Good Morning, City Desk Readers!  The big news today is presidential, of course, but poor Barack Obama got usurped on his birthday by America's other First Black President.  Bill Clinton is receiving all the accolades today after his trip to North Korea, where he met with President Kim Jung Il and helped negotiate the pardoning and release of the two Current TV reporters who were captured near the Chinese border in March.

• While President Clinton's trip was described as a private humanitarian mission before he left for Pyongyang, the Washington Post is reporting that both Clintons played an integral role in planning the trip.  The State Department was reportedly negotiating with the North Koreans for weeks and Bill only left the U.S. after repeated assurances that Laura Ling and Euna Lee would be released.  Regardless, it's good news for embedded journalists.

• In worse news for journalists, MSNBC is now admitting that they erred by not revealing that former Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe is now working as a strategist for the public affairs firm Public Strategies, Inc. Since his book Renegade, detailing the rise of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, hit the best-seller lists, MSNBC has been showing off Wolffe like a prize, having him fill in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown as recently as last Friday. However, his close ties to the Obama administration (like those private meetings with David Axelrod) and his work at Public Strategies have resulted in major conflicts of interest.  Luckily, he's already got his next Obama book all lined up. Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Save the Journalists Edition" »

The 1800 block of Columbia Road NW is presently cordoned off due to a manhole explosion earlier this afternoon. Police and Pepco workers are on the scene. Details to come.

These events have highly inconvenienced luncheoning workers in the neighborhood, at least one of whom had to go to Subway instead of So's Your Mom for a sandwich.

UPDATE, 3:10 P.M.: A Pepco spokesperson says one manhole started smoking around 1:15 p.m. No power outages have been reported, and there's no word yet on the cause.

When this blog was starting up, Erik Wemple put together a taxonomy of worthwhile blog posts. At the bottom was something along the lines of "What I had for breakfast" (I can't find the original e-mail.)

Since then, expectations have been lowered in many parts of this organization, so I feel comfortable blogging my awesome $5 lunch. Every Friday and Saturday at that little mini-park at the triangle between Champlain Street NW, Euclid Street NW, and Columbia Road NW, there's a food fair with vendors selling all kinds of great stuff; I like the taquitos (apparently not a 7-Eleven invention; who knew?) and empanadas from the vendor at the park's southeastern corner.

Price includes yucca, two kinds of salsa, and cheese. I may be blogging on the lowest rung of blogdom but I'm very, very happy.