The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

With D.C.'s record standing at 2–2 in Kitchen Stadium – a win and a loss against Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto each - Sunday night’s Thanksgiving-themed episode of Iron Chef America pitted Agraria’s head chef Ricky Moore against the Chairman’s newest Iron Chef, Michael Symon. From the beginning, the odds seemed stacked against Iron Chef Symon, who felt the pressure to earn his first victory after having won the Next Iron Chef competition. Add to......

>> Ocean City: Making it harder to score hookers on your beach weekend since 2007. [WTOP] >> Metro is going to start distributing free bottles of hand sanitizer in stations beginning next week, in an effort to prevent the spread of flu germs. Except only 2,000 riders at each station will get them, on a first come, first served basis. We'd like to suggest they distribute them based on filthiness. You should have to......

WMATA has issued a service alert that the entrance to the Metro Center station at 13th and G Streets NW is closed due to a police situation. A reader let us know that he can see bomb units on the scene from his office window, with a bomb-seeking robot being assembled to go into the metro entrance with a team of police dogs. The service alert indicates that only this entrance is closed and that......

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King, and appreciated their beautiful skyline. Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out and......

We've known for the last year that famous Georgetown eatery Nathan's wasn't long for its current location. Owner Carol Joynt has been pretty open about her plans to relocate by April 2009, when her lease runs out. Since then, speculation as to what kind of business will nab the prime spot on what's seen as the toney neighborhood's most important intersection has been a popular topic. This morning, an alert tipster pointed us to this......

Good morning, D.C. If by any chance you're a contractor with the city, you may be in for a rude awakening this morning, as City Manager Dan "The Man" Tangherlini and Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra have ordered your cell phone to be returned. Apparently some non-employee contractors have been getting a pretty sweet deal from the District for some time in the form of free cell phones, the end of which will save the......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-a-verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

The office of Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has released an alert to the news media on this slow August Wednesday afternoon, and that means it's going to get a lot more coverage than it probably deserves. For our part, we wanted to mention it also as an excuse to post the funniest video our staff could find of someone destroying a television. The winner is above. For her part, Cheh is concerned......

UPDATE #2 WMATA reports that all three stations have re-opened, though some delays may linger in order to get everything back on schedule. Enjoy your evening, Washington. According to an alert from Metro, the Dupont Circle, Woodley Park, and Cleveland Park stations have been closed due to a suspicious package aboard a train. Metro will be running shuttle buses between Van Ness and Farragut North to connect to the stations. We hope the package turns......

The oven-like heat outside reminds us of summers off from school, which in turn got us into a conversation about the fast food we remember from those days. Maybe it's a good thing that the D.C. area, and the city in particular, isn't overrun with these places, but it doesn't mean we don't remember them fondly -- or, for that matter, dearly wish they had a few outlets closer by at times like these. A......

Go home. Tell your boss it's for your own safety. Maybe it's the heat or people who are waiting to go on summer vacation, but it seems that there's madness in the city. I should have known it was getting bad when I spotted this tree with a ring of cheese curls around it. The madness certainly seems to have infected Todd Kliman of Washingtonian. If you didn't catch his chog this week, you......

In case you're working downtown and wondering what the heck is going on with all those ambulances, turns out firefighters were rescuing a man who had a medical emergency while operating the crane pictured at right at about 150 feet in the air. It's unclear what kind of emergency the man was having, but according to eyes on the ground, at just after 12:30 p.m. rescuers finally had the man down from the crane and......

A flurry of frantic, angry emails began around 6 p.m. last night on the Cleveland Park Listserve and moved seemingly all over town by 8 p.m. It was the end of civilization as we know it! A catastrophe of epic proportions! Alert the National Guard! The Uptown Theater might be closing! Thankfully, cooler heads have now prevailed. Turns out the rumor got started because the Jews for Jesus outfit McLean Bible Church put up......

>> We tragically forgot to mention in About Tonight that all left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers will gather on the Mall for Screen on the Green's first showing of the summer, Annie Hall. The movie starts just after sunset on the screen between 4th and 7th, NW. Bring an umbrella and/or a Faraday cage, as the thunderstorm watch goes until 9 p.m., but the screening is more or less rain or shine, unless lightning......

Welcome back to work, Washington. This week promises not only to feel longer than normal thanks to its coming on the heels of a holiday, but also hot enough that you might want to consider setting up an ad-hoc shower in your office, as there's little chance you'll get there without breaking into a sweat first. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has issued a Code Orange alert because of the heat wave, and......

At first today's forecast just looked a little bit annoying: a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms in the late afternoon which, in the words of our esteemed pals at CapitalWeather.com, we'd venture to say "those odds are too low to go changing any plans yet, but high enough to keep an eye to the sky and on radar just in case." In other words, we're packing up to head to a barbecue right now, potential......

