https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro Metro en-US Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:03:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trayon-white-bribery-trial Jenny Gathright, Martin Austermuhle Including a surprising approach to White’s defense. Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:03:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trayon-white-bribery-trial Opening statements could begin as early as this week in the criminal trial of Ward 8 council member Trayon White, who stands accused of pocketing money from a D.C. contractor in exchange for attempting to steer city contracts in his favor.

It’s a trial with high personal stakes for White, who faces potential prison time if convicted — and high political stakes for the entire District.

White has represented the city’s poorest ward on the council since 2017. A ubiquitous community presence and self-described advocate for those left behind in traditional politics, the lawmaker has clung to a political career despite his legal troubles. He was expelled by his council colleagues following his 2024 criminal indictment, but he returned to the dais last year after winning less than a third of votes in a crowded, low-turnout special election to fill the vacant Ward 8 seat.

Now, his two-year legal saga will culminate in federal court, where in the coming days government prosecutors will present their case against White, and he will get the chance to defend himself.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is White accused of?

Prosecutors allege that White repeatedly accepted money in exchange for promising to help a prolific D.C. government contractor secure continued business with the city, particularly in the area of violence interruption services.

The charges, laid out in a 30-page indictment, largely stem from a series of alleged meetings between White and a confidential informant, later identified as Allieu Kamara. Kamara was cooperating with authorities after pleading guilty to separate bribery and fraud charges, and the FBI surreptitiously recorded his meetings with White during the summer of 2024.

Kamara handed White $35,000 in cash over the course of those meetings, according to prosecutors. In exchange for the cash, prosecutors allege, White agreed to help Kamara maintain his government contracts, and the two discussed White getting kickbacks from Kamara’s future contract earnings, to the tune of more than $100,000.
Trayon White (5173x3449, AR: 1.50)White allegedly told Kamara that he was working to help him, meeting with various government officials at D.C.’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and D.C.’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services about renewing Kamara’s various grants.

In the meetings, White also allegedly discussed future potential arrangements with Kamara involving contracts in the mental health space. “That shit a cash cow,” he told the informant, according to prosecutors.

What can we expect from White’s defense?

Last month, White’s defense attorneys did something interesting: They told the federal judge overseeing the trial that they wouldn’t contest the government’s allegations that White had taken and kept the cash from Kamara. (The exchanges were caught on video, so fighting them would have been a challenge.)

But what they will be fighting is prosecutors’ claims that the money actually constituted a bribe. And for that, the case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will be particularly helpful.

In 2014, McDonnell was convicted of charges related to him and his wife accepting $135,000 in gifts, loans, trips and other goods from a Virginia businessman. Two years later, though, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction, saying that the government had not proven that he’d taken official action in exchange for the gifts.

“The Supreme Court has narrowed the bribery statute and there’s got to be a quid pro quo,” said Erica Hashimoto, the director of the appellate litigation program at the Georgetown University Center.

Prosecutors have said White actively contacted and spoke with government officials on Kamara’s behalf, pushing them on the status of his contracts. But his defense team has directly challenged that claim.

“If the defendant did no more than seek information on the status of the informant’s contracts, he has not violated … the bribery statute,” the defense wrote in proposed jury instructions.

They also raised another possible defense: The money Kamara gave White wasn’t a bribe, but rather a legal gift of goodwill between friends.

A legal concept called entrapment could also factor into the trial. White’s attorneys have started preparing a claim that the FBI essentially set him up and induced him to commit a crime he would not have otherwise, writing in proposed jury instructions: “Mr. White asserts that he was entrapped by the government to commit the crime of bribery.”

Do White’s arguments stand a chance?

Peter Zeidenberg, a former public corruption prosecutor in D.C. who is now a partner at ArentFox Schiff, said that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the McDonnell case has made it more difficult to convict elected officials on bribery charges. But he added that the footage of White accepting the cash could be hard to overcome for the jury.

“When you have cash changing hands and it was videotaped, from a defense perspective, you’ve got a very difficult situation with a jury,” he said. “It doesn’t smell right. Nobody looks at that situation and thinks, ‘This is normal.’ A public official should not be getting cash from a constituent. What is he doing it for? It is a very problematic set of facts from a defense perspective.”

On the entrapment argument, Hashimoto says the claim could be buttressed by the fact that Kamara was working as a confidential informant for the FBI at the time that he allegedly bribed White.

“It does look like the government went after White and set him up, essentially, and jurors don’t always like that,” she said.

