An anonymous reader sent DCist a series of photos of a D.C. Department of Public Works garbage truck driving through a recreation field in Rose Park in Georgetown last Saturday. The tipster described the truck as having hopped the curb to gain access to the "grass of a children's play area" in the park, and wondered whether this was safe. No one was injured, but a baby carriage in the foreground of the images certainly......

Photo by stgermh Things continue to look up for the future of the Fort Reno Summer Concert Series, as well as for general safety concerns in the neighborhood surrounding Fort Reno Park. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released official soil sampling results today which confirmed preliminary results that show arsenic levels in the park are well below what is considered safe. Lab results verified by the EPA showed arsenic levels in 13 samples had......

WTOP has the scoop on the latest from the Fort Reno Park arsenic saga. Officials have said that early testing from 13 soil samples at Fort Reno Park, Wilson High School and Alice Deal Middle School show a reading of 10 parts per million -- far below the up to 1,100 parts per million a U.S. Geological Survey finding that closed the park last week. Safe levels of arsenic are listed as 43 parts per......

Potentially terrible news for local music fans: The Going Out Gurus are reporting that Fort Reno Park, the site of D.C.'s beloved outdoor summer concert series, has been closed indefinitely after United States Geological Survey satellite imaging reports found high levels of arsenic in the soil there. We've since heard from readers who said they saw the park service today in the process of putting a fence around the entire park to ensure no one......

If you're the kind of person who gets excited reading about green roofs and community building projects, Washington Parks & People may be able to fuel your desire to put a hand in making your neighborhood a better place to live. This 18 year-old community group has played a vital role in turning D.C. parks, like Meridian Hill and Marvin Gaye Parks, from dangerous, crime-ridden areas to places where people play and see performances and......

Fall leaves have lingered on trees much later than normal this year, leading to slippery conditions all over the city. Metro once again had to place speed restrictions on all trains passing through above-ground stations over the weekend, and we spotted more than a few people stepping carefully through wet and leaf-covered sidewalks this morning after last night's storm. Seems like a good time to remind everyone how fall leaf collection works in the District.......

We were alerted yesterday via the Art Law Blog that the U.S. Department of the Interior is gearing up to change motion and still photography rules on federally run lands. In an amendment to current regulations, three DOI agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Services, and the National Park Service, will be authorized to charge standardized fees to and require a permit from commercial photographers who want to shoot in an area......

Editors Note: We enjoyed the tour diaries J. Tom Hnatow wrote for us as part of These United States' last tour, so we asked him if he wouldn't mind doing it again as the band embark on their first ever intercontinental tour of the UK and Europe. He graciously agreed. This is the third installment of an ongoing series. Tuesday, October 23, 2007 A leisurely breakfast, then off to Bath. Bath is stunningly beautiful. And......

>> Sure, meters are great, but what about getting D.C. taxi drivers to use their rooftop lights like cabs in every other city? [NotionsCapital] >> The Quest for Dog Parks: A very rigid search. [Intangible Arts] >> Some D.C. Cab drivers hate Halloween! [WaPo] >> All MARC commuter service out of Union Station on the Brunswick Line has been shut down because of a gas leak in Kensington. [AP/WTOP] >> Vietnam Memorial Visitor Center......

Mark down an initial battle victory to the owners in the long and strained D.C. doggy wars. The Examiner reports on a change in the regulations governing the establishment of off-leash dog parks in the District that should make it easier to create fenced-in spaces for dogs to play. Dog owners in the city have long complained about a dearth of spaces where they could legally let dogs off their leashes to get exercise. Among......

Jason Campbell couldn't miss, the defensive line looked like a wrecking crew, Carlos Rogers actually intercepted a pass (and returned it for a touchdown!), and Baby Jesus announced his preference for Joe Gibbs over Jon Kitna in a beating of the Detroit Lions so savage that Daniel Snyder had plenty of free time to stop worrying about the state of his football team, and start worrying about how the rides from his terrible theme parks......

Just a few days ago there was a flurry of sarcasm over the launch of DipNote, the comically named, poorly designed and dubiously intentioned new official State Department blog. It's fair to say that its arrival was met in the larger blogosphere with a resounding thud, though whether there might be anything worthwhile content-wise in its existence seems worth going back to check at least a few times. Now there's another new government blog being......

Written by DCist Contributor Ben Schuman-Stoler We all know about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but probably mostly as a stop on the round-the-Mall tour we give visiting family and friends. If they ask, we tell them that a young woman won a competition in the '80s. They say, “Wow, that’s interesting. What a great memorial.” But it remains an emotional site, its message solemn and powerful, which we were reminded of when two acts of......

>> Jazz fans won't want to miss guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel at Blues Alley tonight, feauturing saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Ben Street and drummer Rodney Green. Sets are at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Tickets available here. $25 + $10 food/drink minimum. >> Tickets are still available for Woolly Mammoth's production of The Unmentionables, about which our critic said that it "points Fat Albert’s giant index finger at the audience in a......

