Last fall the D.C. Council approved spending $79 million to assist in the sale of the beleaguered Greater Southeast Community Hospital to Specialty Hospitals of America, and today, Specialty announced that they will give the hospital a new name and logo in an effort to break with the medical facility's checkered past. The hospital's staff are currently being asked to vote on a choice of three new names: Capitol Medical Center, Capitol Regional Medical Center......

Good morning, Washington. Yesterday afternoon Roll Call had the story of a potential suspect finally being identified in all those strange Senate bathroom fires from the last few months. Capitol Police Officer Karen Emory recently has been suspended in connection with the fires, although it still hasn't been confirmed whether she is definitely a suspect in the case. No charges have been filed, but color us a little disappointed if it turns out a......

Howard Kurtz's WaPo column today concerns the kerfuffle over Tim Page's angry email to Ward 8 Council Member Marion Barry's office that we told you about yesterday. As you'll recall, Page, who writes about classical music for the Post, received an unsolicited press release from Barry's office about the city's deal with Specialty Hospitals of America to purchase the Greater Southeast Community Hospital. Page then fired off an angry email in which he called the......

Good morning, Washington. The city is still reeling from the news that the U.S. Attorney's Office has indicted two employees from the District's Office of Tax and Revenue on charges of embezzling over $16 million. It's a staggering sum, and the Post cites officials who are calling it the largest theft ever uncovered in local government in the Washington area. The two women, Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus, are said to have used the money......

Good morning, Washington. It's Friday, and the city is still reacting to yesterday afternoon's announcement about how our new taxi meters are going to work. We already told you about the $4 flag drop, which many people are already saying is too high, and the fact that taxi roof lights will go on and off automatically to indicate whether a cab has a passenger, which everyone seems to agree is long overdue. One more thing......

>> The D.C. Council unanimously approved a final agreement today to spend $79 million to help Specialty Hospitals of America to purchase Greater Southeast Community Hospital. [WaPo] >> Veranda, a new restaurant at 11th and P NW, is officially opening Wednesday and having a soft launch already. [renewshaw] >> Tonya Bell, the woman who was charged in the UNIFEST street festival car crash in Southeast last spring, pleaded guilty to multiple felony assault charges......

Happy Tuesday, Washington. The news broke early this morning that Judge Roy Pearson will reportedly lose his job, according to sources cited by the Post. Pearson, who infamously sued the owners of Custom Cleaners first for $65 million and then later for $54 million for misplacing a pair of his pants, is a District administrative law judge who has continued to draw a paycheck despite being taken off of his case work since the......

The new record for the longest amount of consecutive days without measurable rainfall at Washington National Airport is scheduled to end later today, as showers and possibly a pretty heavy thunderstorm are predicted for this afternoon. But CapitalWeather.com says this rain event won't be enough to make a dent in the area's drought, as the rain will be short-lived and the amounts modest for the most part. Still, it's been a while since you had......

Although 192 protesters were arrested Saturday during the March to End the War and competing counter-protest by the Gathering of Eagles, by most measures turnout was low. The Post's Marc Fisher notes in his column that the small numbers of people who marched over the weekend is more a measure of a lack of enthusiasm for protesting in this country, rather than a lack of strong feelings against the war -- just visit any popular......

Good morning, Washington. If for some reason you still haven't caught the D.C. United fever, there's yet another reason for you to get behind our city's best professional sports team: last night, Jaime Moreno broke the Major League Soccer scoring record with 109 career goals. As always, our United team of Matt and Kyle will have a full post on the game later on, but here's the United's coverage while you wait (in case......

Good morning, Washington. We've just been catching up on the rather scary looking but thankfully not terror-related explosion in Manhattan yesterday. Naturally, our parent site Gothamist has complete coverage of the steam explosion that occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6 p.m. yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the explosion, which killed one person and injured 30, had New Yorkers worried for a while, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It wasn’t easy to keep up with the business flooding through the Council as the latest session neared its end. Amid the bills dealing with Greater Southeast Community Hospital, authorizing development bonds, addressing land deals in the West End and over the Center Leg Freeway, and placing moratoria on new Adams Morgan taverns, an interesting pattern nonetheless emerged. In just this past......

Yesterday's legislative action in the D.C. Council, typical of end-of-session days, was jam-packed with votes. Here's a few more you may have missed: >> The Council moved ahead on a bill that restricts interest rates levied by the so-called payday loan industry, an issue we've looked at before. The bill passed on an initial reading, and if implemented would place a 24 percent annual percentage rate cap on interest charged by lenders. The Examiner notes......

Good morning, Washington. Still can't get enough post-Pants Proceeding wrap-up? The Post's Henri E. Cauvin has a nice write-up and a video of the Chung family's press conference for you, conveniently located on A1. Still no word yet on whether Pearson will appeal yesterday's decision, but given the sheer volume of news stories published about this case all over the world, he can be sure whatever he decides to do from now on, people......

>> All you area students who planned on holding up provocative signs at your next high school event: think again. The Supreme Court ruled "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was out of line, and that high schools are free to punish students in order to regulate their speech. Do you think "The Vice-President is in the Legislative Branch" would fly? It's no less ridiculous. [WaPo] >> Foxhall Road will be a mess of construction for......

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......

Good morning, D.C. If you're like us (and presumably since you're reading this, you are), you love to follow local news, especially for those few stories that come up every now again that manage to combine two of the local media's favorite tropes: fear mongering and funny names. For example, just when you thought the intersex fish problem in the Potomac had drifted off into the ethereal plane of being old news, the Sierra Club......

Welcome to June, Washington. Also welcome to the end, at last, of your short post-holiday work week. We do hope it wasn't too painful. Even if it was, the good news is that it's going to be relatively pleasant, if a touch on the hot and humid side, most of the weekend. So spend some time sitting on your front stoop sipping iced tea. Just remember to slather on the sunblock, and of course, invite......

Ahhhh, the real start of summer: The consistently warmer temperatures ... the first night you venture wearing skimpy clothes out ... the year's first Code Orange Bad Air Quality Day. However you prefer measuring the start of the season, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is predicting our first Code Orange air quality day today, meaning ozone levels are predicted to be extremely high and the air quality very poor. The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission......

Good morning, Washington. We know how it is, the week before a major holiday when you've probably got travel plans -- Friday can't come soon enough. There's only two full work days left to go before you get to walk out that office door and do a little dance of joy, but in the meantime, we'll do our best to distract you from that increasingly nagging feeling that you might soon completely lose your......

Well, someone else said it first. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams is a lame duck, or so said Howard University President Patrick Swygert in an email sent on Wednesday to students and staff. WTOP is reporting that Swygert, none-too-happy that Williams stepped back from supporting a controversial plan to partner with Howard and build a new $400 million hospital in Southeast, fired off an email in which he took Williams to task, writing: Anthony Williams, who......

Today will be partly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon and highs in the upper 80s. This photo is from the photo album on the website of Jack's Boathouse in Georgetown. Post Focuses on Metro Safety: The Post's four-part investigative series on WMATA continues today with a story focusing on safety issues, which concludes "Time and again, records show, the public transit agency has disregarded the advice of......

Today will be mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain, with highs in the lower 60s. Matthew Bradley posted this photo of historian Howard Zinn to DCist photos yesterday. Also, it's only one more day before DCist celebrates Cinco de Mayo at Chief Ike's! Same-sex Couples Prohibited from Filing Joint Taxes: D.C.'s Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi ruled yesterday gay couples could not file taxes jointly in D.C., even if they were......