Still, claiming entrapment as a defense raises its own new risks, Zeidenberg said.

“That would put a burden on the defense to establish that the government overwhelmed his will by enticing him to do something he would not otherwise have done,” he said. “That opens up the door to other acts that might be admissible to show you’re a bad guy, you’ve done things like this before. That can be problematic.”

Who will testify?

The government anticipates it will call Kamara, the informant around which the case is built, as a witness. Several high-ranking D.C. officials are also expected to testify, including Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor for public safety and justice, and Kwelli Sneed, director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

White’s defense anticipates calling several witnesses to testify on the council member’s character, including his former council chief of staff Wanda Lockridge.

What happens if he’s convicted?

White faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. If found guilty, he will also immediately become ineligible for public office in D.C., and Ward 8 residents will elect a new lawmaker to represent them.

What happens if he’s acquitted?

If White is acquitted, his colleagues on the council will face the politically thorny question of whether to expel him again.

When lawmakers first voted to expel White, they said they could not abide by what they saw as clear evidence of serious misconduct. But they took heat from some civic leaders in Ward 8, who accused them of upending the will of voters before the justice system had its final say.

In the backdrop, of course, is also the Trump administration, which has been eager to flex its authority over the nation’s capital. Some political observers in D.C. fear that Trump or Congress may use White’s continued presence on the council to justify further federal intervention in local affairs.

How long is the trial expected to last?

In pretrial filings, prosecutors said they anticipate taking about five days to present their case against White. White’s attorneys say his defense will probably take one or two days. Then the jury will deliberate.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/veterans-trump-arch-burgum-nps-legal-tension Angie Orellana Hernandez The Trump administration and a group of veterans disagreed whether Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s social media post violated a federal judge’s orders. Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:18:08 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/veterans-trump-arch-burgum-nps-legal-tension A group of veterans who legally challenged President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot arch pushed back against the administration’s request earlier this week to dissolve a court order that required 48 hours’ notice before engaging in any construction.

At the center of the legal battle’s newest phase is Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s Sept. 3 statement that groundbreaking for the arch would begin within the next two weeks — a social media announcement that the plaintiffs say violated the federal judge’s prior order for two weeks’ advance notice and created “consequences” for the government, a Friday court filing says.

The plaintiffs subsequently filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to halt the work after Burgum shared his post on X. They argued that Burgum’s announcement ran afoul a previous court order from U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan that required the National Park Service to give at least 14 days’ notice prior to “commencement of construction, or demolition in preparation for construction” while litigation was pending.

Chutkan’s 48 hours’ notice — signed Sept. 4, a day after Burgum’s announcement — applied to activity such as excavation and construction, but exempted on-site information gathering to ensure compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act.

At the time, it was unclear whether the secretary’s social media post had constituted two weeks’ notice based on the first court order.

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In its motion to dissolve the 48 hours’ notice on Thursday, the Trump administration called it an “unlawful and unwarranted” hold on “routine agency actions that cause no harm to Plaintiffs and in the meanwhile disturbs the Executive Branch’s prerogatives to maintain property under its jurisdiction and control.”

The government also argued in its filing that the plaintiffs “manufactured a false emergency based on a misconstrued social media post” in order to stop excavation. Burgum’s announcement, the administration said, “simply summarized” plans that had been disclosed on the NPS’ website that required excavation to comply with legal statutes prior to construction.

In their response Friday, the veterans countered that the government was seeking to “avoid the consequences of Secretary Burgum’s announcements” and the “transparency” required by the 48 hours’ notice.

The veterans said they were “reasonably concerned that NPS was planning imminently to begin construction of the arch” and that the Trump administration “quickly backtracked” on Burgum’s statements after the temporary restraining order was filed.

“The Court’s order reasonably avoids the need for future emergency motions by ensuring that Defendants provide timely and accurate information about their steps to implement a massive and irreversible construction project that Plaintiffs contend has no legal foundation and that is rapidly progressing in the face of an active legal challenge,” the veterans’ filing read.

The arch is one of the many construction projects spearheaded by Trump to rework D.C. landmarks to match his gilded aesthetics. Like other projects, such as the White House ballroom and the redesign of a golf course, the arch has faced criticism from local residents and lawmakers for its scale.

The veterans sued the Trump administration in February, stating that the arch requires congressional approval and would obstruct the view of Arlington National Cemetery.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/maryland-immigration-lawsuit-trump-administration-ice Kendall Staton The lawsuit details the personal stories of four Maryland residents who have been arrested by ICE in recent months. Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:14:05 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/maryland-immigration-lawsuit-trump-administration-ice An immigrant rights advocacy group filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of four Maryland residents who want to stop what they say are unlawful arrests by immigration agents.

