Today in D.C.: Headlines to start your Tuesday in D.C., Maryland and Virginia
Good Tuesday #GoodTuesday
Good morning — it’s Tuesday. We’re on snow watch. Start your morning with the latest news around the Washington region.
Today’s weather: We get a needed breather today as we watch the weather models and observations for insights into tomorrow’s big event. Wednesday will play out differently depending on where you are located. Far western and northwestern areas are poised to see significant snowfall, but amounts are expected to decline quickly as you get closer to the city. Highs: 40-45.
8:41 AM: Proud Boys sparked clashes during pro-Trump rally, D.C. officials say
District officials on Monday denounced the violence that erupted in downtown Washington over the weekend, blaming many of the clashes on protesters who refuse to accept the presidential election results.
Police said the Proud Boys movement of white chauvinists amassed their largest gathering yet in the District and were met by anti-Trump counterprotesters who police said willingly engaged the group.
Police also disclosed that four churches were vandalized over the weekend, two more than previously disclosed, and they released photos of White men marching with and burning a Black Lives Matter banner ripped down from one of the churches.
“What should have been a beautiful weekend,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said, “was ruined by white supremacists who came to our city seeking violence.”
“These Proud Boys are avowed white nationalists and have been called to stand up against a fair and legal election,” Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said. “This is a symptom of the hateful rhetoric, anti-science noise and people who refuse to accept the result of a fair American election.”
Police said Monday that 38 people had been arrested for protest-related actions, and D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said eight officers were injured, one seriously. Ten people were charged with assault on a police officer.
Read the full story
By: Tom Jackman, Michael Brice-Saddler and Ann E. Marimow
8:37 AM: FBI agent involved in shooting on Red Line train in Maryland
An FBI agent was involved in a shooting on a Red Line train Tuesday morning in Maryland, officials said.
Metro said trains are sharing a track between the Grosvenor and Medical Center stations during the investigation. Trains are bypassing the Medical Center station, where the incident occurred.
Metro spokesman Ian Jannetta said the incident unfolded about 7 a.m. when Metro Transit Police received a report of “an FBI agent-involved shooting aboard a Red Line train near Medical Center.”
Jannetta said “a gunshot wound victim was taken from Medical Center Station.” He said Metro Transit Police and the FBI are investigating.
Lira Davies, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said her agency had no immediate comment.
This post will be updated.
By: Dana Hedgpeth
8:22 AM: As coronavirus restrictions rise, here are ways to cope
As the surge of coronavirus cases continues to pass milestone after milestone across the country, some jurisdictions are enacting strict restrictions reminiscent of those instituted in the spring.
In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) issued a statewide curfew between midnight and 5 a.m., except when traveling for work or getting medical attention or food.
Staying home as much as possible is a necessary evil to stop the wave of contagion. But there is one faint silver lining: We’ve done it before. That means we know what’s coming and how better to cope with it. We hope these pointers, gathered from more than nine months of coronavirus coverage, will prove handy as you navigate shutdowns in your region, or prepare for the possibility of doing so.
Here are a few of the compiled tips:
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By: Washington Post Staff
8:02 AM: The cost of child care was already astronomical. In the pandemic, it’s ‘terrifying.’
Once a month, after the kids are in bed, Margie Yeager and her husband convene at the dining room table. She opens her computer and pulls up the spreadsheet where she tracks the family budget. There is one column that has caused far more stress this year than any other: child care.
Yeager and her husband have three kids — ages 3, 6 and 7 — and child care has always been expensive. But with schools and many day cares closed during the pandemic, the cost has skyrocketed: from $1,850 per month before the coronavirus hit to $5,300 in December. She used to pay nothing for her two oldest children, both enrolled in public school where she lives in Washington. Now they’re part of a learning “pod” led by a woman who used to work in their school cafeteria.
The couple had to dip into their savings to cover the cost — but what else can they do?
“I feel actively stressed when we write the check every month,” said Yeager, who works at an education nonprofit. Like many other parents, she has considered scaling back at her job or taking a year off. “I don’t feel like there’s a good alternative.”
Read the full story
By: Caroline Kitchener
7:21 AM: Washington region rolls out coronavirus vaccines, prioritizing health-care workers
The first doses of the coronavirus vaccine were administered Monday in the Washington region, marking the start of a massive logistical undertaking that officials hope will start to quell a virus that has infected more than 540,000 residents and killed more than 10,000 in the area.
Governments and hospitals are hosting events this week to show residents getting vaccinated as part of an effort to foster public trust in the vaccine. D.C., Maryland and Virginia are reserving the first shipments for health-care workers, first responders and nursing home residents.
Members of the general public, officials said, will probably need to wait until the spring. The rollout comes as the seven-day average of new infections approaches 7,000 across the greater Washington region — the most since the start of the pandemic.
“We still have a long way to go,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said to a group of hospital workers who were vaccinated Monday afternoon, “but you guys are the first. And we’re proud of all of you.”
Read more from The Post:
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By: Rebecca Tan, Lola Fadulu and Michael Brice-Saddler
6:55 AM: Rep.-elect Bob Good calls the pandemic ‘phony.’ Covid-19 has killed more than 300 in his district.
Newly-elected Virginia congressman calls coronavirus pandemic ‘phony’
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Rep.-elect Bob Good took the stage at Freedom Plaza on Saturday afternoon and looked out at a sea of masklessness. Thousands had come to march for President Trump — some carrying signs declaring the novel coronavirus a hoax.
They were just the kind of group, Good told the crowd, who “gets that this is a phony pandemic.”
