Arlington’s Emergency Winter Shelter will remain closed tonight despite gusty winds and temperatures dropping into the upper 30s.
Kathy Sibert, executive director of the Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network (A-SPAN), says that illustrates the need for a year-round shelter. A-SPAN has been lobbying the county board for funding for such a shelter.
Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell was at Glebe Elementary today as school, county and state officials helped to mark the opening of a new “reading garden.”
McDonnell used garden shears to cut a ceremonial ribbon as a crowd of about 50 adults and students applauded.
A missing Yorktown High School grad and athletic standout has been found safely in Fairfax County. Mikey Pinkerton is back home in North Arlington after going missing on April 15, his father confirmed this afternoon.
Mikey’s father said he’s grateful to the friends, family and strangers who helped out during the nearly two week search.
Among the tracking options for riders are the “RealTime Desktop,” which displays a useful but user-unfriendly map of the bus system, and “RealTime Smartphone,” which can be accessed on a computer as well as on a smartphone and which is actually much easier to use. There will also be RealTime displays at select bus stops throughout the county.
Excluding Metro’s NextBus system, the new ART system the first local real-time bus information service in the region. Beta testing on the system began a few weeks ago.
Chain Bridge will be completely closed to traffic and pedestrians this weekend due to the ongoing bridge reconstruction project.
The bridge will be closed from 9:00 Friday night to 5:00 Monday morning.
From Shirlington Village Blog: An ABC notice posted in the window of a retail space at the Randolph Square development (2800 South Randolph Street) lists the occupant as “Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub.”
Locals may know Elevation Burger for their strip mall storefronts on Lee Highway in Arlington and Falls Church. But the restaurant industry knows Elevation Burger as #56 on last year’s annual FastCasual.com Top 100 list of movers and shakers.
The nascent chain has seven restaurants open right now and expects to open more than 100 restaurants from LA to NYC to Kuwait by 2013. A Rosslyn location is also in the works, and a Ballston location may not be too far behind. The company hopes to open a few dozen stores in the D.C. area in coming years.
There are currently major delays on Washington Boulevard due to an incident between Route 50 and Columbia Pike. Numerous police cars and fire/EMS units are on the scene of a pedestrian who is experiencing some sort of medical emergency.
Traffic is backed up to I-395 heading north, and to North Garfield Street heading south. Police will soon start diverting southbound traffic onto Route 50.
Matthew Pickens was seriously injured after a moving van struck his county work truck at the intersection of Columbia Pike and South Wakefield Street on April 5. Pickens, who was working on a traffic light in the truck’s hydraulic basket, fell hard to the street below.
At the time, it was thought that Pickens’ injuries were not life-threatening.
At a press conference at Northrop Grumman’s Rosslyn government affairs office, Governor Bob McDonnell and Northrop president and CEO Wes Bush formally announced the decision.
Bush said the company is in “final negotiations” with building owners in Arlington and Falls Church — both within Rep. Jim Moran’s eighth congressional district — and will announce a location within a month. The new headquarters will open by the summer of 2011.
On Thursday, the board will vote on the school system’s FY2011 budget, which would include any planetarium funding or lack thereof. Leaders of the “Friends of the Planetarium” group, who are actively representing more than 3,200 Facebook “fans” and 900 petition signers, say they are not sure which way the board will vote.
At this point, it’s also not clear which of three possible “scenarios” the board would be voting on. The scenarios range from retaining one full-time planetarium teacher for K-5 students and hiring hourly staff as needed on weekends, to using the planetarium as classroom space during the week and only hiring for weekend shows (while also funding K-2 field trips to the Einstein Planetarium at the National Air and Space Museum).
Governor Bob McDonnell’s office has confirmed that Northrop Grumman will be moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Northern Virginia. Just where in Northern Virginia is another question.
The Associated Press is reporting that the site will either be in Fairfax County near Dulles Airport or in Crystal City.
