Photo by The All-Nite Images on Flickr.

Fight for 15

The DC Council unanimously voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour while raising the tipped minimum to $5 an hour. The bill also included an amendment to study the feasibility of a minimum-income system. (City Paper)  

Poor workmanship, just deserts

A Virginia couple accused of performing slapdash residential renovations across the District agreed to pay $1.3 million in restitution to home buyers. They are also banned from further house flipping in DC. (WAMU)  

Avoid the crush

If people in SafeTrack-affected areas don’t find other ways to commute, WMATA says riders will experience “crush loads”. That could mean trains that are way, way more crowded than you’ve ever seen. (WAMU)  

7000 problems

Metro pulled its new 7000-series railcars from the Silver, Orange, and Blue lines — the first lines affected by SafeTrack — after two incidents where the trains stopped after losing touch with the third rail. (WAMU)  

Inherent vices

These infographics explain how some of the design choices Metrorail planners made, like where they put crossover tracks and how they built underground stations, contribute to the maintenance problems the system faces today.  (Post)  

Too much FBI parking

As of now, the General Services Administration says the future FBI building must have a huge amount of parking, and that being near Metro isn’t a priority. Some officials are pushing to change that. (Post)  

Long goodbye for DC General

DC’s Department of General Services announced that the DC Council’s new homeless shelter plan will push the closing of DC General until 2019. It’s possible that the aging shelter will be closed in stages. (DCist)  

House flipping not flopping

In the first quarter of the year, the DC area continued to beat the national averages for profits from house flipping. Properties in the District offered the greatest return on investment. (WBJ)  

And…

Venture-capital investment and big money from startups are increasingly flowing toward dense, walkable urban neighborhoods. (CityLab)… Norway is on the verge of banning the sale of all petrol-powered cars by 2025. (Independent)… In India, a lack of “good samaritan laws” make it less likely that people help one another after a traffic crash. (BBC)