Flyover Planned This Morning — From AlertDC: “The US Military will be conducting a Flyover at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday January 5, 2024 at 9:10 AM.”
Protest at Blinken’s House — “Pro-Palestinian protesters targeted Secretary of State Antony Blinken with ‘fake blood’ outside his suburban Virginia home on Thursday. Activists surrounded his SUV as it rolled through the gates of his house in [Arlington, near the McLean border] and spilled red paint on the driveway as he left for work. The demonstrators shouted ‘shame on you’ and ‘war criminal’ and told the U.S. to stop the ‘genocide’ Gaza.” ACPD responded to the scene to assist the Diplomatic Security Service around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. [Daily Mail]
Public Safety Radio Issues — From Dave Statter: “Arlington County’s public safety radio system failed tonight. They went to a backup system, switching over to Fairfax County’s radio channels. That’s an important advantage of the long-standing interoperability in much of the region. It appeared to go down shortly after 6:30 p.m. This also impacted the Falls Church Police Department. FCPD shares Arlington’s radio system.” [Twitter]
Errant SUV Busted Bike Box — A driver who rammed into the Chase Bank in Pentagon City on Wednesday night “also completely took out the covered bicycle boxes that were there.” [Twitter, Twitter]
Final Report on Metro Derailment — “The National Transportation Safety Board has released its final report on the October 2021 Blue Line train derailment, which led to more than half of Metro’s fleet of trains being pulled off the tracks and drastically reduced rail service.
The NTSB’s final report said Metro was aware of a problem that caused the wheelsets on its new 7000-series trains to drift too far apart but that officials in the transit agency didn’t properly address the hazard before a Blue Line train derailed near the Rosslyn Metro Station.” [WTOP]
Significant Snow Unlikely — “Earlier in the week, we said the odds favored more rain than snow for a storm expected in the D.C. region this weekend. That remains the case, with most areas probably only seeing a little snow and sleet Saturday morning before changing to mostly rain in the afternoon.” [Capital Weather Gang]
It’s Friday — Expect a sunny day with a high around 42 and a northwest wind around 6 mph, shifting to southwest in the afternoon. As night falls, anticipate increasing clouds and a low temperature of approximately 30, accompanied by a gentle south wind. [Weather.gov]