The Night Note: 8/30/10

News you need to know.

The following stories are brought to you by the fine folks on the News4 assignment desk.

JUDGE RULES AGAINST CUCCINELLI IN GLOBAL-WARMING CASE
Virginia's attorney general has the authority to investigate whether a former University of Virginia climate-change researcher defrauded state taxpayers, but the prosecutor has failed so far to spell out what he suspects the professor did wrong, a judge ruled Monday.

Retired Albemarle County Circuit Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. determined that the university can be subject to an investigation by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. But Peatross found that Cuccinelli's demands for researcher Michael Mann's records fail to spell out the nature of Mann's alleged wrongdoing. (WTOP)

LESSON LEARNED: SERIOUS JOURNALISTS SHOULDN'T SEND FAKE TWEETS
There are two things you probably should know about Washington Post columnist and radio show host Mike Wise. One is that he's probably one of the most well-known columnists in the area and probably holds a ton of insider information. The other? He's only recently become a very active user of Twitter.

Both of these key points came to a head earlier today when Wise decided to play a little joke on people. Here are some of the tweets he sent out earlier today. (SB Nation)

FENTY THE 'UNDERDOG'
Mayor Adrian Fenty is casting himself at the "underdog" in his re-election campaign, just four years after he won support of every precinct in the District.

The tides that have been turning against the mayor's re-election became more evident Sunday with the release of a Washington Post poll that showed the incumbent with 36 percent of the vote against D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray's 49 percent. Despite a message change in which Fenty has apologized for not listening well enough and promised to do better, the incumbent mayor has been unable to re-establish his base. The Post poll also continued to show a trend of black voters fleeing the mayor. The loss of their support threatens to sink Fenty's re-election. (Washington Examiner)

DC NATIONAL AQUARIUM DOESN'T DELIVER WHAT YOU EXPECT
After our visit to DC’s National Aquarium we were set to tell our readers not to waste their money. But a little online research has us changing our tune, just a bit. We still wouldn’t recommend it as a major family outing, but it might be a worthwhile visit… just not for the obvious reasons.

A couple of weeks ago a friend came downtown for an afternoon with his own one-year old daughter and we decided to meet up at the Museum of Natural History. PQ Mom had taken our daughter there earlier and she loved the mammals exhibit with all the large animals. On this occasion, however, we hit the museum at the wrong time and there was a huge line just to get in the door. Lacking patience, we decided to go somewhere else and walked over to the National Aquarium on 14th Street, since neither of us had been there before. (Penn Quarter Living)

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