We Are CASA, a national group headquartered in Maryland, said the four residents represent all the people in Maryland who have been arrested on alleged immigration violations without a warrant or reason to suspect they are in the country illegally. Two of the residents represented in the lawsuit were arrested in Silver Spring, the others in Annapolis and Eastern Shore.

The group also asked for an injunction to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from performing warrantless arrests while the courts weigh the case.

ICE has employed “disturbing tactics” to make arrests, such as smashing car windows and using unmarked vehicles to tail people, as the Trump administration seeks to deport “as many immigrants as possible,” according to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Government records compiled by the Deportation Data Project, a collaboration between University of California Berkeley and the University of California Los Angeles, show more than 4,900 ICE arrests were made in Maryland in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. The year before, ICE made less than 1,500 arrests in the state.

“These agents have indiscriminately stalked neighborhoods, arresting community members whom they perceive to be Brown or Black immigrants without warrants and without probable cause. This is racial profiling,” Shana Khader, We Are CASA’s legal director, said in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to The Sun that immigration officers target people who are unlawfully in the U.S., not specific skin colors, races or ethnicities. It called allegations otherwise “disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.”

The 56-page lawsuit details the personal stories of the four Maryland residents, who are some of thousands who have been targeted by ICE in recent months. Three of them are identified only by their initials. The complaint recounts the details of their arrests and subsequent release from ICE custody, with accusations of tasings, beatings and failure to properly establish reason for arrest.

Several more advocacy groups are co-counsels on the case, including the Amica Center for Immigration Rights, the ACLU of Maryland and the National Immigration Project.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/contractor-human-error-reflecting-pool-damage-lincoln-memorial-liner-atlantic-industrial-coatings-trump-vandalism Gavin J. Quinton An August report reviewed by The New York Times revealed contractors told the administration that its own mistakes caused the pool floor to blister. Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:27:57 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/contractor-human-error-reflecting-pool-damage-lincoln-memorial-liner-atlantic-industrial-coatings-trump-vandalism Contractors working on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation told the Trump administration that its own mistakes — not vandalism — damaged the pool’s liner, new documents reveal.

Atlantic Industrial Coatings detailed the cause of the pool’s eventual swampy appearance in Aug. 14 reports to the government, The New York Times first reported on Friday. Workers had mistakenly layered two incompatible chemicals that caused paint on the pool liner to blister and peel, and some areas were not covered with enough primer to keep the paint job intact, the report said.

The documents reviewed by the Times, which also included daily progress updates from the National Park Service, show that the government had knowledge that human error caused at least some damage, even as they pursued criminal vandalism charges at President Donald Trump’s request. While the report shows that Atlantic blamed vandals for cuts in the pool’s edge caulking, the company did not link those incidents to the liner peeling.

The Justice Department abruptly dropped a criminal case against former U.S. Olympian David Hearn earlier this year after he was accused of purposefully vandalizing the pool. In its filing, prosecutors admitted that the damage had stemmed from “flawed installation by the contractor.” This came after administration officials, including Trump and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, maintained for months that vandals were responsible for the pool’s damage.

At an August news conference held days before Atlantic’s full report to the government, Trump acknowledged contractor error, but continued to claim damage from vandalism was “substantial.”

"Unfortunately,” he said on Aug. 10, “there is no video or proof, other than the damage itself."

The administration has otherwise been quiet on the issue since last month, including after Trump remarked that Pirro had “folded like an umbrella” after she dropped the charges against Hearn. Pirro, Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had a contentious meeting in which Pirro blamed Burgum for misleading the president about what the evidence suggested.

On Wednesday, Pirro declined to answer a reporter's question about her office's now-dropped vandalism case.

"No, no and no!" she said. "Who wants to know about this? How many times do I have to say no? I am not talking about that."

In a statement to The Washington Sun, an Interior Department spokesperson maintained that sections of the pool were damaged by vandals, and added that the administration is still “cleaning up Obama’s and Biden’s mess.”

“Like any major construction project — and in this case, the world’s largest reflecting pool which was worked on in record time for the 250th celebrations — there are always parts of a project where a contractor returns to make sure the work is perfect,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

The Parks Service brought back Atlantic, which won a no-bid contract to carry out the initial repairs, to complete additional repairs. The reflecting pool will soon be opened with new “American Flag blue” paint, repaired plumbing, shiny granite coping stones and a brand new water treatment system, the spokesperson said.

