Yesterday's presser on wheelchair accessible cabs at the Wilson Building was held in front of a handicapped sign: One that indicated the accessible entrance to the building was around the corner. Not to lay too much importance on symbolism, but if D.C. Council chairman Kwame Brown gets his way, taxicabs that wheelchair users can roll themselves [...]

College For All—Or Else: For better or worse, a college degree is becoming an essential credential if you want to get the kind of job that can provide a middle class standard of living (before it's eventually outsourced somewhere else and/or your employer goes out of business). So when D.C. Council Chairman Kwame "Fully Loaded" [...]

At WAMU, Patrick Madden reports that Rep. Darrell Issa is pumping the brakes on his plan to make more rules for people who don't live in his home district:
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has agreed to set aside a bill that would require background checks for top-level D.C. government appointees, according to D.C. government officials. Issa [...]

You Put Your Weed Application In There: Selling medical marijuana in the District will be risky; applicants have to sign a waiver that seems all but designed to be used as an exhibit by the U.S. Attorney in a future federal narcotics case, after all. But that didn't deter everyone—city officials allowed more than 50 [...]

Doin' It In The Park: Rock Creek Parkway runs, as its name implies, through Rock Creek Park, which is, of course, a national park. So it might be reasonable to expect that the National Park Service, which manages it, would follow environmental regulations when performing work on the parkway. Reasonable, that is, but apparently not [...]

Always Low Prices On Guns: It turned out Walmart didn't need much of a hard sell to get D.C. government officials to welcome them to town; the only argument the city's really putting up so far is about whether they'll deign to give us four stores, or five, not about whether they'll do things like, [...]

This is Not a Test: District residents who are so inclined can sign up for emails or text messages about emergency alerts. (Yes, sometimes the system announces things like the mayor's State of the District address.) Soon enough, though, the alerts will come automatically, unless you opt out; D.C. and New York are the first [...]

The hot new book in Washington circles this spring isn’t a policy tome, or a government exposé; it’s Our Haggadah, the Passover story as written by Cokie and Steve Roberts. The journalist power couple, both mainstays of NPR and Sunday morning shows, combine a memoir of their rise to elite status with a guide to telling [...]

Potential Circulator Cuts and Reallocation Looms: The District Department of Transportation is considering whether to cut the Smithsonian-National Gallery of Art Circulator bus route in order to provide more service on the Union Station-Capitol Hill line. While it's too bad we can't have endless transit funding to do both, cutting the Mall route wouldn't drastically [...]

Fully Unloaded: The job of D.C. Council chairman just got a lot less attractive; sure, there's the $190,000 annual salary, and the ability to boss around the other members of the legislature (though admittedly, that only goes so far). But as of today, Kwame Brown no longer gets a car. Mayor Vince Gray, apparently realizing [...]

Fully Responsible: D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown is finally showing signs of realizing that ordering two high-end SUVs in the middle of a budget crunch might not be the key to everlasting gratitude among his constituents. He's e-mailing District residents who complain about the Lincoln Navigators to take "full responsibility" for the lease deal. Of [...]

Fully Loaded: D.C. government offices were closed today for President's Day, which most years is a holiday, but this year is an unpaid furlough for city employees. On his day off, though, D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown had his choice of not one, but two, "fully loaded" Lincoln Navigators to ride around town—one with a [...]

The Ice of the Inner Loop: Take one part rush hour, one part severe cold snap, one part aging infrastructure, mix gently, and what do you get? Chaos. A water main burst near Central Avenue early this morning, leaving several lanes of the Beltway under water—which, in the delightful Arctic cold that descended on the [...]