MoCo Economic Officials Says State Employment Numbers Are Wrong — Recent numbers from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) put the number of employees at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at 8,500 — more than 3,000 fewer than a year ago. Montgomery County Director of Economic Development Steve Silverman said those numbers and numbers at other major federal and private employers are plain wrong. [The Gazette]

Students To Present Cards To NIH Pediatric Patients — Students from Carderock Springs Elementary School on Friday will present hand-made holiday cards to pediatric patients at NIH to brighten their stay. Last spring, students at the school held a “Penny War” fundraiser to raise more than $5,000 for the NIH Clinical Center’s emergency fund. [NIH h/t Molly Hooven]

Bethesda Painting Awards — The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, a division of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, is accepting applications for the 10th annual Bethesda Painting Awards, a juried competition honoring four winning painters with $14,000 in prize money. The first place winner will get $10,000 and up to eight finalists will be invited to display their work in the June exhibition at Gallery B. [Bethesda Urban Partnership]

Metro Broken Escalator Rankings — You might think Bethesda has it bad when it comes to Metro escalators that don’t work. But according to a University of Maryland Ph.D student doing extensive tracking of broken escalators, we don’t have it as bad as many others. [Washington City Paper] [DC Metro Metrics]

Flickr photo by ehpien