Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro newsletter for Sept. 30, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
In today’s newsletter: Trayon’s next steps, a reckoning for DCHA and why the Mystics won’t play at Cap One today.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 8/10. Not too far off from an ideal fall day. Just a touch too warm and not super dry air. Full forecast from Capital Weather.
THE LATEST
Trending
Tuesday may have been the first normal day for Trayon White in weeks, coming off of a hung jury in his federal bribery trial. But the Ward 8 lawmaker’s legal, political and financial woes are far from over, as The Washington Sun’s Jenny Gathright, Martin Austermuhle and Michael Brice-Saddler report.
D.C.’s top prosecutor has vowed to retry the case against him, while his own council colleagues are quietly at odds over whether to expel him (again) for ethical violations. And White — who represents more than 87,000 people across Southeast D.C. — still has to deal with an array of investigations and lawsuits into his political and personal spending.
The city’s ethics board is still digging into White over the $35,000 in cash he took from D.C. businessman Allieu Kamara. White is also facing questions about $60,000 in public funds he used for his 2022 mayoral campaign that is unaccounted for, and his 2024 reelection campaign is $30,000 in debt.
All those investigations have been on hold pending the outcome of his bribery trial. If prosecutors decide to try him again, those matters will have to wait longer still. That’s frustrating for some of White’s colleagues, who see all of these cases hanging over the city’s legislature.
“The longer this goes on, the longer there is no accountability for what has taken place in a variety of areas,” said At-Large D.C. Council member Christina Henderson. “It does put us in a pattern where nothing is settled. I would like to see resolution.”
As for White, he’s been both cautious and strident. On Monday, he said he was focused on “getting back to the work of being a council member, father, and to my family.” But he also took to social media to jab at U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, saying: “Trump didn’t fire her yet? Guess she is not tired of losing.”
FROM THE DISTRICT
At-Large council member Robert White called for a targeted forensic audit of the D.C. Housing Authority at an oversight roundtable yesterday to resolve the fraud allegations outlined in a scathing audit this year, when auditors couldn’t verify how much money DCHA had, or where it was, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The housing committee roundtable also took up a June cyberattack, when a small subset of data from DCHA’s shared drives was accessed by hackers.
“It is a mess, and it’s been a mess for a long time, and the last effort to clean it up made it worse,” Ward 3 council member Matt Frumin said. “We’ve got to be on top of you as much as we can without detracting from your ability to get the work done.”
Crews began moving back the fences surrounding Lafayette Square this week, allowing the public farther into the park in front of the White House than it has been able to get for eight months, The Sun’s Justice Covert reports.
Dark tint on car windows can get you pulled over in D.C., but a new report from the city’s Office of Police Complaints recommends changes to how and when D.C. police officers stop and cite drivers for it. In short, the report says officers have to have the right equipment to actually measure window tint before deciding to stop someone.
The Kennedy Center has laid off nearly two dozen box office employees as the performing arts institution remains closed and its performance schedule shrinks, City Cast DC reports. It’s the latest staffing cut since President Donald Trump took control of the Kennedy Center. The union says it plans to pursue legal action over the layoffs, which union President Anne Vantine told The Sun “[demonstrate] the organizations’ willingness to act in bad faith.”
There’s more: The Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy is leaving the Kennedy Center — at least for this year. The 36th annual lecture, headlined by Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad, will take place today at Arena Stage instead.
Come to school, get a free concert ticket? That’s what up to 10,000 D.C. students can earn — as well as merch and e-gift cards — if they track stellar attendance through a new initiative from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, Monumental Sports and Rang Rewards. While D.C. has reduced its chronic absenteeism rate by 9% since the pandemic, truancy remains a pressing issue. School leaders canapply now for their schools to be part of the pilot cohort, which will launch in January.
FROM VIRGINIA
A Northern Virginia man originally sentenced to death for a 2001 murder was released from prison on Monday as part of a plea deal, InsideNoVa reports.
The Alexandria Police Department will publish a map of all its Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers by Thursday, NBC4 reports.
FROM MARYLAND
More than 1.9 million customers across Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were advised to use water only as absolutely necessary Tuesday.As The Sun’s Shamira Muhammad reports, an electrical problem at the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission’s Potomac filtration plant stalled its ability to provide its normal water outputs. The plant was able to restore service to normal operating levels Tuesday evening, but it still urged customers to limit their use of non-essential water.
PLAN YOUR WEEKEND
For storytellers: Story District’s “Top Shelf,” Thursday.
For Francophile sk8er bois: SHAPE in Motion, Friday.
For “Wicked” and/or “Independence Day” groupies: Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Saturday.
For more info on this weekend’s events, read our weekly culture calendar here.
SPORTS
The Mystics host a do-or-die Game 2 tonight in their playoff series against the Atlanta Dream, and are looking to extend their breakthrough season. But the appropriate location for the game is a matter of fan debate. Washington and Atlanta will face off in CareFirst Arena, the Mystics’ home arena in Southeast. At just 4,200 seats, it’s the smallest venue to host a WNBA game this postseason, which has driven up playoff ticket prices and sparked questions about why the game wasn’t moved to Capital One Arena — home to the Wizards and Capitals. The reason? The Jonas Brothers are booked to play a show there that night.
The Commanders overhauled their roster this offseason, adding starters in free agency and through the draft. Which ones have made the biggest impact through three games? We ranked the top five.
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The newsletter was produced by Nikie Johnson, Erik Schutz and Jaden Amos. Yesterday’s trivia answer was A) Bill Clinton, who attended Georgetown University. A special shout-out to Melissa Gray, who answered first. Finally, that three-bedroom townhouse we showed you yesterday is located in D.C., and 11% of you guessed that right. The most common guess was Virginia.
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