“[Atlantic] is contractually obligated to fix the Reflecting Pool,” the spokesperson said. “As good stewards of taxpayer money, unlike Obama, it would be wasteful to bring in a new company to finish the job.”

The White House did not address the contractor’s report when approached by The Washington Sun.

“For years, the Reflecting Pool sat neglected, plagued with algae, and leaking millions of gallons of water. Fixing it was common sense. It’s another example of President Trump restoring our nation’s capital for the American people,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dc-republican-candidates Martin Austermuhle For this year's candidates, the reasons range from rodents to education to a need to challenge the status quo. Fri, 11 Sep 2026 09:10:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dc-republican-candidates If you’re surprised to learn that a Puerto Rico-born immigration lawyer is running for local office in D.C. as a Republican, you’re probably not alone.

“I am probably one of the most unconventional Republicans you will meet,” admits Manuel Rivera.

Rivera wasn’t even a Republican until the last presidential election. Before that, he was a lifelong Democrat — a conservative one, by his own telling — who once mounted an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

But now he’s flying the Republican flag, and running for D.C. attorney general.

Rivera is one of seven like-minded Republican candidates vying for local office in D.C. this year, a slate that includes other similarly convention-bucking contenders. For example, a self-proclaimed Biblical Christian woman is challenging the D.C. Council chairman, who has been in office longer than she’s been alive. And a Republican will be on the ballot in Ward 1 — considered the city’s most progressive ward — for the first time in 16 years.

“This election is especially important because it represents a renewed effort by the Republican Party to offer the District’s voters a range of ideas and qualified candidates,” Rivera told The Washington Sun. “We have assembled one of the strongest Republican slates in history.”
Manuel Riviera (7792x5195, AR: 1.50)But for as strong as Rivera may think that slate is, so too are the local currents working against it. There hasn’t been a Republican elected to office in D.C. for almost two decades, and President Donald Trump’s vote share in the 2024 election barely exceeded 6%.

“It’s pointless,” said David Krucoff, who ran for the Ward 3 council seat as a moderate Republican in 2022 — notching a respectable 22% of the vote. He later became disillusioned with the party and is now an independent.

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Still, turnout in the June Republican primary was higher than it has been in 14 years, a sign party leaders say is an indication of renewed local energy in the face of an inescapably tough political landscape. And many Republicans concede that even with victory unlikely, the value in running is just to offer voters something different.

“Washington, D.C. is a one-party system,” says Rivera. “I believe democracy works best when voters have a real choice. Somebody must be willing to challenge that status quo.”

Crime, Rodents and Education

The conventional wisdom in D.C. is that Rivera’s chances — like those of his fellow GOP candidates — aren’t very good in November.

Beyond the raw political reality that only 5% of the city’s 485,000 registered voters are Republicans, the party’s national brand has been on a downward trajectory in urban areas over the last three decades. There hasn’t been a Republican elected to the council since 2008.

“If you want to be a local Republican in D.C. now and generally are affiliated with the administration, that’s just not a popular thing to be,” said Krucoff.

Still, Rivera and the other GOP contenders say that D.C. voters are sophisticated enough to look past party labels. And D.C. voters certainly have in the past: In 1994, Carol Schwartz, a Republican member of the council, scored 42% of the vote against Marion Barry in the city’s mayoral race.

“Public safety, government accountability, taxes, and protecting our citizens are not just Republican or Democrat issues,” said Rivera. “They are D.C. residents’ issues.”

The main issue that animates almost all of the GOP contenders in D.C. is public safety — which has also been a primary focus of Trump’s, who last year deployed the National Guard in the city and frequently touts his successes on bringing down crime rates.
DC0A3210 copy.jpg (7403x4936, AR: 1.50)
“People don’t care if you’re from the left or the right. I tell them I am a Republican, that might jar them a bit, but I say, ‘Hey, what’s your biggest issue?’ And they say public safety,” said Jett Jasper, a candidate for the Ward 1 seat on the council, who says he would focus on increasing hiring for the Metropolitan Police Department.

Jorge Rice, who is running in Ward 6, says his emphasis on public safety comes from personal experience — he was assaulted on the D.C. streetcar in 2024, leaving him with a broken nose. “It made me want to take action,” he said.

