On Wednesday WTOP's Mark Segraves reported that handgun sales will officially start in the District next Tuesday, Sept. 9 — just in time for primary election day! There are still no gun stores inside city limits, so the only guns that have been registered in D.C. so far were either registered under the amnesty program or were being stored out-of-state, since federal law requires that new gun purchases must either originate from or be transferred......

D.C.'s primary elections are less than a week away, this coming Tuesday, Sept. 9. By now you should have received your sample primary ballot, and, if you're a registered Democrat, are likely still trying to determine exactly what all those Democratic Party slates are -- stay tuned to DCist for plenty more primary election countdown posts to help you sift through it all in the coming days. The big news on the local primaries front......

The District of Columbia's delegates to the Democratic National Convention gathered early this morning at the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Denver for a collegial breakfast before heading out to lobby other delegations to support voting rights for D.C. Though they were far from home, some of the recent drama surrounding the D.C. Democratic Party did make an appearance. D.C. Wire has published rumors of a "feud" between D.C. Democratic Party Chair Anita Bonds and......

A commenter forwarded this story to the DCist tipline, and we also got a press release from ABC News announcing the same program: a "50 States, 50 Days” election coverage project co-produced by ABC News and USA Today. ABC News and USA TODAY will launch an unprecedented news project on Monday, September 15, to report from every state in the nation during the 50 days leading up to the presidential election. ABC News’ anchors and......

One good thing to come out of this year's controversial summer youth jobs program is the video above, an ad starring some of the program's participating students (h/t WTOP). The Neighbors of Seaton Place produced the ad with the teens, which calls on community members to put an end to the violence that is all too common on D.C. streets. The commercial will reportedly begin airing on local cable networks this week, but you......

The Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs is officially launching a new blog next week associated with its Collegiate Off-Campus Housing Initiative, called ThisShouldBeIllegal.com. The basic idea of the web-based program, according to DCRA spokesperson Michael Rupert, is "to try and get college kids to make sure they are being rented to legally." Under D.C. law, your landlord is required to have a business license, and the process of obtaining one prompts an automatic safety......

A reader from Glover Park sent in this image of the cover of this year's Northwest D.C. Your Community PhoneBook, which was recently delivered to residents in the wealthier parts of the city. According to the Community PhoneBook web site, the telephone directory covers "Northwest Washington, D.C.", which by their definition includes only AU, Cathedral Heights, Cleveland Park, Foxhall Crescent, Friendship Heights, Georgetown, Glover Park, Palisades, Spring Valley and Tenleytown. Dupont Circle doesn't even make......

Criminy, this news from the Examiner is unsettling. On Monday, D.C. police arrested Edwin K. Wright, 23, on charges of sexually assaulting three women in a single hour in downtown Washington. Wright was detained by a group of citizens after the third incident, when he tried to rape a woman outside a K Street office building. The timeline went something like this: during the Monday evening rush hour, someone matching Wright's description punched a woman......

Not content to sit on the couch watching election returns come in on television? Civic-minded to the max? Marginally employed? The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics wants you! Roughly 800 poll workers are still needed for the Sept. 9 primary election in the District. With a potential paycheck of between $120 to $160 for a day's work, surely some of you could use the cash, and perhaps even more of you would just like......

Despite what Alert DC told us all this morning, WASA says the power outage in Columbia Heights was not caused by a water main break. We weren't the only ones who reported a main break at 13th and Florida this morning, but it also wouldn't be the first time Alert DC oversimplified something that was more nuanced. "It was not a water main break on 13th street. The corporation stop (or plug) that is put......

In case you missed this tidbit from the coverage of last night's round of fatal shootings, the Examiner is keen to point out that there have now been 108 homicides in the District in 2008, up from the same time period last year, which saw 105.......

They say that it's good to never give up, but would someone send Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) a memo telling him that sometimes it's cool to throw in the towel? According to a press release issued yesterday by DC Vote, Souder is looking to re-introduce legislation that would do away with the District's gun laws. Didn't the Supreme Court recently rule that the city's gun ban was unconstitutional, and didn't the police recently start registering......

D.C. Wire reports that D.C. Department of Transportation Director Emeka Moneme is leaving for a job with Metro. Moneme will become chief administrative officer of human resources, information technology and planning and development for WMATA General Manager John Catoe. Mayor Adrian Fenty has named Frank Seales Jr., general counsel for the D.C. Department of Transportation, as interim director of the agency.......

The Examiner catches up with Amy McVey, the first person to legally register a handgun in the District of Columbia since the Heller decision. That we didn't know until today that McVey successfully registered a gun is embarrassing for local reporters: apparently all the journalists waiting around on Thursday to see who would be the first to register a gun didn't notice McVey walking in to the registration office because she's a woman.......

The D.C. Council was supposed to be on recess starting today, but they couldn't quite get through their packed legislative session Tuesday, so they'll be coming back for more on Thursday. Hopefully Carol Schwartz can stand being away from Rehoboth for a couple more days. One of the items they did get to on Tuesday was an amendment introduced by Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) that would establish a $75 fine......

Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council, along with Attorney General Peter Nickles and Police Chief Cathy Lanier, announced the details of early legislation that will regulate the registration and storage of handguns in post-Heller D.C. “We continue to take every step we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. “We must prevent handguns from falling into the wrong hands or being misused, while allowing District residents to exercise their Second......

Nice work by the Post's David Nakamura over at D.C. Wire -- he figured out that you can still call an old extension at the Office of Tax and Revenue and hear an outgoing message that begins, "You've reached the office of Harriette Walters." Apparently officials decided to keep the line active with Walters's voice message to see if anyone would leave a message for her that would aid investigators. We just gave it a......

You may have read Eric Weiss's story in Sunday's Washington Post, which described the District's attempts to improve pedestrian safety and encourage walking and mass transit use as a "war against workers who drive into the city." There's not much more to say about it that David Alpert and Ryan Avent haven't already said. This sums it up nicely (from Avent):Essentially, Eric Weiss went around the suburbs asking folks to bitch about the District’s efforts......

It's been exactly one month since the city switched all of its taxi cabs over to time and distance meters, and we've spent that month asking every driver and frequent taxi passenger we've run across what their experiences have been. The vast majority of drivers we've spoken to agree that within the city, fares by and large even out to be about the same -- some are a little more, some are a little less,......

OK, so the District of Columbia doesn't actually have a real Olympic team that's officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. That isn't stopping D.C.'s U.S. "Shadow" Representative, Mike Panetta, from convening a practice session tonight that amounts to a protest against D.C.'s second class status. We'll let him explain:Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, while part of the United States, each only have one, non-voting delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives......

The AlertDC system sent out a warning that F Street NW is closed between 21st and 22nd street due to a ruptured natural gas line. Officials are asking that you avoid this area if at all possible on your way home tonight. UPDATE 5:54 p.m.: The natural gas line has been repaired and the roadway reopened.......

Back in March we wrote about how the literary web site Hitotoki (pronounced hee toe toe key) was seeking submissions to launch a D.C. edition. Sadly it appears our post wasn't enough to give the site enough momentum. Greg Lavallee, who was handling the submissions for the D.C. site, wrote to DCist today:It is with a heavy heart that I deliver news of Hitotoki D.C.'s demise. Unfortunately, we were unable to gather enough quality submissions......

The District Department of Transportation is hosting a city-wide public meeting tonight on the final draft of the District Draft Pedestrian Master Plan. If you still haven't had a gander at the plan itself, you can read it here. The plan includes a mix of efforts, including things like restriping crosswalks, changing signal timings, installing more Rapid Flash Beacons, and other tactics that target 61 "high hazard" traffic intersections. Some of the dangerous intersections and......

Well color us a little embarrassed. But only a little. After Matt Yglesias linked to our post complaining about how D.C., along with a handful of other states, had been left out of the state-specific shirts available at store.barackobama.com, a commenter at his site pointed out that he had found the correct url to order a "District of Columbia for Obama" T-shirt through a little legwork -- just finessing the url until he stumbled upon......

Now that the Democratic party has a presumptive nominee, some District residents, who overwhelmingly support Sen. Barack Obama anyway, might be in the market for an Obama T-shirt -- and they're in luck. The Obama campaign wisely has a number of such T-shirts available for sale at its online store, including state-specific shirts. The only problem? A friend recently pointed out that there is no "D.C. for Obama" T-shirt available for sale, even though Guam......

Residents watch the police checkpoint in D.C.'s Trinidad neighborhood on Saturday, June 7, 2008. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) We balked at the initial news that the Metropolitan Police Department planned to throw up barriers and checkpoints in certain D.C. neighborhoods experiencing excessive violent crime. Later, when we learned the details of the first case, the week-long checkpoint that was established in Trinidad, the MPD's plan appeared to be both constitutionally dubious and potentially not......

Over at Reason's Hit and Run blog, Katherine Mangu-Ward dips in to a book review she found in European Affairs that describes an aspect to Pierre L'Enfant's original idea for the federal city that we'd never heard of before. We all know about how the District's elaborate grid system of numbers, letters and states was intended to create lots of little squares, triangle parks and other such public spaces in between. But did you know......

Alexander Ovechkin receives a key to the city from D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray and Mayor Adrian Fenty. Photo by Lateef Mangum, courtesy the Mayor’s Office. Alexander Ovechkin received a key to the city this afternoon on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building. Several hundred fans, downtown office workers, and gawking tourists were on hand to revel in the success of the Washington Capitals star left-winger. He had just returned home from......

We enjoy a good Wikipedia hack as much as anyone. But the Washington, D.C. entry on the ubiquitous online encyclopedia suffered the injustice of being vandalized briefly this morning by someone who can't spell and isn't very funny (see underlined portion above). Can't you do better than that, nerds? The page was restored just before 10:30 a.m. this morning (hat tip to Jeffrey Young for the screen cap).......

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority sent around word this morning that too many people, especially in Southeast, have been opening up fire hydrants during the heat wave over the past few days, and water pressure in some areas is now very low as a result. The agency says they'd really, really like it if you would stop opening up those hydrants and playing in the resulting spraying water.The public is reminded that unauthorized use......