• Alexandria Police Chief David P. Baker announced his retirement yesterday afternoon, ending a 40-year career in law enforcement.  This comes in the aftermath of his arrest on DUI charges Saturday night, following an accident that sent another driver to the hospital.  The best part about retiring now is that Baker gets to retain his full benefits, regardless of the outcome of today's court hearing in Arlington.

• Sonia Sotomayor is one step closer to joining the Supreme Court.  The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 to endorse the candidate, sending her nomination to a full Senate vote next week.  She's expected to be confirmed with little struggle, but as usual, party affiliations are limiting unanimous support.
• Bruce Johnson is wondering why so many businesses are leaving Cleveland Park.  If major corporations like Starbucks and McDonalds decide to leave the neighborhood and their space can't be filled for upwards of five years, there just might be a problem.

• Borderstan is busy reporting local crimes, some occurring in broad daylight.  Highlights include a car break-in at 9:30 am and a foiled rooftop burglar on Church Street NW.

• It's no longer news that President Obama and the Democratic leadership are determined to push through their first attempt at health-care reform before the August recess.  When Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) announced to his constituency that he would vote for the health-care bill, they were upset.  So upset, in fact, that they hung him in effigy during a rally in Salisbury.  Perhaps Kratovil should spend the recess in Washington so as to avoid some of these more fanatic citizens.

• The Democrats' honeymoon is over.  After six months of working together in supposed harmony, it's back to name calling and back room deals.  So says Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who's blaming the obstruction of the Blue Dogs on Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.  Apparently he recruited them to run while still serving in Congress and has since failed to get them on board with the President's grand plans for reform.  Politics as usual, it's how the federal government runs.

But enough about rule-makers.  All the rule-breakers, in DC and beyond, are after the jump.

• As countless politicians have proven, adultery is not an excuse to give up your elected office.  John Ensign agrees, regardless of his parents' $96,000 payoff of his mistress - he plans to seek reelection when his term runs out in 2012.  Could he still be holding out for the White House?  Only time will tell.

• The judge hearing the Banita Jacks case was treated to an earful during the second day of listening to her eight-hour police interrogation.  During the recording, Jacks admitted that she believed her three daughters were possessed by demons but would rise from the dead when the demons left their bodies.  She also contends that all four of her daughters died in their sleep, as a result of the demons, a fact that is inconsistent with the evidence gathered at the crime scene.

• A House panel investigating the Red Line crash heard testimony yesterday, with the majority of witnesses asking for money to fix the flawed transit system.  John Catoe, Metro's General Manager detailed the precautions he has taken since the crash but admits he still does not know what to do about the malfunctioning circuit between Takoma and Fort Totten that presumably caused the collision.

• Violent crimes are being reported with more frequency, in what are thought to be safe areas of the city.  The Borderstan blog reports an armed assault and a robbery in the 1400 blocks of Corcoran and S Streets NW, respectively, in addition to the armed robbery and several burglaries that occurred in the first week of July.  Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young woman was sexually assaulted in her home, less than two blocks from the main gates of the university.  Neighbors and students are concerned, not only for their safety, but because very few people have been informed about the attack.

So keep your eyes and ears open, City Desk readers.  Rules and laws are for following, not breaking.

Here's the lede:

In the 1952 movie classic "Deadline-U.S.A.," a crusading editor played by Humphrey Bogart is on the phone with a gangster who warns him: "Print that story, and you're a dead man."

Sure, Alexander goes on to discuss instances more recent than that, but what prompted this whole riff? Slow news week, perhaps.

Then again, tough to focus on whether your local ombudsman is following journalistic convention when the pathway just got cleared for Roger Federer to claim his 14th grand slam championship. Yes, Rafa Nadal got bested over in Paris. How, I have no idea. Bleacher Report has the skinny on it, saying it's one of sports' great upsets. "The tennis world momentarily stopped. The clay court world as one knew it ended," says BR.

Yeah, this is so hard to fathom. Consider how Nadal won the Australian---that is, he beat Federer not long after enduring a massive semifinal that would've drained every last drop of life out of any other player on the tour. So to lose in the fourth round to a player---Robin Soderling, and, yes, that translates into "a player"---boggles the mind and the hypothalamus while it's at it. Now it's time for Federer to rule, and to follow in the glorious slipstream of the Sports Illustrated jinx.

Key factoid from Amanda Hesser's takedown on Michelle Obama's lax attitude toward cooking: "Research by the NPD Group showed that Americans ate takeout meals an average of 125 times a year in 2008, up from 72 a year in 1983. And a recent U.C.L.A. study of 32 working families found that the subjects viewed cooking from scratch as a kind of rarefied hobby." Hesser's right: We as a country suck so bad when it comes to cooking and doing our own thing in the kitchen.

Washington Times has the scoop on the latest moralizing about Sonia Sotomayor's quip about having a leg up on white males by virtue of being latina. How many news cycles you think it'll take to kill this "story"?

...the California court said voters spoke clearly, through last fall's ballot initiative known as Proposition 8, in wanting to limit marriage to a man and a woman. At the same time, the court said that the marriages of the approximately 18,000 couples who wed before the ban was passed remain valid and that same-sex partners can still enjoy equal legal benefits through recognized civil unions.

NBC Washington has stuff on the Dupont Circle protest. I found the Sexist's coverage less depressing.

*OH, YEAH, ABOUT SOTOMAYOR: Slate's Andy Bowers teaches you how to pronounce the SupCo nominee's surname. Spoiler: It's ""so-toe-my-YORE." (Bowers has the audio, though.)

*WJLA has coverage—and, naturally, video—of yesterday's flooding.

*Over at Young & Hungry, Tim Carman previews the H Street Country Club, admonishing, "you'll never get a tee time." He's referring to that 9-hole indoor putt putt course, of course, and he's got awesome photos to prove it. Prince of Petworth's take on the situation:

Upstairs is where it gets really interesting. Why? Because that is where you can find the indoor putt putt. Which is as insane in reality as it sounds. But it is awesome. It is a 9 hole course with names like U Street, K Street Lego Lawyers, The Awakening of Marion Barry etc. It will cost $7 dollars.

*District, Schmistrict hates "sorry for the lack of posts" posts as much as you do. But the Iowan couple really is sorry about the lack of posts, chalks it up to "serious lack of blog-motivation lately" spurred by "ever-more pleasant weather," and promises they'll be back, keyboards ablaze, in the near future. (The forecast, if nothing else, should help just a bit.)