An alert tipster sent us a link to a District of Columbia Taxicab Commission release we missed. The results of the Taxicab Information Project, launched in October 2005 to study fare differences between D.C. taxis outfitted with meters against standard zone charges, were made public on June 19. Time and distance meters were installed in 21 D.C. cabs. At the beginning of each trip, drivers were instructed to drop the meter flag and record......

If you regularly tune into to an Internet radio station while working at your computer (and we most certainly do), you'll likely not be able to find any music on your favorite station tomorrow. The regularly scheduled programming of tens of thousands of Internet radio stations will come to a halt tomorrow as part of a national Day of Silence organized by SaveNetRadio.org, a coalition of artists, labels, listeners, and webcasters. Web radio stations are......

Good morning, Washington. We wake today to some stunning revelations: It appears the Centers for Disease Control have issued a new report that "confirms" that men are far more likely to have many sexual partners than women are. In related findings, the report, which was compiled from self-reported surveys of American adults, also indicates that American men have the largest penises of any country in the world and that American women are far more slender......

>> Vice President Dick Cheney is claiming that, for the purposes of securing classified information, his office is not part of the executive branch. Exactly which branch are you in then, Mr. Vice President? [Raw Story] >> Are you ready for another severe thunderstorm alert? The National Weather Service just issued one from now until 10 p.m. >> There's a book launch party tonight for Murray Waas' The United States vs. I. Lewis Libby. Somehow......

Hey Green line riders, are you by any chance just getting in to work right now? Yeah, we're sorry to hear that, but there have been major Green line delays since 7 a.m. this morning, when a six-car train stalled and broke down on the inbound track near West Hyattsville. To make matters worse, a second train sent in to push the broken one down the track also lost power, shutting down the tracks entirely......

Who ever said members of Congress never do anything for our fair city? The Associated Press reports that 61-year-old Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R - NJ) was approached by a group of young men in Georgetown last night when he felt someone grab his wallet from behind. But when Rodney Frelinghuysen comes face to face with crime, he doesn't back down. Instead, he eats a banana, and an amazing transformation occurs. Frelinghuysen IS Bananaman! The seven-term......

Yesterday we picked up a false report from a usually reliable news source, and conveyed misinformation as facts. Washington Capitals team webmaster Mike Vogel ran a story on the official team website stating that Caps forward Alexander Ovechkin had been disciplined for a "hit from behind," and we picked it up as fact. After all, there was a link to the story on the NHL.com homepage, so someone must have checked it out. Hitting......

Officials are warning drivers that roads around the 2400 block of 16th St, NW are partially closed while crews repair yesterday's water main break. This morning only one southbound lane was open in the are around Meridian Hill Park, with northbound traffic diverted to Florida Ave. At 12:45 p.m. Alert D.C. announced that the 2400 block of 16th St. will be closed for six to eight hours. Obviously this could dramatically impact this evening's rush......

In the wake of last Monday's deadly shootings at Virgina Tech, many local college students are discussing campus security and the implications for their schools. In addition to holding a slew of vigils and showing support for their peers in Blacksburg, collegians wonder how such a tragedy could occur on American campuses and what university officials are doing to protect their students. American University administrators are taking a second look at their emergency response plan,......

The Weekly Feed was pushed back this week because its regular author was tied up with another task. Thanks to DCist Food staffer Jamie Liu for picking up the column last minute. The Proof is in the Pinot Coming up in May, wine enthusiast Mark Kuller is bringing out some fun little tricks with his wine-centric restaurant, Proof, in Gallery Place. The sexy little enomatic from Italy will be dispensing tasting and full pours of......

There's good news for residents of Georgetown. District police says the two men wanted in connection with three robberies are now in a Maryland jail on unrelated charges. The armed robberies took place between April 11, 12 and 17 in the area between 27th and 31st, and N and Q Streets in Northwest. In two cases the assailants had a gun. Second District police sent an e-mail yesterday warning women not to walk alone in......

As an alert tipster told us earlier this morning, a D.C. Circulator bus has crashed into a building used by Georgetown University. The Harris Building, on the 3300 block of Whitehaven St., was occupied by about 200 people when the bus hit a minivan and careened into a window of the building. From this photo it looks like the back end of the bus became lodged in a basement-level window. Everyone was evacuated and......

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has declared a state of emergency in the Commonwealth after 32 people, mostly students, were killed today in two shootings at Virginia Tech University. Dozens are still hospitalized with injuries ranging from minor to critical. The tragedy is being called the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Officials say the assailant, described as an Asian man in his 20s, took his own life after the second attack. The first shooting happened......