Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro Newsletter for Nov. 12, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
In today’s newsletter: The mayor-elect, the D.C. jail and the ‘crazy world’ of college basketball.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 6/10. Some morning showers, but mild temperatures and a chance of afternoon sunshine make this the nicest day we’ll see for a while. Read the full forecast.
THE LATEST
Trending
Earlier this fall, Janeese Lewis George sat down at Stan’s Restaurant, an unpretentious basement haunt near McPherson Square, for a regular dinner with three fellow D.C. Council members with different political views. Over drinks and fried chicken, the table raised the question hanging over her impending victory: Would she still show up once she had the veto pen?
“They were like, ‘J, are you going to be able to do this — our dinners and stuff?’” the incoming mayor recalled. “I was like, ‘We have to force me to do it.’ No matter what, don’t let the hard decisions make you ostracized from people.”
For six years, the democratic socialist has built her political brand on radical accessibility and consensus-building, The Sun’s Michael Brice-Saddler reports in an in-depth profile. Now, as the 38-year-old mayor-elect prepares to take charge of a $20 billion municipal government, one central question looms: Can she govern a fractured, fiscally strained capital without breaking the relationships that put her there?
Stepping into the executive suite means inheriting an $800 million budget deficit and confronting a job where not every crisis can be fixed. It also brings an inevitable psychological isolation. As Council Chair Phil Mendelson observed, “Individuals who become mayor risk changing their personality a bit.”
Even her closest allies acknowledge the honeymoon will end the moment her first budget lands on the dais. “The only way to maintain your integrity is you have to be willing to upset your friends sometimes,” incoming D.C. Del. Robert White said.
Asked how she plans to say “no” to the grassroots allies who powered her rise, Lewis George did not flinch.
“All I can give them is the ‘why,’” she said, “and the honesty and the integrity to look them in the eye when I do it.”
FROM THE DISTRICT
Labor unions aren’t happy with the autonomous vehicle bill some D.C. Council members will vote on today, even after its author, Charles Allen, made revisions aimed at appeasing them, including giving rideshare drivers and AV facility workers collective bargaining power. The Sun asked the service workers union: What is it you want to see?
Their response: a “clear legal process” that allows rideshare drivers to organize and negotiate with the companies, fair wage standards, a shared platform requirement and an explanation of exactly how workers will be protected from losing their jobs or income beyond a general displacement fund, an SEIU spokesperson told The Sun in an email.
Their requests drove key council members on the transportation committee, who are due to mark up the bill at 4 p.m., to advocate for delaying a full council vote on the issue until next session.
Inmates at the D.C. jail were among the first to see part of a forthcoming PBS documentary on crime and punishment in America. As The Sun’s Jenny Gathright reports, the film screening led to a robust discussion about the history of the criminal justice system and its impact on members of the unique audience.
The cost for replacing D.C.’s aging jail could top $2.7 billion, according to public records obtained by The Washington Post. That’s a far cry from last year’s estimate of $1.4 billion, but the city has to cough something up: Jail conditions are so poor, D.C.’s Department of Corrections is being investigated by the Justice Department.
FROM VIRGINIA
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is still set on relocating the FBI headquarters to Virginia’s D.C. suburbs as his party prepares to regain control of Congress, the Washington Business Journal reports. His push comes as Maryland Democrats plan to revive the effort to move the headquarters to Greenbelt instead.
FROM MARYLAND
Reading between the lines: Gov. Wes Moore announced the release of his new book, “Repair,” on Wednesday. It’s set to hit shelves on March 9 and confronts how to solve America’s problems as the possible 2028 presidential candidate remains coy about running for office.
“We all know things in this country feel pretty broken right now,” Moore said in a video about the book release that he posted on X. “So this book invites us to, together, solve the hard question: What do we do about it?”
TALK TO TOM
Tom Sietsema is back, answering your questions about the D.C. dining scene. Submit your questions here.
If you were not a food correspondent — or in the industry at all — what would you be doing right now?
Maybe working as a diplomat? A younger me aspired to go into government service, especially something that would take me abroad. (For background, I graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown.)
True story: The same question was put to me years ago during an online Q&A for The Washington Post. At the time, I responded that if I weren’t a food critic, I’d like to have a job as a morning news anchor on TV or be the head of protocol for the State Department. A week later, I got a letter from Pete Selfridge, the actual U.S. chief of protocol in the Obama administration (2014 to 2017).
In essence, the ambassador wrote, “You might want my job, but I’d like yours.”
In the full Q&A: The best mom-and-pops, replicating dishes at home and how weight-loss drugs have affected the restaurant industry.
SPORTS
After he stepped down as the men’s basketball coach at Maryland in December 2021, Mark Turgeon was “100% sure” he was done with coaching. But five years later, he is back on the sidelines at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, a small Midwest school with no real basketball tradition. Turgeon, a Kansas native, relished an opportunity to return to the game not far from his hometown, but he also liked the idea of getting away from the complicated world of NIL and revenue sharing.
“I’m coaching players, and most of them are still doing it for the love of the game,” he told The Sun’s Alex Schiffer. “They’re not getting paid a lot. I can recruit a certain type of kid here. I’ve really enjoyed that part. I don’t feel like I’m involved in that crazy world.”
MLB general managers are gathered in Las Vegas this week for the league’s annual offseason meetings. Reporting from the desert, The Sun’s Jesse Dougherty writes that Paul Toboni, the Nationals’ president of baseball operations, articulated an offseason plan as best he could with a work stoppage around the corner.
What to Watch Today
NHL: Capitals at Devils, 7 p.m. (Monumental)
NBA: Wizards vs. Pistons, 7 p.m. (Monumental)
NFL: Commanders at Giants, 8:15 p.m. (Prime Video)
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The newsletter was produced by Jaden Amos, Michael Errigo and Nikie Johnson.
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