In Ward 5, Jeff Kihien says it was rats in his backyard — as bipartisan a complaint as there is in D.C. — that motivated his own decision to run. “Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States, of the most powerful country on the whole planet, but we cannot solve the basic problem of rodents,” he said.

Kihien — who immigrated to the U.S. from Peru — also said he supports a “family wage” that would allow one half of every married couple to stay home instead of having to work.

Darrell Green, a former D.C. police officer who is running for an at-large council seat, is focused on one thing: “Education, education, education.” He thinks D.C. needs to do more to battle high truancy and absenteeism in schools. Abi Prudent, a candidate for council chair, is similarly interested in schools, primarily in preserving the IMPACT teacher assessment tool that some Democratic officials and activists have said they want to scrap.

“It’s hard for me to understand why we’d want to take away something that’s benefitting kids,” she said.

Denise Rosado, who is running to be D.C.’s non-voting delegate to Congress, would de-emphasize the city’s fight for statehood, instead pushing to exempt residents from paying federal taxes. As for Rivera, he criticizes incumbent Attorney General Brian Schwalb for “filing a lot of flashy lawsuits and some of them are settling for pennies on the dollar.”

‘The Hard Route’

The goal for the Republican candidates in D.C. seems clear: Don’t let Trump dominate the conversation. None of them fully shy away from Trump; they will say they voted for the president, but just as quickly point out where they disagree with him.

“It’s to the benefit of the voter you are talking about issues that you would have control over, and those are local issues like trash and recycling and rats and schools and the local budget,” said Carolina Celnik, the executive director of the D.C. GOP.

Still, there’s often significant overlap in D.C. between what happens on the local and federal levels — largely because the city is often beholden to the whims of Congress and the White House.

In that, the D.C. Republican Party has evolved over the years. It was once consistently in favor of Congress letting District residents and their elected officials determine their own fate; it even gave a nod towards the eventual goal of D.C. statehood. Now, Celnik says, local Republicans are content with the newly aggressive role that Capitol Hill is playing in local politics.

“They are doing what they are doing for the benefit of D.C. residents,” she said. “It’s honestly kind of embarrassing that the federal government has had to step in and do for the city what the city should have been doing for itself.”
DC0A2993 copy.jpg (6988x4659, AR: 1.50)D.C. voters, though, may disagree. A Washington Post poll conducted over the summer found that 79% of respondents said they opposed Trump’s aggressive involvement in local issues.

But given that the GOP has become so enmeshed in the city’s local affairs, the Republican candidates say they could serve as a friendly conduit between the White House, Congress and local officials.

“We should have a better relationship with the federal government and White House,” said Rivera. “As a Republican… I can build that bridge.”

Krucoff, the former Republican, thinks there is space for right-leaning candidates in D.C. Starting in 2028, independent voters — and there are roughly 80,000 of them — will be able to cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primary. That, he says, could open a path for a conservative contender while avoiding the political baggage of being associated with the GOP brand.

“It has never been a better time for anyone who sees themselves as center or right of center to become active in D.C. politics as an unaffiliated voter,” he said.

For D.C.’s local Republican candidates, though, the focus now is more pedestrian: They need to knock on doors and meet voters, as well as raise money. In that, another very real challenge emerges. As of last month, for one, Rivera had just over $10,000 in his campaign’s account. Schwalb, the Democratic incumbent, had $821,000. Prudent had roughly $2,300; Chairman Phil Mendelson, the incumbent, had $87,000.

Nonetheless, Prudent remains upbeat about the challenge she has assigned herself.

“Yes, I have allowed myself to take this campaign the hard route by running as a Republican,” she said. “But what’s most important for me is not trying to make things happen the easy way and trying to convince people to vote for me because of a letter that’s next to my name.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/trump-medal-of-honor-monument Ben T.N. Mause At an event to sign a bill that authorizes a place to commemorate Medal of Honor recipients in D.C., Trump talks tariffs, the border and foreign investments. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 21:24:02 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/trump-medal-of-honor-monument A monument honoring Medal of Honor recipients is a step closer to fruition after President Donald Trump signed a bill authorizing a new D.C.-based monument Thursday at the National Medal of Honor Museum.

Before the signing, Trump toured the museum in Arlington, Texas — pausing for an apparent economic discussion with Medal recipients in front of an Army helicopter — and gave remarks that touched on the monument. But he quickly turned to his usual stump speech, with tangents on tariffs, the border and the cleanliness of downtown D.C.

