Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro newsletter for Oct. 7, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
In today’s newsletter: The Capital-less capital, an anti-AV protest and more parking tickets.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 10/10. Legit candidate for nicest day of the year! Sunshine and Goldilocks highs around 70 to 75.Full forecast from Capital Weather.
THE LATEST
Trending
“We’re not looking at D.C. It’s a serious red flag.”
That’s what three national banks told Kimberly Driggins when she courted them for investment this past week, the affordable housing executive said yesterday at a panel hosted by the D.C. Policy Center.
“We are sort of the last place right now that people want to do a deal,” said Driggins, the chief executive officer of the Washington Housing Conservancy. “[Lenders] are looking in the DMV, but it’s Maryland and Virginia.”
Each panelist pointed to the same reason why: D.C. landlords are struggling with “sustained and systemic non-payment” of rent, as Hilary Allard Goldfarb of the Rockefeller Group put it.
Until the council can figure out how to help landlords collect — and therefore beat back a national perception that D.C. is “leading the country” in drawing out eviction cases — the Democratic nominee for mayor should reevaluate her publicly stated goal of building 72,000 housing units within five years, Driggins said.
“Maybe we need to rethink that number,” she said. “I think we need to focus on preserving what we have — there’s a lot of affordable housing here that is at risk of being lost.”
But Janeese Lewis George isn’t backing off that goalpost. Though her campaign acknowledged the District’s “serious economic challenges” including nonpayment, Lewis George’s communications director said that their team is working with the private sector to restore confidence in D.C.’s housing market.
“D.C. needs to build more homes in more neighborhoods. That’s a fact. To get there, we have to stabilize the market, preserve the affordable housing we already have, and get on top of the rental arrears challenges while protecting our tenants. Those priorities go hand in hand,” Amanda Michelle Gomez, the communications director, wrote in a statement shared with The Sun. “72,000 homes is an ambitious goal because it should be.”
DEEP DIVE
Pump the brakes: A coalition of rideshare drivers, religious leaders and union workers rallied yesterday outside the Wilson Building to protest a council bill that would green-light autonomous vehicle companies’ operation in the District.
Their chief concern was job losses, citing recent data that shows trips per hour and gross hourly pay for rideshare drivers falls in cities where AVs operate.
“The job situation in this city has already been compromised and hurt by this federal administration,” William Young, who is the pastor at Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ and attended the rally, told The Washington Sun. “So many residents in Ward 8 have to take on jobs as Uber, Lyft drivers just to make ends meet. This is an extra burden on them.”
Inside the Wilson Building, Ward 6 council member Charles Allen — who chairs D.C.’s transportation committee — pointed out that D.C.’s proposed law differs from other cities in that it’ll set aside a portion of the fines and fees AV companies pay for rideshare drivers.
“No other jurisdiction has this, where dollars are literally set aside to help workers that may be facing some type of displacement,” Allen told reporters.
FROM THE DISTRICT
More parking tickets may be on the way. The D.C. Council on Tuesday approved a bill that will allow business groups and universities to hire off-duty D.C. parking enforcement officers to write tickets. Ward 1 council member Brianne Nadeau says it’s a means to address parking scofflaws in popular areas, but At-Large council member Robert White complained that it would instead make life more expensive for residents. He offered an amendment that would halve all D.C. parking fines, but it didn’t pass over cost concerns.
Take less initiative, D.C. The council also passed a bill that will impose new restrictions on ballot initiatives, the city’s only tool allowing residents to pass laws themselves. Proponents say the bill is meant to give the public more input into proposed initiatives, while critics argue that it’s actually an underhanded way to curtail direct democracy in D.C.
A federal judge declined to reinstate Jacqueline Smith as ombudsman for U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes — but did not outright dismiss her case, which claims her firing was a violation of her First Amendment rights, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports.
The question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered children with the enslaved half-sister of his late wife may be settled after a DNA test was run on a single hair found on the former president’s handmade Bible, The Washington Post reports. The results point to a 99.9% certainty that Jefferson was the father of at least one of her children.
Lawyers for ex-Olympian David Hearn, who was charged by the Justice Department with intentionally damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, have called on inspectors general to probe what led to the Interior and Justice departments’ “shocking and indefensible treatment” of their client, The Associated Press reports.
The Department of Justice asked a federal judge yesterday to shut down Rep. Joyce Beatty’s attempt to force the government to provide communications between President Donald Trump and Kennedy Center officials, The Sun’s Jenna Monnin reports.
FROM MARYLAND
The Sphere National Harbor, planned to be a mini version of the famed orb-shaped venue in Las Vegas, is projected to generate 4,150 construction jobs. But there’s no guarantee any of those positions will go to unionized workers after the Prince George’s County Council shot down two proposals that would have secured 40% of construction jobs for the project for local unions, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports.
PLAN YOUR WEEKEND
For bookworms: Beyond the Book Bans: The Samuels Public Library Story, Thursday.
For porch partiers: Capitol Hill Porchfest, Saturday.
For conscious costumers: Costume Swap at the SPARK! Art Market, Sunday.
For more info on this weekend’s events, read our weekly culture calendar here.
SPORTS
The Mystics officially play in the smallest arena in the WNBA. The Atlanta Dream announced they’ll begin playing all of their home games atState Farm Arena in 2027, writes The Sun’s Emma Baccellieri. They were the only team with a smaller home venue than the Mystics. That leaves the Mystics as a fairly extreme outlier in the WNBA: CareFirst Arena, which seats 4,200 in Southeast D.C., is less than half the size of the next smallest.
What to Watch Today:
NHL: Penguins at Capitals, 7 p.m. (TNT)
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The newsletter was produced by Jeff Dooley, Jaden Amos and Gaby Morera Di Núbila.
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