Don’t Touch My Bag: Turns out searching bags on Metro is even less popular than raising fares. Last night, the Metro Riders’ Advisory Council voted overwhelmingly to ask the transit agency to stop the new policy, which looks more and more like an irritating, expensive, and pointless exercise. But since that’s never stopped Metro from doing anything else, don’t expect the recommendation to be followed any time soon. +1

Middle East Museum Madness: When mobs looted invaluable antiquities from Baghdad’s Iraqi National Museum, Donald Rumsfeld shrugged it off as the price of freedom. “Democracy is messy,” he declared. Nearly eight years later, the U.S. government is paying for Iraqis to learn how to conserve antiquities (among other museum curating duties), as part of a new residency program at George Washington University. The first lesson? Hope the U.S. doesn’t invade your country. +2

When Good Teenagers Go Bad: The nice thing about living in an era when everyone has a video camera attached to their cell phone is that when marauding teenagers assault Metro riders for no reason, someone’s bound to take video of it. The bad thing? Taking video is, apparently, about all they’ll do; helping stop the attack is out of the question. Just ask Allen Haywood, who was besieged by kids Sunday night at the L’Enfant Plaza station and wound up going viral. -4

Late Night with the Dismemberment Plan: There was no such thing as Twitter or Facebook when the Dismemberment Plan broke up. But that hasn’t stopped the reunited D.C. indie rock band from taking to social networks to ask fans what to play when they appear on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon later this month. Then again, there was no such thing as a Jimmy Fallon late-night TV show when they broke up, either. +1

Yesterday’s Needle rating: 58 Today’s score: 0 Today’s Needle rating: 58