NEW: Weeks had passed since Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapsed. 6 workers fell to their deaths, including Miguel Luna.
Officials had vowed to recover his body, but Luna’s loved ones were still waiting. So they honored him the only way that felt right.
BREAKING: Arlington County, Va., will allow multi-unit residential buildings with up to 4 -- and in some cases 6 -- units across the county, effectively ending single-family-only zoning at the doorstep to the nation's capital.
My team
@washingtonpost
is hiring writers to whip up narrative stories on crime, politics, culture — and basically everything else you can think of — in the dark of night.
Please reach out if you have q's or need a pep talk, and especially if you identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+.
Today is my first day covering Arlington and Alexandria for
@washingtonpost
! If you live or work in the area and have tips/suggestions — stories to look into, people to talk to, food spots to check out, or any required reading — please reach out: teo.armus
@washpost
.com
A pretty emotional scene in the county board room as closing remarks conclude, as supporters of “missing middle” gave lawmakers a standing ovation and critics raised gravestones that said “RIP to the Arlington Way.” I also saw at least a few tears shed!
.
@GlennYoungkin
is hosting a roundtable at a Safeway in Alexandria, touting his plan to cut the “regressive” grocery tax.
“Those Virginians that can least afford it are most burdened by it,” he says.
Despite what you may be reading, Kamala Harris is not the first Black woman to run for VP.
That was Charlotta Bass, an LA newspaper publisher turned activist, who ran on the Progressive Party ticket almost 70 years ago.
BREAKING: A draft of Alexandria's "Zoning for Housing" plan would eliminate single-family-only zoning in this Virginia city.
It could make way for duplexes - or maybe 4plexes - w/ no parking reqs in areas long reserved for one house & a yard on each lot.
Today, Thursday Dec 7, I am walking off the job along with 750+ of my colleagues — for higher salary floors, good-faith bargaining and management decisions that won’t gut our local news coverage.
For 24 hours, please respect the picket line and don’t click on Post content.
Our 24-hour strike has begun.
For the first time in 50 years,
@washingtonpost
workers are walking off the job because our company is refusing to bargain in good faith and breaking the law.
Some news about me! I’m thrilled to be heading over to
@postlocal
in a few weeks to cover Arlington & Alexandria — politics, government, Amazon/HQ2, and much more — and especially to be getting back to local reporting (and the sunshine ☀️).
NEW: After a long procession of funerals, the collective grief in Uvalde is turning into collective rage.
At the forefront: a group of "Fierce Madres," drawing from memories of a walkout led by Mexican American students 50+ years ago
w/
@SilviaElenaFF
:
A WaPo reader, Leila Cabib, sent me her beautiful drawing of Capitol Hill Books after seeing my story on the bookstore and its transition in ownership. cc:
@chbooksdc
I’m outside the DHS office in NW DC, where a group of about 50 — mostly moms and kids — are protesting to reunite families separated at the border.
It’s not the typical immigration protest crowd: This was all organized by a local PTO president. She just ordered everyone pizza.
In Arlington, as in lots of other places across the U.S., many renters can no longer afford to buy a home.
Lawmakers hope to lower housing costs by nixing single-family zoning -- a plan that challenges the central idea of American suburbia.
My latest:
NEW: Deep underground, a machine named “Hazel” is digging a 2-mile-long tunnel.
It’s meant to keep millions of gallons of sewage from seeping into the Potomac. And it’s drilling below the historic city of Alexandria, Va.
Come 138 feet under w/
@postlocal
The team I work on
@washingtonpost
is hiring a writer to whip up narrative stories on crime, politics, entertainment — & everything else you can think of — in the dark of night.
Reach out if you have Qs or need a pep talk, and especially if you are from an underrepresented group
On the front page of today’s
@washingtonpost
They grew up visiting Eden Center, the East Coast’s largest Vietnamese cultural hub.
Now, as adults, they’re trying to protect this aging Virginia strip mall from redevelopment.
By
@hauchu
& me, w/ stunning photos by
@ValeriePlesch
For those just reading in, please consider reading our coverage from the past year of this debate.
@postlocal
has been here from the very beginning (in 2019!), and we will continue to report on "missing middle" as it is implemented.
After county planners released a plan last spring to add multi-family housing — with up to 8 units — in any residential area, things started getting really heated.
Some saw a possible tool to fight rising housing costs. Others saw an existential threat.
