A Toast To Spring, With A ‘Cherry Blossom’ On Top!

The party started early this year. It’s the centennial celebration of the cherry blossoms, and everyone’s invited.

Many of the cherry trees now bursting with pink around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., have been there for a century. Talk about some inspiring longevity! What started as a simple gift of 3,000 trees from the city of Tokyo has blossomed into a five-week extravaganza that’s become something of a national celebration of spring.

So we decided to wander through the crowds to get a better look at these blossoming glories — and the million or so folks who flock to the nation’s capital every year to see them. -John Rose and Doriane Raiman

newshour:

The Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, challenges 20 teams from universities to design, build and operate solar-powered houses. These teams work for two years on houses showcased on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

This year for the first time, cost was a key consideration in the competition.

I went to the Solar Decathlon over the weekend. Neat stuff! I really liked the entry from Appalachian State University called The Solar Homestead. It didn’t place highly in the competition, though. —Wright

Matt Stiles // The Daily Viz: DC vs. Austin Weather: Part 2

mattstiles:

Back in May I compared the weather in my former town, Austin, Texas, to my current home, Washington, DC. Now that I’ve lived through a summer here, I’ve revisited the topic with two simple line charts.

This first chart shows monthly averages. As you can see, Austin experienced 100-degree…

Quan Chu, a longtime resident of DC’s Chinatown and a neighbor of NPR’s headquarters, passed away this week after a hit-and-run bicyclist crashed into him and his wife. Almost every day, I saw the two of them taking their morning walk. Here’s my tribute to him.