Seems like just about everything about driving a car in this city is becoming more expensive these days. WTOP reports that parking fees at both National and Dulles airports will go up on June 1. At National, regular daily parking will increase from $17 a day to $20 a day, while economy parking will go from $10 to $12 for 24 hours. Hourly and valet parking will stay the same. There will be another option......

WTOP is reporting that the the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority plans to ban taxicabs without meters from taxi stands at Reagan National Airport. That's good. Regular roundtrips to DCA are the D.C. taxi driver's bread and butter, and the airport taxi stands have dispatch employees there to assist passengers who are ready and able to enforce the meter rule. But MWAA says it will begin enforcing this rule at National on June 1, one month......

The rush to get out of D.C. to family Thanksgiving celebrations has already begun, but if you're still reading DCist, you're probably still at work and planning on leaving within the next 72 hours. Whether opening up that military airspace will really make a difference at Washington area airports remains to be seen, but WMATA has announced a special Thanksgiving weekend schedule that could stand to help out many of you trying to take public......

The Washington Business Journal reported yesterday that the Washington Convention Center will be officially renamed to honor D.C.'s first elected mayor, Walter E. Washington. Apparently the D.C. Council approved the name change last year, though we can't recall having heard about it at the time. The idea is a fine one though, and Washington is certainly worthy of having his legacy honored. So what's the problem? As of Nov. 5, the building will officially become......

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......

It's finally over; summer's soon to be actually gone. As we slumber this evening, the season that wouldn't end will at last lift its hot, wet blanket from our area, and autumn will descend with her cool nights and humidity-free days. Summer hung on like a trooper, though, lasting nearly three weeks past the autumnal equinox, and presenting us with--as our friends at CapitalWeather.com noted--three straight days of 90 degree temperature. This has happened only......

Now this is a "Wow" photo. Flickr user chapulin colorado woke up at some ridiculous hour to take this early morning shot of a plane taking off from Washington National Airport. The dramatic 8 second exposure from Gravelly Point Park leaves us only with the light trails as they arch up into the air. EXIF.......

Today tens of thousands of District children return to school, leaving behind the late-morning starts, extended curfews and breaks at the public swimming pool that summer afforded them. And though the year will proceed as it usually does, they will be part of a school system that has seen drastic changes over the last few months. Now under mayoral control and led by new chancellor Michelle Rhee, the District's public schools have entered a new......

If you're heading to any Yellow line destinations this weekend, including National Airport, you should make alternate plans. Metro is shutting down the Yellow line rail bridge over the Potomac River this weekend to do track maintenance and conduct an annual bridge inspection. The closure begins tonight at 10 p.m. and lasts through Sunday at midnight. Directions from WMATA: When a Yellow Line train arrives at the King Street Metrorail station, passengers must transfer to......

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy......

>> The Red Line has resumed normal service after a suspicious package closed the Dupont Circle, Woodley Park, and Cleveland Park stations for several hours. >> Temperatures hit 102 at Reagan National Airport at 1 p.m., breaking a nearly 80-year-old record by one degree. [WaPo] >> The Adams Morgan Safeway closed briefly Sunday evening due to a bomb scare. [City Desk] >> Damage from the Capitol Lounge/Trover Shop fire is estimated at about $100,000......

>> The young women killed in last night's Beltway accident have been identified, and two of them graduated from high school only hours before. [AP and WTOP] >> A Judge ruled that rapper 50 Cent cannot be compelled to testify in the civil case against NBA star Allen Iverson stemming from a 2005 scuffle at Eyebar. [WaPo] >> A woman was humiliated by a TSA employee for trying to take her son's tap water-filled......

Yesterday's snow storm didn't add up to much as expected, but some of the melted snow on the ground froze overnight, causing a number of suburban school districts to alter their schedules today. Lucky bastards. In the end, only 1.3 inches of snow fell at Reagan National Airport, and with sunny days today and tomorrow with highs in 40s, most of that will likely disappear in short order. Better luck next year, snowpocalypse. Jail Time......

Welcome back, Washington. You're probably still busy with Holiday merriment, but we're here working hard for you. Err... rather, we'll be posting today between yelling at football games and re-heating the Christmas roast beast. Also worth noting is the beginning of Kwanzaa and observance of Boxing Day. While Kwanzaa is mainly an American week of celebration, we have special envy of Boxing Day, a holiday virtually everywhere else in the English-speaking world. It's a whole......

Here's bettin' that most of us will be hopping on a plane in the coming weeks to go visit friends and family over the holiday season. With increasing security lines, liquid fiascoes and general holiday logjams, the trip probably isn't one that anybody is looking forward to. But which airport will get us to our destination fastest? There can only be one... and it turns out the best and fastest place to begin your travels......

