Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro newsletter for Oct. 15, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
In today’s newsletter: Violence interrupters, D.C.’s rat population and Nats manager Blake Butera.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 4/10. 60s are better than 90 in mid-October, but it’ll be pretty dreary throughout the day, with showers likely. Full forecast from Capital Weather.
THE LATEST
Trending
Since 2018, the D.C. government has spent tens of millions to hire violence interrupters in neighborhoods with higher rates of gun violence. But according to a study quietly published earlier this year, those programs have had lackluster results.
Actually, a group of researchers who evaluated D.C.’s violence intervention programs found that one of them was associated with a slight increase in firearm homicides in the areas where it operated.
“The outcomes were not good,” said Johns Hopkins professor Daniel Webster, one of the study authors.
The Washington Sun’s Jenny Gathright reports that the findings, reflecting data from 2018 through the middle of 2025, were yet another blow for these programs, which have taken hits to both their budgets and reputations in recent years. Biden-era federal funding for these community anti-violence programs has dried up. In 2024, two city officials, including D.C. Council member Trayon White, were charged with bribery related to city violence intervention grants. And some violence interruption providers have come under scrutiny for employee misbehavior or alleged misuse of government funds.
But the findings shouldn’t negate the commitment of violence interrupters who put their own safety on the line to do their jobs, said study author Joseph Richardson.
“I can see the honor and the heroics and integrity in the frontline workers and their commitment to really reducing gun violence in D.C. and working to improve their communities,” he said.
D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah said the Bowser administration respects the researchers’ work, and noted that they have made significant recent reforms to the programs that the study findings don’t reflect.
DEEP DIVE
D.C. could end up giving $60 million to the operator of a Ward 8 hospital the District paid to build, The Sun’s Martin Austermuhle reports.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has asked the D.C. Council to commit $10 million a year for six years to help sustain the labor and delivery unit at Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center, the 136-bed hospital that cost taxpayers $434 million. The hospital — which opened in April 2025 — is operated by GW Health and UHS.
“The cost of operating a full-service maternal and fetal services is substantial,” Bowser wrote to the council. “Unlike other hospital services, maternal health care has a significantly longer lead time to financial stability.”
Bowser argues that the communities around Cedar Hill need the maternal health services the hospital offers. But lawmakers are worried that they will be committing to putting more taxpayer funds into a hospital that should be operating without them.
“We all want to see Cedar Hill be successful but we have to understand what is the trajectory here that doesn’t require significant additional support from the public,” said At-Large council member Christina Henderson, who chairs the council’s health committee.
The six-year commitment would also lock in Bowser’s successor, expected to be Ward 4 council member Janeese Lewis George. The mayor’s request will require council approval in an already busy fall for lawmakers.
FROM THE DISTRICT
Lawyers argued over the National Guard’s D.C. deployment at a U.S. Court of Appeals hearing Wednesday. The Trump administration insisted that D.C. is “a creature of federal law,” which gives the president vast authority over troop deployments. D.C.’s Office of the Attorney General, which sued over the deployment last year, once again argued that the president has overstepped his authority.
The Trump administration had appealed a lower court’s ruling that the deployment was illegal. The troops are allowed to stay in the city while the appeals court considers the matter. It’s not clear when the appeals court will make a decision.
Troubled waters: Errors made during the installation of the coating on the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool caused at least 85 failures, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports.
Showdown: A group of ticket resale platforms sued D.C. on Wednesday to prevent a law capping the sale price of secondhand tickets from going into effect this January, Kendall reports.
“It’s not surprising to see them try for an encore to preserve these enormous profits and the status quo,” said Charles Allen, the council member behind the bill. “I think their time would be better spent preparing for January 1 when music fans will finally catch a break on the outrageous price mark-ups.”
No more Mr. Mice Guy. D.C. Council members on the health committee unanimously passed a bill yesterday that aims to curb the rat population in D.C., a city recently ranked the fifth-rattiest in the nation. The green-lit pilot program will provide Business Improvement Districts and Main Streets grants for “rodent-proof” dumpsters and require the Department of Health to launch a public education campaign on rodent prevention and the risks of rodenticide. The bill will now face votes in front of the full council.
A missing multimillion-dollar Kennedy Center donation is fueling a feud among allies of President Donald Trump. Trump has ordered a White House investigation into allegations that a donation to the Kennedy Center never arrived, Axios reports.
The dispute involves former Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, financier Michael Mildon and Alina Habba, a former Trump lawyer who is married to Mildon. Habba alleges Grenell persuaded Mildon to include a donation — nearly $6 million — in a $17.6 million business deal in 2025, but Kennedy Center staff could not find a record of the contribution. Grenell has denied the allegations, calling them “absurd.” The dispute comes as the Kennedy Center faces mounting financial troubles and controversy over Trump’s efforts to put his name on the institution.
FROM VIRGINIA
The Washington Post announced it will be closing its Springfield printing facility and lay off 118 workers after the holidays, WUSA9 reports.
FROM MARYLAND
Pump the brakes: Governor Wes Moore announced on X that he’s pausing any increases in tolls for the next year to give families “a little extra breathing room.”
TALK TO TOM
Tom Sietsema is back answering your questions about the D.C. dining scene. Submit your questions here.
My wife’s boss is coming to town, and we’d like to take him somewhere special for dinner. He’s a former chef with a pretty discerning palate, and he’s also a pescatarian. We live in Vienna but are happy to go anywhere in NoVA or D.C.
If you want to stay close to home, book a table at the cozy Roberto’s Ristorante Italiano in Vienna, whose veteran chef, Roberto Donna, once presided over the top-tier Galileo in Washington. The sample menu provided online lists multiple fish and seafood options among the starters and main courses. Not far from Roberto’s, I’ve been going to the family-run, Greek-themed Nostos for years. Usually, I spring for whole fish, often sweet-flesh branzino, fileted by a server with surgical precision and accompanied by roast potatoes seasoned with lemon and oregano and pleasantly bitter greens.
An ocean of options await in the city. Check out the chic Barbouzard on K Street NW for French-Mediterranean fare from the talented Cedric Maupillier, the petite Lutèce in Georgetown for some of D.C.’s most artful French cooking or the swank, retro-looking supper club Occidental near the White House, where the goods embrace Dover sole meunière, Chilean sea bass and a sight gag in the form of a crab-filled avocado. (Sorry, no spoilers from me, but you have to try it.)
In the full Q&A: Bethesda’s mediocre food scene, preparing to visit a new restaurant and how to pronounce Tom’s last name.
SPORTS
It’s been almost a year since the Nationals hired Blake Butera and made him the youngest MLB manager since 1972. How did the first season go? If you ask people around the team and sport, it was a definite success, a step forward for a team that still hasn’t finished with a winning record since 2019.
Butera, though, has trouble fully seeing it that way, writes The Sun’s Jesse Dougherty. There were a lot of sleepless nights, especially after any of the Nats’ record-setting number of blown saves. And after holding it all in for months, one game — a win late in the season — even made Butera open up to his wife at home, lamenting how the losses felt worse than the victories felt good.
“I threw up in my mouth a little bit.” That was former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin describing his reaction to the Commanders’ end-of-game blunder Sunday. His comments were part of a barrage of public blowback directed at Dan Quinn and Jayden Daniels after Sunday’s calamitous tie with the Giants. The Sun’s Alex Schiffer rounded up some of the most scathing takes, including Packers’ star Micah Parsons saying that Daniels “cost my man Dan Quinn his job.”
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The newsletter was produced by Jaden Amos, Michael Errigo and Gaby Morera Di Núbila.
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