“With this museum and a new monument in Washington, D.C., America will never ever forget what they did, and what they risked and how much they’ve risked, what they meant to our families and what they’ve meant to our country,” Trump said.

Named after Heschel “Woody” Williams, the last World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the bill ensures that the monument will have a prominent location on the National Mall. Sixteen recipients attended the signing. Joining them were Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) and Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), who sponsored the bill, with Williams’ family also in attendance.

Trump said during his remarks that the monument was originally to be erected near the Lincoln Memorial, but he indicated that is no longer the case. He paused and said that location was taken, but that the administration would find a better location for the monument.

During his museum tour, Trump stopped to greet seven Medal recipients. After taking a picture with them, Trump could be heard telling the recipients about investments in American industry.

“Twenty trillion dollars this year,” Trump said. “It’s never been anywhere near it.”

One recipient in front of the president responded, “I don’t understand trillions.” Trump patted him on the shoulder and said, “He doesn’t understand money.”

Trump’s speech resembled a shortened version of his Wednesday night address at the GOP midterm convention, including his recent repeated riff on the looks of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate. Trump later joked that he would like to receive a Medal of Honor.

“Tonight, the story will be that Donald Trump wants the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said. “I’m only kidding. Actually, I’m not kidding.”

Describing the monument as the final piece of a project to safeguard and remember recipients, museum Chair Charlotte Jones called the signing a “giant leap forward” toward the monument’s existence.

“I have been asked many times why this project hasn’t already been built and why it doesn’t exist already,” Jones said. “Every time I answer, ‘I think it is because our country needs it now more than ever before.’”

Trump visited the meeting while in town for the GOP midterm convention. He spoke at the convention Wednesday night and was scheduled to address convention attendees again on Thursday night.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/maryland-utility-lawsuit-potomac Kendall Staton The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission says the drinking water for 1 million residents is near rundown sections of a sewage line. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:11:25 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/maryland-utility-lawsuit-potomac Sections of a massive sewage line that burst in January, spilling 243 million gallons of untreated waste into the Potomac River, are in equally bad or worse shape than the part that collapsed, according to a new court filing in a lawsuit against DC Water.

One of those sections of the pipeline, called the Potomac Interceptor, is near the drinking water supply for 1 million Maryland residents, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission said in a court filing Wednesday asking to join a Justice Department lawsuit against the local water authority. A judge approved the request Thursday.

DC Water began emergency repair work in June on the section near WSSC Water’s drinking supply and is expected to complete the work by the end of this month. Still, the remaining weak areas of the pipes pose a threat of further disruption, the memorandum said.

The federal lawsuit seeks financial penalties from DC Water, which the Justice Department said failed to properly operate and maintain the sewer system leading to the leak. WSSC Water, in a proposed complaint, also wants a judge to order DC Water to repair all segments of the pipeline that are “in condition equal to or worse than the segment that collapsed,” among other demands.

The Interceptor is a 54-mile sewer line carrying 60 million gallons of sewage daily. It was constructed in the 1960s and broke after years of poor maintenance, leading to dangerous E. coli levels and shutting down fish harvesting for almost two months. DC Water had known about the deterioration for at least seven years before the pipe failed.

WSSC Water says the disruption of the Interceptor impeded its ability to treat wastewater and that another burst pipe would risk contaminating drinking water supply.

The agency also pointed to the fiscal impact of the repairs, which it said DC Water estimated will cost $59.3 million. DC Water allocated 30.9% of that cost to WSSC Water and none to itself, WSSC Water’s complaint said. It is unclear which other agencies may have been assigned to pick up the tab by DC Water.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dc-in-state-tuition-undocumented-immigrants Kendall Staton The District has become the latest battleground for the push to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented immigrants. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 18:59:13 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dc-in-state-tuition-undocumented-immigrants D.C. has become the latest battleground for the Trump administration's push to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented immigrants.

The Justice Department filed a complaint in federal court Thursday seeking to overturn D.C.’s policy offering in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants, calling it unconstitutional and discriminatory against students from other states. The lawsuit said the rule is “blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens.” The Justice Department filed four similar complaints Thursday, bringing the total to 25 lawsuits, one in every state that allows in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement Thursday.

The Trump administration had filed 21 similar lawsuits in other states as of Aug. 27 with varying degrees of success. A federal judge ended Kansas’ policy allowing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants Wednesday. Other states such as Oklahoma and Nebraska chose to stop their policies. Minnesota successfully won its case earlier this year, but the Justice Department appealed the decision.