Last week we gave you an overview of all that's going on at the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. This week, we'll tell you a bit more about all the great music happening this weekend as well as our picks for those of you, which is probably all of you, who don't have time to make it out to every show. >> Tonight's pick is Kurt Rosenwinkel, an inventive guitarist who is not to be missed.......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Things used to be clearer for Fairfax County. It used to be known as the epitome of upper-middle class suburbanity, even earning name-checks in popular novels and songs as such. With acres and acres of rolling hills covered in leafy suburbs and landscaped office parks, it was a quiet complement to the quirky inner suburbs of Northern Virginia and the dense chaos......

In just a few months, fans will finally get a glimpse of the new $611 million baseball stadium rising in Southeast. No longer will they simply be looking at an artists rendering -- they'll get to see the new concourse, the stands, the suites and the field for themselves. And today the Post's Marc Fisher poses an interesting question -- beyond the bricks and mortar, what should the team's owners offer inside the stadium? After......

Interesting story in today's Examiner, which tells the story of Logan Circle resident and dog owner Daniel Greenberg. Greenberg likes to let his dog off its leash inside Logan Circle, even though the practice is against city code. He was caught with his dog off-leash by an MPD officer back in May, and was actually arrested on criminal charges -- even though the D.C. Council has passed legislation that makes having a dog off its......

The Washington Post has their ear to the ground, listening for the news that D.C. really wants to hear: the next wave of super duper anti-rat technology. Or not, they add, but Joseph Dussich, inventor of the Repel-X trash bag, thinks he's found the key to Pied Piper the city's rats right out of town, or at least away from alley dumpsters. His trash bags use the aroma of eucalyptus and a few secret ingredients......

>> 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......

>> "Hundreds of guests at the Washington Plaza Hotel were evacuated this morning after smoke filled the hotel's basement because of an overheated sump pump." [WaPo] >> "The greens at East Potomac Golf Course are looking more brown these days due to a mix up by a government contractor who mistook herbicide for fertilizer." [WJLA] >> "Sajani Shakya, a 10-year-old Nepalese girl who jeopardized her status as a “living goddess” by traveling to the......

Flickr user yospyn took this photo of a ladybug's butt at the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Va. The severe depth of field makes for some lovely bokeh that turns this nature photo into a bit of a dreamy landscape.......

The D.C. Lottery will begin selling tickets for a new, short-term raffle today that has considerably better odds of a large payout than most other lottery games. The D.C. Millionaire Raffle will sell a fixed number of 250,000 raffle tickets at $10 a piece, each pre-printed with a six-digit number, from now until August 22, 2007 (or until all tickets are sold). One top prize of $1 million will be awarded after a drawing, as......

The Armed Forces Retirement Home, also called the Old Soldiers’ Home, sparked a battle with area residents in late 2005 when it released plans for commercial and residential development of its bucolic estate in north-central Washington. Now, a community nonprofit is in the fray, fighting to create a park on a portion of the home’s land, closed to the public for over 50 years. Officially established late last summer, Washington Central Parks wants to use......

In late February of 2005, I found myself walking along a path in Central Park when, at dusk, a light snow began to fall. As the snow blanketed the landscape, it sucked up the sounds of the city, leaving only one thing audible: the sound of the saffron curtains over our heads lazily flapping in the breeze. Suddenly, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates stood out in brilliant contrast to the ear just as they popped......

Ninety-six degress, Washington. That's what weather.com is predicting for today's high. That should put the heat index safely into the hundred range, and the city as a whole into the "justified complaining" range. And it's what made this photo from phillefan_99 catch our attention. It's hard to look at it and not think wistfully of summer days at Cameron Run, rubbing our backs raw on the waterslides and bobbing in the suspiciously salty wave......

Ever since he took office after eight years of Mayor Anthony Williams' tenure, the question has burned in our minds: Will D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continue Williams' tradition by opening the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation's public swimming pools with a cannonball dive? He's been asked the question a number of times already, but always with a different answer. First Fenty said maybe his twin sons, Matthew and Andrew, would do the honors. Then......

A few weeks ago DCist dug into status of dogs in the district. Needless to say, pet owners and non-owners alike had a few things to say about the availability of dog parks and picking up poochs' poop. Now we hear about the case of Deputy White House Spokesman Dana Perino's husband, who spent a day in jail for his failure to keep his canine companion on a leash. Back in November, Perino's husband, British......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

We're just a weekend away from the March for Voting Rights, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, April 16 at Freedom Plaza, ending at the U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool at 4 p.m. for a rally. As we've mentioned before, you only have to take an hour off of work to join in the cause, and we'd encourage everyone to do so. We'll be there, and this is why: We're Too Close To......