>> So Mayor Fenty and Schools Chancellor Rhee have scheduled 23 simultaneous school closure hearings at each of the proposed 23 schools to be closed. Logistics nightmare questions aside, what is a parent who has a child at more than one of the schools supposed to do? Pick which child they think is more important? [WaPo] >> The D.C. government has scheduled another gun amnesty buy-back on Saturday, only two weeks after the last......

Via the DCist tipline, we heard there may have been a fire at year-old Mt. Vernon Square-area coffee shop Breakwell's, on the corner of 9th and M Streets NW. Sure enough, the windows at the front and along the side of the shop have been boarded up, and there is visible fire damage to the exterior of the building. While checking out the extent of the damage, DCist chatted with the proprietors of WIDE......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

>> Mayor Adrian Fenty has chosen Clark Ray to serve as the city’s director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Ray was previously the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services. >> D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has called for her third summertime "All Hands on Deck" initiative for Monday and Tuesday, to coincide with Tuesday's National Night Out. The last "All Hands on Deck," when Lanier requires all MPD......

Sparky's Has Indeed Been Shuttered Following our conversation last week about the Warehouse's impending closure, several commenters were asking about the fate of Sparky's at 14th and R, NW, which was suddenly shuttered a few weeks back. Phone calls to the shop lead to a message that doesn't recommend that you leave a message, because no one checks the machine We searched for something more official, but the closest we found was at Brightest Young......

Near sunset on a Tuesday in the middle of May, Lana Labermeier and her husband Stuart Davenport were sitting outside their then-unfinished new Bloomingdale coffee shop, Big Bear Cafe, enjoying a hard earned cold beer after a long day of landscaping work. Unfortunately, their neighbors could hardly let them rest. "When are you gonna be open?" shouted one man from his car. "Are you hiring?" asked another. "What's this going to be?" "Aren't you......

Written by DCist Contributor Vince Wadhwani, of BuyIndie.net Joe. Bean. Murk. Black Venom. Go Juice. The Nectar of Life. Call it what you want, but we love our coffee. And when you talk coffee it's hard not to think about the ever present Starbucks. Recently, they launched a service making it even easier to get your fix. Send a text message from your cell phone and get back the location of the three closest Starbucks.......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Single? Finally shaken off the pounding headache you've had all morning thanks to the vicious hangover you earned after drowning your sorrows last night with fellow lonely hearts? Consider checking out kizmeet.com, a new Web site devoted entirely to romantic "missed connections", like the kind you already guiltily read on Craigslist and in the CityPaper. It's free, anonymous, and specific categories allow you to hone in on the encounter you're looking for. Whether you're posting......

We are, of course, still pulling for any ban on all ages shows at bars to fail miserably. But we always support the idea of alternative, non-bar venues putting on shows as well. So we were happy to learn this week that Murky Coffee, the independent coffee shop in Clarendon that many area residents claim boasts one of the best cups of coffee in town, is going to start hosting bands. The schedule is......

Diplomacy is the cornerstone of foreign policy. The relationship between countries can be fragile, but diplomatic exchanges foster valuable insight into each other's cultures, bring to light areas of mutual cooperation to achieve common interests, and forge stronger economic and political ties. However, when two countries cannot reach an agreement on an area of conflict and the stronger country will sometimes jettison diplomacy and pull out their big stick. Quote of the Week Metro: Tourist......

Today we kick off "Buying Indie," a new series about local and independent businesses written by Vince Wadhwani, the brain behind Buy Indie. Every now and then he'll feature a new business, observing only one rule — it must be local, it must be independent. You don't often see soccer fans heading in groups to the hair salon, so at first the sight may seem strange. But then, just before they get to the......

NBC4 has a story about national caffeine overlord Starbucks' continued efforts to lease space for a coffee shop to be located in the former site of The King of France Tavern, within the historic Maryland Inn in Annapolis. Initially rejected by the Annapolis Historic Preservation Commission last winter, Starbucks is scheduled to appear again before the commission tonight with a revised plan, which now includes a wheelchair lift, according to NBC4. The tavern, which opened......

The world's most popular sporting event, soccer's World Cup, gets underway tomorrow in Germany. Unlike 2002 when matches took place in the wee hours, this year's start from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time, meaning it's a lot easier to hit a bar or two and watch a game. Some DC area bars and restaurants are opening early for the fans, including Pour House on Capitol Hill, Lucky Bar in Dupont, and Fado......

On Saturday, R&B Coffee will take a unique approach to fundraising: they'll be doing it in two worlds at once. The Happening is a charity event that will occur simultaneously at the coffeeshop's H Street location and in a recreation of the coffeeshop that exists in the online world Second Life. This isn't unprecedented: Second Life has hosted cultural events before. For instance, Stanford Law professor and intellectual property expert Lawrence Lessig gave a talk......

In the second installment of our new Music Rountable feature, we ventured to encapsulate the elusive art of a live show. After you see what our panel of D.C. musicians and music professionals have to say, let us know -- why do you go to see live music? What do you look for? Or, offer your thoughts on the question as posed to our panel. How important should the performance aspect of a show be?......

Ever since we moved to Shaw nearly a year ago, we've been waiting for Azi's Cafe, on the corner of 9th and O St. NW, to open. Though we love our neighborhood, the lack of any sort of restaurants or independent shops has been getting on our nerves; a Giant full of sketchy produce leaves something to be desired. Nearly every day we'd walk past Azi's, but the windows remained covered with paper and no......

The Fair Trade Students Association at American University is currently pressuring their administration to fill a soon-to-be-vacant spot in the Mary Graydon Center with a Pura Vida Coffee Shop instead of Starbucks. Pura Vida supplies coffee for a number of other universities; if the FTSA succeeds, this will be the first such shop in the District. The FTSA at American was the first student organization in the United States devoted entirely to such coffee. From......

Popular Adams Morgan coffee shop/bar Tryst is planning to turn off their free WiFi at 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. We noticed the news on local blog prod & ponder, who thought it was "really disturbing" and even called to double check. "That makes perfect sense," said one former server at Tryst we know. "I wouldn't bring a laptop to Adam's Morgan on a Friday or Saturday. They don't want people to sit......

Though the D.C. Department of Health is a bit slow to post its listings of health code violations, we came across its report summaries on its website. The most current listings are for Sept. 27-Oct. 3, where the Avondale Coffee Shop on Michigan Avenue NE was cited for "[b]asic inadequate sanitation," among other violations; Pen-Mar Liquors on I Street near 19th Street NW was closed for lacking hot water; and the Kantouri Fried Chicken on......

Our friends over at Gothamist have reported on the opening of the second Juan Valdez Cafe coffee shop in the U.S., which just opened at 140 East 57th Street at Lexington Avenue in New York City. The first has been open since mid September here in D.C., in the Organization of American States building on F Street NW. Although we haven't been to the store, it is wholly owned by the National Federation of Coffee......

From DCist contributor Catherine Andrews: The results are in: The Post's 2004 Best Bets Readers' Choice Awards were decided today. And the winners are ... (drumroll, please): Pretty much all the same places that won last year! But that's OK -- by and large, DCist approves of the victors (though we'll never understand why Starbucks consistently comes in the top three of Best Coffee Shop; same with Borders for Best Bookstore. Isn't this supposed to......