Amid all the hot-takes, it's worth noting that Trump's "shithole countries" remark came in a discussion about countries under
#TPS
, which protects people whose homelands are in crisis.
Haiti was granted TPS for the earthquake that struck the country 8 years ago tomorrow.
"Not racial. Not racially charged. Racist. ... The sentiment the President expressed today is a racist sentiment." Anderson Cooper reacts to Trump's "shithole countries" remark
The
@PostOpinions
editorial board minces no words on Arlington's "missing middle" plan in an editorial today:
"America’s pastoral ideal of a home and a spacious backyard cannot coexist with thriving metro areas."
“National Landing” — the term invented to lure Amazon to Northern Virginia four years ago — is being shortened and SoHo-ized, whittled down to a two-syllable abbreviation that says everything, and nothing, all at once.
My latest, on the rise of “NaLa”:
In spite of all the bad things, there’s one very good thing I’m grateful to have been able to celebrate in person: Today my abuelo turned 100.
“Lo único que cuenta son los vínculos,” he told us all earlier. “All that counts are relationships.”
May we all carry that into 2022
Amid displacement fears around HQ2, Amazon pledged to create and preserve 1000s of affordable housing units in the DC area.
14+ months and $750M+ later, the help is largely bypassing the lowest-income renters — including some Amazon said it would target.
This morning, Texas DPS said they would hold a Spanish language presser, shortly after answering questions in English.
That was almost four hours ago, and it still has not happened.
Almost every resident I’ve talked to here said they get their news from Univision & Telemundo
At the end of this Uvalde press conference, Spanish media reporters are begging law enforcement spokesperson to answer questions in Spanish as he walked away.
NEW: After fleeing Guatemala, Maria and her 7-year-old were separated at the border.
She was reunited with him in detention, where they were held for 4 months.
“Instead of him being killed quickly there,” she said, “they were killing him slowly here.”
New from me: Almost three years ago, Boulder City Council passed an assault weapons ban after Parkland, looking to prevent a similar mass shooting at home.
That ban was blocked in court less than two weeks ago.
Up early this AM in Charlottesville to watch the city’s two Confederate monuments — of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson — come down today.
ICYMI, our story on the city’s announcement yesterday that the statues would finally be removed, w/
@JoeHeim
:
When I first walked into
@chbooksdc
, Jim Toole told me: “I’m not telling you everything. You’re not my priest!”
But I managed to stick around the bookstore -- where young people come to de-sticker books and drink beer with Toole -- to write this anyway:
I’m at the San Antonio airport this morning, where the very last few of migrant families separated at the border have just been released from detention.
The Virginia arena proposal depends on $1B+ in taxes and fees generated at that site — but those figures rely on aggressive assumptions, according to an analysis commissioned by Gov. Youngkin’s cabinet that has not been released to the public. w/
@jocwapo
Yes, this is one of those “personal news” tweets: I’m so, so excited to say that I'm headed to the Rio Grande Valley this fall to report on family separation and the U.S.-Mexico border, as part of this important project from
@texastribune
(& now
@TIME
!).
Alex Diffey, 66 and a lifelong Republican,said it was easy for him to support McCready — first in the 2018
#nc09
contest and again this year.
"Republicans need to cross the line in the right case," the retired banker said. "And this is the right case."
Leonsis sized
@SenLouiseLucas
up: “You’re a badass,” he said. But after 40 mins chatting at her hotel, she remained firm. The $1.5B in public debt the governor had pledged for the arena was too much.
Read
@SchneiderG
&
@LVozzella
NEW in
@theobserver
: The Alamance sheriff once allegedly told his deputies to "bring me some Mexicans" and "get me some taco-eaters."
Now, ICE is paying his jail to hold asylum-seekers (who are fleeing violence and didn't necessarily break any laws). /1
On the front page of today’s
@washingtonpost
:
Some empty office towers are being turned into apartments.
But faced with growing vacancies, some cities are looking outside the box — and filling empty buildings with spas, breweries and urban farms.
One high school is mostly low-income and Black, with a gym deemed too small to host the state quarterfinals.
The other is wealthy and suburban -- and its top player had called his opponents "[n-word]s in the hood."
My latest, on race and HS basketball:
Scott Warren had been charged with 2 felonies for helping migrants who'd crossed the border.
To some, he became a symbol of the Trump administration’s crackdown on border activists.
Yesterday, after a hung jury over the summer, he was found not guilty.
