Category: Washington D.C. News

The D.C. Council’s two-month hiatus from routine legislative work leaves behind a controversial committee reshuffling and the dampening pall of multiple investigations into officials, including council members and the mayor. During the last legislative hearing, Chairman Kwame Brown reassigned Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) to the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, a post […]

When Anthony Johnson first stepped foot on the University of Maryland College Park campus, he didn’t give much thought to joining a Greek fraternity, let alone one that was not even on the school’s campus at the time. Yet when word got to him that the 15-year suspension of Omega Psi Phi at UMD would […]

The shocking cheating scandal that has rocked the Atlanta public school system left the public wondering about other metropolitans and their ethical standards. But D.C.’s schools chancellor said the District school system does not tolerate a “culture of cheating” and should not be compared to other school districts. In an assessment conducted by Georgia Gov. […]

Council member Marion Barry (D) is taking drastic measures to “save” his ward from a culture that prefers renting to owning, proposing legislation to ban any new apartment construction in Ward 8—the poorest part of the city. The Moratorium on the Construction of Apartment Buildings in Ward 8 Act 0f 2011 forbids the city to […]

The challenges to Mayor Vincent Gray (D) seem to be mounting. A July 19 article by The Washington Post reporter Nikita Stewart alleges that cash donations to Gray’s 2010 mayoral campaign may have exceeded the legal limit and some recorded contributions could not be traced back to donors. The report further claims the campaign exchanged […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia public school system announced Friday that it was firing more than 400 employees for poor performance and failure to meet licensing requirements. This is the second straight year that the school district has turned to mass layoffs under a new teacher evaluation system, known as IMPACT, which evaluates […]

In a 12-1 vote, the D.C. council on Tuesday voted in support of Chairman Kwame Brown’s rearrangement of committee posts, including the shocking removal of Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) from the transportation committee. Wells, the only one who dissented, took his disapproval to Twitter Wednesday morning and said: “Impressed I had no support […]

Eight years and three mayoral administrations after the Columbia Heights neighborhood began its redevelopment, merchants along the 14th Street corridor wonder if the price of progress will be their demise. The minority business owners aren’t giving up, however. Led by Sheila Reid, owner of Avanti Realty, the owners are still demanding to know what happened […]

A week ago, District-based Chartered Health Plan was within days of ending a complicated lawsuit against the District. The suit sought $14.9 million in reimbursements for dental insurance Chartered provided to disadvantaged and disabled children under the D.C. Medicaid program. According to the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF), which contracts with Chartered and […]

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the department will meet with the lesbian, gay and transgender residents to mediate issues after a recent three-hour hearing, where local LGBT activists complained that the D.C. Council and the police department are slow responders to hate crimes. The group also alleged the police are failing to document […]

The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department got a much-needed boost this week with the passage of Mayor Vincent Gray’s FY 2011 supplemental budget, which was voted on by lawmakers July 12. The department, which has long complained of insufficient manpower, was awarded $10.8 million in extra funds after D.C.’s Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi announced a […]

Secondary and elementary school test scores are improving in Washington, D.C., according to the results of the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) tests released July 8 by officials. The DC CAS is an annual series of standardized tests given to third- to eighth-grade and 10th-grade students in D.C. public and charter schools that measure […]