“It’s a serious virus, but it’s a virus. It’s not a pandemic,” said Good (R), who will become Virginia’s newest congressman in the 5th Congressional District on Jan. 3. “It’s great to see your faces. You get it. You stand up against tyranny.”
Good’s denial of the existence of a pandemic flies in the face of an unprecedented surge in coronavirus infections, which have claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 Americans — including more than 300 in Good’s congressional district, according to a Washington Post analysis of coronavirus data.
Hospitalizations are up 18 percent in Virginia since last week, and experts fear an increase in fatalities will soon follow.
Read the full story
By: Meagan Flynn
6:41 AM: Nominees set for special election to fill Virginia state House seat
RICHMOND — A Democratic newcomer will face off against a former senior aide to Republican firebrand Corey Stewart in a Jan. 5 special election, when they will compete to fill the state House of Delegates seat vacated by Jennifer D. Carroll Foy.
Carroll Foy, a Democrat from Prince William County, stepped down over the weekend to focus on her 2021 bid for governor.
In a party-run primary on Saturday, Democrats chose Candi King, an education advocate and former small business owner, from a field of five. Heather Mitchell, who ran for the seat in this dark blue district in 2019, was the only Republican to seek that party’s nod, so there was no nominating contest. Mitchell lost to Carroll Foy, who took more than 60 percent of the vote.
The winner will have to run for reelection in November if she wants to hold the seat beyond January 2022, when Carroll Foy’s term was due to expire.
Read The Washington Post’s reporting from Virginia:
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By: Laura Vozzella
6:24 AM: Washington’s past: Holiday shopping at Woodward & Lothrop
This photograph of holiday shoppers at Woodward & Lothrop was taken by Marion S. Trikosko in November 1957. The department store closed its stores in 1995, but the flagship building in downtown Washington, now home to a Zara and Forever 21, still bears the company’s name.
Woodward & Lothrop — known to patrons as “Woodies” — is considered Washington’s first department store. The store’s founders, Samuel Walter Woodward and Alvin Mason Lothrop, opened at the corner of 11th and F streets NW in 1886.
In 2013, Michael Lisicky, a historian of American department stores, published a book on Woodward & Lothrop with the subtitle, “A Store Worthy of the Nation’s Capital.” He wrote that Woodward & Lothrop was the Buick of department stores in the District, known for being the store people wanted to shop at — not the one they had to go to.
“It wasn’t the high, it wasn’t the medium, and it certainly wasn’t the low,” Lisicky told The Washington Post. “It was better than it needed to be.”
Lisicky said the store had “legendary” decorated windows for the holidays along F Street. The point was to get people “off the streets and into the stores,” he said.
The store wasn’t welcoming for everyone in Washington. As The Post’s John Kelly wrote in 2014, most of the District’s department stores were explicitly or casually racist, and “Woodies was no different.”
“The NAACP and CORE were among groups that organized demonstrations and boycotts that eventually forced Woodies and other retailers to be more welcoming,” Kelly wrote.
Woodward & Lothrop was sold in 1995 after 115 years as a Washington department store. The local company had trouble competing in the Washington area with national chains.
This is part of a series that explores Washington’s past. If you have a story or a photo to share, please email postlocal@washpost.com.
More on Woodward & Lothrop:
By: Teddy Amenabar
6:22 AM: Two Metro stations to temporarily close in February for construction
Metro plans to close its Addison Road and Arlington Cemetery stations on the Blue and Silver lines for three months early next year while it replaces station platforms.
The stations will be closed from Feb. 13 to May 23 as part of Metro’s multiyear platform improvement program. Free shuttle buses will be provided to bridge riders to nearby stations.
During this period, the transit agency said, Blue Line trains will not run. Instead, Yellow Line trains will operate between the Franconia-Springfield station and Mount Vernon Square via the Potomac River bridge.
For other shuttle bus details and a list of Metrobus routes that offer alternatives, go to wmata.com/platforms.
Read more of The Post’s reporting on Metro:
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By: Justin George
6:10 AM: D.C.-area forecast: Sunny and cold today as a winter storm arrives Wednesday
The Capital Weather Gang rates today’s weather a 6/10: the cold calm before the storm. The daily digit is a somewhat subjective rating of the day’s weather, on a scale of 0 to 10.
Today: Mostly sunny skies help us dry out from Monday’s moisture, but temperatures only manage the low- to mid-40s for highs as light winds blow from the north at 5 to 10 mph. Confidence: High.
Tonight: Becoming cloudy with lows in the upper 20s to low 30s as light winds blow from the east or northeast near 5 mph. Confidence: High.
Tomorrow (Wednesday): Light precipitation developing mid- to late morning should start as snow or a wintry mix across the area (except perhaps plain rain into Southern Maryland). Areas east of Interstate 95 should change to plain rain by late afternoon, and it could be heavy at times with localized flooding. Our western and northern suburbs could continue to see a wintry mix through the afternoon, while far western to northwestern locations could get mostly snow, with heavier accumulations. Highs range from near freezing in far western to northwestern areas to the low- to mid-40s closer to the bay. Winds are from the northeast and east at 10 to 20 mph, with gusts to 25 mph. Confidence: Low-Medium.
Do you have questions about the winter storm heading toward Washington and the Northeast? Send an email to postlocal@washpost.com.
For other forecasts and more on weather in the Washington region, sign up to receive the Capital Weather Gang in your inbox. (Or, on your smart speaker.)
Read the full story here
By: Matt Rogers
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By: Teddy Amenabar