Opinion

Around the city, you always hear parents talk about the lack of access to high-quality middle schools. By that, they usually mean middle schools with a rigorous curriculum, high test scores and reports of engaged, passionate…

Some Americans hold the misconception that monolingualism is equated with patriotism. Some see speaking Spanish, Arabic, Amharic or Vietnamese at their local grocery store as “offensive” or even “dangerous.” This sentiment is not shared…

A few weeks after the DC Council voted, with enthusiastic guidance from Chairman Phil Mendelson, to disapprove the DC Public Education Master Facilities Plan 2018, Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a letter indicating her “disappointment” with the…

I had gone downtown mostly to run errands. As I was about to head back to my Brightwood neighborhood, I discovered the two signs just inside the overhang between the escalator to the Metro Center subway station and the exterior side wall…

The DC Council is considering important legislation that would strengthen the 2016 Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (“IRAA”), which allows people who committed crimes when they were young to petition the court for a reduced sentence…

"You want to be comfortable and our conditions are uncomfortable. And when you're uncomfortable, you make bad decisions. These streets are vicious; they soak your ass up." ~ Smurf, 17 Blocks 17 Blocks — a new documentary set in DC —…

Across the city, six outdoor public pools closed for the season on Sunday at 6 p.m. as part of a staggered shutdown that continues through Labor Day. Just 78 days earlier, the city officially welcomed summer with a splash, when DC…

The high cost of a self-cleaning public restroom at a Virginia Metrorail station recently garnered headlines as an example of wasteful spending, but its removal earlier this year need not disrupt the District’s own plans to pilot two…

So, there I was watching CNN, experiencing the news loop that can be mind-numbing, invigorating or depressing — sometimes all three simultaneously. What’s a news junkie to do when the DC Council is on recess? Watching the local government…

On July 19, Ahkii Washington-Scruggs, a 17-year-old high school football player about to enter his senior year at Dunbar High School, was found shot and killed alongside his father in their apartment in Northeast DC. Their deaths were two…

So many places to die in dc in a car on the bus on the corner with a mother only a whisper away… Those are words from a poem titled “Dying” that I wrote in the 1980s. I pulled it out this week after learning of the murder…

The House of Representatives is showing renewed interest in statehood for the District of Columbia. With the House leadership all on board and Democrats holding a majority, the House could pass the Washington, D.C. Admission Act this year,…

When at-large DC Council member Elissa Silverman publicly challenged Chairman Phil Mendelson last week, asking whether he traded parts of the Committee on Finance and Revenue’s portfolio in exchange for certain members’ affirmative votes…

You may have heard recently that some crazy Virginia man just ran around the whole Beltway. Well, his name is Mike Wardian, he lives in Arlington, and he’s a professional runner. Mike is actually an ultramarathoner, specializing in…

At first glance, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson may appear to have achieved a complete victory last week in his efforts to maintain or even maximize control of the legislature. Despite strong objections from several colleagues,…

They may have been at each other’s throats earlier this year during an acrimonious budget debate over relocating Benjamin Banneker Academic High School to the Shaw neighborhood. This week, however, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson,…

In recent months, cities across the country have shared results of their annual homeless census, a one-day snapshot of residents experiencing homelessness that captures trends, guides strategic planning efforts and informs federal funding…

A problem common to many busy DC roads presents a pervasive danger in Brookland on the 600 and 700 blocks of Monroe Street NE: New or fairly new residential buildings attract multiple delivery vehicles and trucks per day, while retail…

The Green New Deal first entered U.S. political discourse during Howie Hawkins’ 2010 Green Party campaign for New York governor. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s candidate for president, later invoked the idea in her 2012 and 2016 campaigns.…

Thankfully, I hadn’t gone on a sizzling summer Saturday to the Frank A. Reeves Municipal Center at 14th and U streets NW for any respite from the heat. The opinions that were being shared openly or quietly whispered by District residents…