about your travel itinerary, is the worst kind of junket.

You have done no better than Williams, and probably worse, on disclosing the financial details and dollar amount involved in your travel arrangements to Dubai. And David Nakamura reported in a blog post last week that not only did the United Arab Emirates give money directly to the District, but that this wasn't even the first time—the District took a donation from China in connection to your Olympic trip!

The money matters. As Fisher has already pointed out, if the UAE hadn't picked up the tab for your trip, would it have been easier for you to skip that tennis tournament that caused you so many problems? LL asked you after the event today if you felt obligated to attend the tournament. You said: "I feel like I'm a free person. I can decide whatever I want whenever I want. So, yes, I feel like it was my decision to make."

Maybe so, but given the money that exchanged hands and the secrecy thus far afforded that transaction, it's a lot harder to take that at face value. You have promised a full report, to be completed by Attorney General Peter Nickles; LL looks forward to reviewing it.

It would be nice if that report were accompanied by a commitment to greater transparency in these matters in the future, but that doesn't look likely.

You have preached transparency in government since entering public service. You did it again in your remarks today. But your approach to foreign travel has been perfectly opaque. The Dubai trip was never announced by your office, and when LL asked mayoral aides, he was told you were "away with your family"—implying this was a personal vacation. Williams, for all his international travels, never made a big secret of it; his office typically posted his schedule during said international junkets.

LL asked you this afternoon why you didn't announce the trip ahead of time. "It just hasn't been our practice," you said, and when LL asked if you'd commit to making it your practice, you refused. Your explanation for that: "Again, it hasn't been my practice. We have a public schedule and the public schedule has items that are open to the public to come to. I do an enormous amount of things with the D.C. government that aren't on the public schedule."

LL went on to point out Williams' rather low standards of transparency on foreign travel, then asked why you couldn't even match that.

"I'm a different person," you said.

Yep, but certainly not the "different person" you said you were during your campaign.

Worse news for the team: Who noticed?

"The team's taking this year off," says Adam Dantus, the Nighthawks' 21-year-old general manager and spokesman.

The Nighthawks, affiliated most recently with something called the Premier Basketball League, played home games at Georgetown Prep's athletic center last year.

Dantus says the spiffy school's administration tried to jack up the rents for this season, and the Nighthawks didn't feel they could afford to play there.

When deals with other big gyms, most notably American University's Bender Arena, fell through, the 'Hawks decided to pack it in, at least temporarily.

Dantus, who as a teenage marketing wiz, says the team hasn't folded.

"There's a plan to take a tour of China later this year and play some games over there," he says.

The Nighthawks got tied in with the Chinese diplomatic community when Dantus helped recruit 7'9" Sun Ming Ming as part of his promotion putting the tallest lineup in basketball history on the floor for a home game.

Ex-Bullet Gheorghe Muresan, a mere 7'6", was also on the roster for the big night.

One fact that might make touring China tough: Neither Ming Ming nor Muresan are still tied to the Nighthawks.

Nor is any other talent.

"We don't have a coach or a roster or any players right now," says Dantus.

But there is some good news: Judging by the big yawn the Nighthawks' hiatus got from the local basketball community, the team might already be just as popular in China as it is here.

A Chinese zookeeper has been suspended for denying food to Yong Ba, the elderly giant panda who birthed the National Zoo's Tian Tian (otherwise known as our beloved Butterstick's aloof father/sperm-donor). The keeper and a souvenir shop were involved in a scheme that forced 25-year-old Yong Ba to pose for photos with visitors. After she did (and after the tourists ponied up 10 yuan, or about $1.50), the elderly panda would get a piece of apple on a stick. Otherwise, according to media reports, she was fed only two plates of milk and three buns. Someone, identified by Chinese media as a "netizen," posted photos of Yong Ba's condition and predicament on a popular online forum, launching an investigation. Chinese officials assert that the sole panda at Shenzhen Safari Park in the Sichuan province is healthy, despite having to bang on the door of her pen for food.