Ahead of the World Cup final today, Argentina is counting on a 76-year-old “abuela” — a Messi fan who has gone viral for dancing in the streets — to seal the deal for la Scaloneta.
My story from Buenos Aires on the ultimate national cábala:
I’m on Post Reports discussing what we know about the Baltimore bridge collapse — and what it says about the lives and tragic deaths of immigrants in construction jobs.
Endless thanks to
@Elana_Gordon
@RennieYS
@maggiepenman
& Martine Powers
I’m at Virginia Highlands Park in Arlington, where a who’s who of Virginia Dems — and Pres Biden — are rallying ahead of next week’s election.
Don Beyer opens by giving the crowd a book recommendation: Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
A Netflix Xmas parody in Brazil by
@portadosfundos
has depicted Jesus as probably gay (and as a “naughty Capricorn.”)
Lots of people — political figures, priests — are upset.
In which I watch Netflix at work — for journalism!
Latinos make up 1 in 6 Charlotte residents. But they've never held any of the 11 seats on city council.
This year, though, 3 candidates say their Hispanic heritage will help them speak for & connect with a growing population that's eager for a voice.
“If it seems like school shootings are getting less air time, you aren’t imagining it.
During the week of the shooting at UNCC, CNN covered the tragedy for 24 minutes, Fox News devoted just over 14, and MSNBC covered it for fewer than five.”
Some at the table aren’t asking questions but praising the governor instead.
“You supporting us and helping lift the [mask] mandates is just wonderful,” says one woman, Loretta Greene, who says she is a mother of three in Fairfax public schools.
On the front page of today’s
@washingtonpost
:
Many renters can no longer afford to buy in Arlington. County officials want to make it legal to build “missing middle housing”— a plan that’s drawn resistance as it challenges the key tenet of suburbia.
Good morning! It’s Election Day in Virginia. Are you just tuning in?
Over at
@postlocal
we’ve been covering the race for months and months. Read our primer on the races, the candidates, and the issues at stake.
Such a nice surprise to have a story back in
@TexasTribune
.
ICYMI: A Texas judge issued what may be the strongest rebuke yet to a right-wing group trying to build a crowdfunded border wall in the Rio Grande Valley.
This is so horrible.
DCist did essential, irreplaceable work telling the stories of the DMV and its journalists are also some of the nicest people around. The region is going to suffer because of this.
Likely to be overshadowed, but important news from tonight's
#cltcc
meeting: With a unanimous vote from the council, Charlotte becomes the first city in the U.S. to adopt an immigration compact.
For the past 3 decades, Inner Ear Studios in Arlington has launched some of the DC area's biggest bands.
Now it's being pushed out by the county to make way for an "arts and industry district."
My latest -- on punk rock, real estate and a changing NoVA:
There’s a common refrain among some local politicos in Alexandria: If there’s a garage door opening, Del Pepper is there.
My profile of NoVA's oldest and longest-serving local elected official, who just retired after 36(!) years in office
Arlington’s missing middle debate is getting intense on NextDoor, where one critic says the proposal will make the county “lower classed, noisier, dirtier, etc.”
“All you would be doing is cause stress to your kids when they see how others live better than they do.”
McAuliffe seizing on the same issue, to loud boos from the crowd.
“This is his closing message: Glenn Youngkin is promoting banning books by one of America’s most celebrated Black authors.”
The
@NAACP
’s General Counsel (yes, at the national level) is getting involved in the debate over “missing middle” housing in Arlington.
The Jan vote to limit this plan to 6-unit buildings “would prevent Black and other people of color from moving into Arlington.”
Their letter:
NEW: In the US’s largest Bolivian community, one woman has become part social media influencer, part linguist and part event emcee — all while speaking Quechua and dressed in a traditional “cholita” outfit.
Meet María Luz Coca Luján, a.k.a. K’ancha:
Interesting split among NoVA Dems who represent districts closest to the arena site
Yes: Herring (W. Alexandria), Sickles (Alx part of Fairfax), Watts (Fairfax)
No: Bennett-Parker (E. Alexandria), Hope (N. Arlington), Lopez (S. Arlington), Krizek (Fairfax), McClure (Arlington)
Today's House of Delegates vote on the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority and Financing Fund (the proposed new Potomac Yard Wizards/Caps arena)
@KarklisCarto
@jbgsmith
And in true Alexandria fashion, we already have protesters with signs outside the event! Everyone pictured said they weren’t with a specific group, though many live nearby.