The Justice Department and University of the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Mayor's office referred questions to the D.C. Attorney General, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dca-flight-arrivals-limit-bill Kendall Staton Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner plan to introduce legislation that would address safety concerns. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:44:43 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dca-flight-arrivals-limit-bill Virginia’s senators want to restrict the number of flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to increase safety after a fatal in-air collision last year.

Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are set to introduce legislation next week that would limit the number of hourly arrivals at DCA, according to a joint statement from the senators on Thursday. The effort comes after an Army helicopter collided with a commercial plane over the Potomac River in January 2025, killing 67 people.

The proposal, which was first reported by The Washington Post, would cap hourly arrivals at the airport to 28. Prior to the 2025 crash, the airport allowed 36 arrivals each hour. That was reduced to 26 following the accident, then gradually increased to the current cadence of 30 per hour.

In an interview with The Sun, Kaine said he and Warner have warned Congress about the dangers of the congested airport for years. The pair “almost lit our hair on fire,” Kaine said, trying to convey the deadly threat of overcrowded air space.

“Now in September 2026, everyone knows we weren't Chicken Little saying, ‘The sky is falling.’ We were telling the truth,” he said. “Everybody realizes that the warnings we were giving about increasing flights into DCA were not hollow warnings. They were serious, and we experienced one of the worst air tragedies in recent American history because of this congestion.”

Congress has failed to pass prior proposed legislation to limit flights out of DCA. The fatal 2025 crash should offer enough of a sobering reality for the new bill to gain sufficient support, Kaine said.

Reagan National is the busiest runway in the U.S. with an average of more than 800 takeoffs and landings on the main drag in 2023, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Members of Congress have long tried to increase the number of flights to and from DCA to make traveling home easier for them, as the Arlington, Virginia, airport is less than a 30-minute drive from the Capitol.

The airport uses “slots,” an authorization to take off or land at a specific time, to mitigate traffic. Congress has added 64 daily slot exemptions, which bypass limits, at the airport since 2000. The bill would also walk back those increases, eliminating 30 slots in five years.

Kaine said Congress added those slots despite warnings from experts and objections from local officials. He said he played multiple air-traffic-control audio clips of near-misses for his colleagues to convey the seriousness of the issue, to no avail. Kaine also said that the addition of President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery would only further complicate local airspace.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement that it’s past time for Congress to commit to keeping air travel safe in the nation’s capital and to ensure a tragedy like the January 2025 crash never happens again.

“Even as the FAA raised concerns that congestion at the airport had reached its limits, Congress continued to consider adding more flights,” she said in a statement.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/virginia-weed-industry-dc-recreational Zara Norman The city’s retailers stand to lose cross-border business when Virginia begins recreational sales next summer. Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:30:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/virginia-weed-industry-dc-recreational Johannes Cassidy-Seyoum opened his medical cannabis business in D.C. just last year. Already, he’s bracing for a devastating blow to his customer base.

Across the Potomac, Virginia lawmakers in June approved the sale of recreational cannabis beginning in July 2027. The move will upend the region’s cannabis market, which has historically seen Virginians travel to D.C. to access the city’s permissive medical program in which anyone over 21 can “self-certify” as a user.

Cannabis business owners in D.C., who already took a hit when Maryland began recreational sales in 2023, fear for their livelihoods.

“Virginia coming online will definitely, probably take 20% to 25% of our business,” said Cassidy-Seyoum, the owner of High Demand in Capitol Hill. “A good amount of our customers come from Richmond, Fredericksburg. They make a trip maybe two, three times a month and they stock up.”

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Virginia will issue 350 recreational retail licenses to cannabis businesses in February through a lottery system, with a portion set aside for smaller operators. The goal is to capture the business of both Virginia’s underground cannabis market and customers who shop in neighboring jurisdictions. The state expects its cannabis sales tax to generate $71 million in its first two years.

“We’re very concerned, our store is right on the border around Virginia,” said Caroline Crandall, who owns Green Theory in the Palisades. “Virginia and a lot of other southern states account for a decent portion of sales every month.”

Of the 2,101 non-D.C. residents who patronized D.C. cannabis retailers in July, 807 came from Virginia, according to a report from D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration.

Maryland’s cannabis regulator does not track such metrics, but about half of Virginia’s medical cannabis patients reported going out of state to purchase cannabis, according to an October 2024 survey conducted by Virginia’s Cannabis Control Authority. A quarter of those respondents said their destination was D.C. and one-fifth said it was Maryland.