We're not sure if Indian Summer is an entirely PC term, but when mall Santas start appearing the same week it's predicted to skirt 70 degrees, we're left with two conclusions. Either we were really nice to puppies and orphans in a past life or global warming isn't so bad. Now for the rest of the news. Fenty Already In The Hole: Incoming Mayor Adrian Fenty hasn't even been sworn in yet and he's facing......

D.C. residents have enough trouble getting people outside the city to take our pleas for fair legislative representation seriously. But the struggle may be more difficult than we ever feared. It seems we've been going about this whole campaign all wrong. We've been appealing to the rest of the country's sense of fairness when we should have been trying to convince them that we're not just a figment of their high school civics teachers' collective......

Agraria Changes Once Again It seems like Agraria hasn't yet settled into a good routine. The new hotness on the Georgetown waterfront has weathered the tumult of its head chef leaving just days after opening, as well as a crappy article in the New York Times; now it faces the prospect of searching for a new sommelier and restaurant manager just as its new chef picks up the cleaver. Derek Brown, formerly of Firefly, has......

This past weekend, Beltway traffic began moving entirely on the gleaming new span of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the completed first half of a project to replace the old river-crossing with 12 shimmering lanes, arcing from Virginia, through a sliver of District, into Maryland. Almost immediately, reports NBC 4, demolition began on the old Wilson bridge. That old bridge was a pain. It was cramped and usually jammed. Planners hadn't anticipated the crush of traffic......

Those of us who have lived in Washington since 9/11 well know the various security changes that have occurred at Reagan National Airport over the last five years. When the airport re-opened a month later, aircraft containing more than 156 seats and the awesomely-named "River Visual" approach were banned until mid-2002. Oh, and remember when you couldn't pick anyone up at the curb in a private vehicle? How about that no standing up on the......

A once-in-200-years rainstorm, is what that was all about, says the Post. At National Airport, just over one foot of rain fell between Friday morning and yesterday morning, and an additional three or so inches came down last night, continuing to compound flood problems around the region. In Montgomery County, a number of residents were evacuated over fears a Rock Creek dam would burst, and across the metropolitan area getting around has become difficult as......

Flickr user ohad* used a 10 second exposure to capture this shot of National Airport with his Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. He has a whole set of long exposure shots if you want to see more.......

Word is leaking out -- Metro's Yellow Line will extend its runs to the Ft. Totten station during off-peak hours starting in January 2007. In a letter to his constituents, Council-member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who had long pushed for the idea, wrote: The WMATA board has given the green light to extending the Yellow Line to Fort Totten during off-peak periods. As a voting member, I proposed this extension. It would double the number......

My baby loves a bunch of authors, but this week, it’s all about the holiday, and our dedicated men and women of letters deserve a chance to be home with their families, enjoying what is now the mid-point of the Christmas season and elevating their tryptophan levels. MONDAY Did you know that in 2007, our very own Kennedy Center will be mobilizing local, national, and international forces to bring DC a six-month long, no holds......

Yesterday a select group of National Zoo donors were given first crack at seeing the District's newest four-legged sensation, Butterstick (yes, officially he is called Tai Shan, but National Airport is also officially known as Reagan and we're not about to start calling it that). Parents and children took the opportunity to ohhh and ahhh their way past the undeniably cute panda cub and mother Mei Xiang, while those of us too cheap to donate......

It wasn't long ago that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and police chief Charles Ramsey were celebrating a murder rate that looked to be falling relative to years past. Oh, how they must be pining for those optimistic days now. Yesterday marked the unceremonious day during which the District's murder rate came to match that of the same time last year -- 156 dead. And it came after a spate of killings that left four dead......

It's Labor Day weekend, and you thought everybody had gotten the hell out of Dodge City, hadn't you? Well, they probably have, and we're experiencing serious envy of anyone who's on a beach right now with a margarita in hand. But don't despair - there's still tons to do in D.C. this weekend, and we've rounded up the best of the best for you to do in a special extended version of Weekend Picks. But......

Happy Thursday, D.C. Well, if another day of high humidity and the threat of thunderstorms could be "happy"... In good travel-related news, scheduling your restroom trips on flights to and from Reagan National Airport just got easier: the restrictions on leaving your seat within thirty minutes of takeoff or landing have been lifted in the wake of a restructuring of the Department of Homeland Security. Created in response to the 9/11 attacks, the regulations......

A recent survey conducted by America Online found that the average American worker wastes more than two hours a day, costing U.S. companies $759 billion annually in lost productivity. Virginia ranked seventh in the nation, yet no word on how Maryland and the District fared. We here at DCist may just be speculating, but something tells us any increases in wasted time may very well track with increased access to the internet, and may have......

As we reported yesterday, today there will be a disaster training exercise near the Pentagon which officials warn may "look very real." This photo was taken by Flickr user Nick S at Dupont Circle. Today will be partly cloudy with highs in the 80s and a 20 percent chance of rain in the afternoon. Sierra Club: Metro Needs $2.4 Billion: The Examiner covers an ongoing effort by the Sierra Club to build the political......