Matthew Lohr, Youngkin’s secretary of agriculture & forestry, is also here. He says doubling down on the state’s Virginia Grown and Virginia Finest programs will lower costs by bringing in-state produce to supermarkets like this one.
At least 238 people have signed up to speak at the final public hearing on Arlington’s “missing middle” plan — that’s about 1 in every 1,000 county residents.
This proposal has dominated political discussion here over the past year — we’re in for a long few days!
The Washington Post laid off 20 newsroom colleagues today. No justification has been given for job cuts at a company that continues to grow and hire at a historic pace.
I stand with my laid-off colleagues. We need transparency from publisher Fred Ryan.
Today, The Washington Post laid off 20 of our colleagues.
While 20 is much smaller than 200 — “a single digit percentage of the workforce,” as Publisher Fred Ryan indicated, that’s little consolation to those who lost their jobs today.
That number should be zero.
.
@RepDonBeyer
&
@timkaine
have reintroduced bills to remove the designation of Arlington House, the mansion that sits on federal land within Arlington National Cemetery, as a memorial to Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
“More than a few observers have predicted that the Post would forsake D.C. altogether and relocate to Arlington County, where Bezos built a massive “Washington office” for Amazon.”
Uhhh…. no
The Post will keep their headquarters in the heart of the District for at least another 13 years. Despite speculation, the paper reaffirmed their commitment to D.C.
My story on the final weekend of Town, a gay D.C. nightclub that closed in June, is now in magazine form (featuring some amazing photos from Marvin Joseph):
(Read on your phone or on Chrome for best results!)
If you're just tuning in, there's been lots of news in Charlotte these past few days about the police killing of
#DanquirsFranklin
. Let's recap:
Franklin was fatally shot by CMPD Officer Wende Kerl outside a Burger King in west Charlotte last month.
Something I never thought I would type: I was on a soccer podcast!
Mil gracias a
@SecondCaptains
for having me on to talk Messi, the scene in Buenos Aires on Sunday, and watching the final here as an Argentine-American.
We talk to
@teoarmus
of the Washington Post about what it was like on the streets of Buenos Aires during the World Cup and what the win means to Argentinians
Virginia lawmakers are poised to strip plans for a new Wizards and Capitals arena from the state budget, which would block Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s best shot at bringing the teams to Alexandria.
via
@SchneiderG
&
@LVozzella
Once he learned they were going to be separated, he decided to lie.
“See those officials, the men that are over there?” Martinez said he told Jonathan, pointing out Border Patrol officers. “They gave me a job.”
My latest for
@washingtonpost
:
Very sad news — I had the pleasure of getting to spend a few days with Jim 5 years ago after he sold
@chbooks
to some of his longtime employees.
Hold back from saying any banned words (“totally,” “like,” etc.) today
We are sad to share that Jim Toole, owner of Capitol Hill Books from 1995 - 2018, has passed away.
Jim, AKA The Admiral, was still an active employee of Capitol Hill Books & will be dearly missed. He was one of a kind.
New from me: Alexandria (where per capita income is double the national average) is using $3M in American Rescue Plan funds to fund a guaranteed income pilot.
For two years starting this fall, it'll be giving $500 debit cards each month to 150 families.
Party-like atmosphere here at Youngkin HQ in Chantilly:
A buzzing crowd — wine glasses in one hand, bags of popcorn in the other — had crowded into the ballroom as Fox News plays from all TV screens.
Few masks in sight (a big contrast to McAuliffe HQ, per
@karina_elwood
)
Elementary school students at Irwin Academic Center (formerly Harding HS) prepare to welcome Dorothy Counts-Scoggins.
In 1957, as the first Black student to attend Harding, she was the subject of an infamous photo: white students insulting her as she walked into her first day.
It's not just Staten Island & Alabama.
In a Maryland suburb just 20 miles from HQ2, workers at an Amazon delivery station are organizing, too. Two employees say the company fired them for planning a walkout in March.
Gotta say, I am a little perplexed at all of these ads previewing special news reports on "what life on the border is really like."
Treating the border like it's some sort of foreign, exotic object only seems to normalize the (false) notion that it's a conflict zone.
Not sure how this has become some sort of national news story?
Latinos, by definition, have ancestry from literally all over the world (including Jewish heritage)!
It is times like these when I’m thankful for the existence of
@Joannahausmann
:
“A very, very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a Hanukkah celebration at a synagogue in Jackson Heights, Queens