That could devastate “an already difficult business,” said Greg Casten, president of the restaurant group OceanPro Industries, who’s in the permitting process to open a dispensary in Northeast D.C.

“It’s just a very scrappy time. Rent is high in D.C.,” said Allison Lipowitz, the manager of District Cannabis’ storefront in NoMa. “I think that’s why Virginia feels so scary — it’s already a very unstable market.”

Some business owners feel helpless. District voters overwhelmingly approved marijuana legalization in 2014, but Congress has blocked that from happening.

"D.C. currently lacks the democratic autonomy to enact laws affecting its own local markets without interference from federal policymakers,” Chinyere Hubbard, the president and CEO of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, told The Sun in a statement. “That disparity leaves District businesses competing on an uneven playing field with our neighboring jurisdictions.”

Since 2014, hundreds of businesses operated in a “gray market” by “gifting” cannabis alongside clothing, food or even motivational speeches out of gift stores, gas stations and delivery services. When the District began its self-certified medical program in 2022, it gave those businesses a window in which they could get licensed — 45 of them did.

That program, for residents, made cannabis almost as easily obtainable as it might be in a recreational market. But out-of-towners still need to pay at least $10 in fees to purchase it. Business owners have long wanted to scrap that, reduce it, or — better yet — have cannabis federally rescheduled — something Robbie Martin, president of the D.C. Cannabis Business Association, said is closer to happening than ever.

“We have a lot more restrictions in D.C. right now than Virginia will next year,” Crandall said. “[We’re trying to] figure out ways to remain competitive. One of those is hoping and praying that rescheduling of adult-use cannabis ends up happening.”
_MG_7822 copy.jpg (5452x3635, AR: 1.50)There are other ways D.C. businesses might keep their edge. Some are trying to get permits to add on-site consumption spaces to their dispensaries, Martin said. Martin runs one such a site: Higher Ground in Northeast D.C., a converted distillery stylishly outfitted with leather couches, deep green walls, artful glasswork and even a café space he hopes will soon sell sandwiches, coffee and other “munchies.” On a Tuesday afternoon last week, one customer was using it as a co-working space.

“We have a big competitive advantage in D.C.,” Martin said. “There’s very few places in the country, let alone the East Coast, with this capability.”

What’s more, Virginia is entering the marketplace with problems of its own. Existing medical dispensaries will have to pay a one-time $10 million conversion fee to become licensed as recreational facilities.

That’s “especially concerning” to JM Pedini, the development director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“These are the operators currently serving Virginia's medical cannabis patients, and the law effectively conditions their ability to continue operating on paying that fee,” Pedini said. “We should be protecting patient access and affordability during this transition, not introducing a new eight-figure cost into the medical supply chain."

Virginia has seen more than $107 million in medical cannabis sales this year as of early August, but the state’s illicit market could be worth between $1.5 billion and $3 billion, said Trent Woloveck, the chief strategy officer at Jushi Holdings. Woloveck’s company operates 42 cannabis dispensaries across eight states including Virginia, and recently launched a $50 million expansion in Manassas on the back of the legalization announcement.

That could convert to the regulated marketplace. States adopting recreational cannabis laws see both a 45% reduction in law enforcement seizures of the drug (which could either indicate a smaller illegal marketplace, or a shift in law enforcement priorities), said Nicole Fitzgerald, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University who studies illegal drug markets.

Those states also see a 9% reduction in street prices, said Angelica Meinhofer, an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College who specializes in health economics.

As further incentive, Virginia has kept its initial sales tax rate low at 6%, though municipalities can levy an additional tax of up to 3.5%. Maryland’s, by contrast, is 12%. D.C.’s tax rate is also 6%.

While D.C. businesses brainstorm ways to keep their customers, Virginia municipalities are gearing up to welcome more tax revenue, job creation and redirected sales. In Fairfax, Woloveck’s company Jushi already has a medical dispensary that Colleen Kardasz, Fairfax’s director of economic development, expects will become a recreational facility.

The city is currently evaluating how to zone recreational dispensaries as well as how to tax them, but Kardasz said she expects legalization to keep cannabis-related business in the community.

“People like convenience,” Kardasz said. “If you can get something in your own community, you’re going to choose that over traveling.”

Consumers aren’t the only ones who might choose to do business in Virginia instead of D.C.

“We are planning to hopefully expand into Virginia,” Crandall said, adding that she’ll apply for a license as soon as they open. “We’re probably not the only ones to do so.”
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