DISTRICT BRIEFING

SUPERIOR COURT

Man on Trial in Strip-Club Fire

A D.C. Superior Court jury heard opening statements yesterday in the trial of a Phoenix man charged with setting fire to a strip club after being ejected for photographing a female dancer.

Vasile Graure, 38, is charged with assault with intent to kill with gasoline and a lighter in connection with the Nov. 3, 2007, fire at the Good Guys bar, in the 2300 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW.

Prosecutors said Graure, a visiting long-haul trucker , became angry when he was kicked out.

He allegedly went to a gas station, bought a lighter and gas can, filled the can with gas, returned to the club and started the fire. A man who tried to put it out suffered second- and third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body, prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys told the jury that there was no physical evidence tying Graure to the blaze.

-- Keith L. Alexander

SCHOOLS

Enrollment Figure Revised Upward

The decline in D.C. public school enrollment is not quite as steep as an initial September count indicated, officials said yesterday.

An Oct. 6 census showed 46,208 students in the District's 120 public schools, up from 45,135 in September. Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, said the revised number reflects late enrollments.

The total still represents the steepest annual decline -- 6.5 percent -- since the District hired an outside auditor to verify the student population in 1999. Enrollment last year was 49,422.

Nona Richardson, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said that she had no new enrollment figures available. The board estimates a 20 percent gain this year, to 26,494.

-- Bill Turque

NORTHWEST

Robbery Suspects Held After Crash

Two armed robberies on Northwest Washington streets yesterday led to a pursuit through the city and a crash near New York Avenue and North Capitol Street. Two suspects were taken into custody, D.C. police said.

One holdup occurred shortly before 11 a.m. in the 4600 block of Alton Place in the American University Park area. The second came about a half-hour later in the 3800 block of Calvert Street NW in the Glover Park area.

Police said a pursuit began after officers spotted a vehicle on Virginia Avenue NW that resembled the one reportedly used in the robberies. They said the vehicle was reported stolen in a carjacking in the Bladensburg area.

-- Martin Weil