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City Cast DC

Local News

Michael Schaffer

When the roster of artists slated to play the Great American State Fair was announced earlier this week, D.C.'s reaction was simple: Why couldn't we get A-List talent?

Two days later, the question has changed: Why couldn't we even keep D-List talent?

The first to bust a move was Young M.C., the rapper best known for the 1989 hit "Bust a Move.” 

"The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” 

 early Thursday, noting that SPIN had described the gig as "Trump-backed.”

More drop-outs followed. Morris Day, the longtime Prince collaborator who appeared in 1984's 

 that "contrary to the rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing.” Milli Vanilli, the 1980s duo best remembered for a lip-synching scandal where it turned out they hadn't even sang their own song, declared that t

hey had never agreed to perform in the first place

The Commodores, the legendary 1970s soul act, 

: “Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party,” they wrote on social media.

The most painful hits came last. Country singer Martina McBride, who actually has fans in MAGA America, 

. “I was presented with the opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” she wrote in a long, somber statement.

And then came Bret Michaels, singer of the 1980s hair-metal band Poison — and a one-time winner on 

. “Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than I agreed to be part of,” 

The internet has had a lot of fun with it, but the vibe may also feel familiar to Washingtonians: It’s not so different from what happened after Trump took over the Kennedy Center and acts started pulling out in order to not be associated with a once-neutral seeming institution that had now acquired a political charge.

Sure enough, Ric Grenell, who presided over the Kennedy Center during the artistic exodus, weighed in to slam McBride: “You’ve always been a woke lefty,” 

. In another post, he referred to the cancellations as “censorship.”

It’s not — though you can expect some political fireworks from one side or the other over Michaels’ claim that “concerns have been raised regarding the safety of my fans, band, crew, family, and myself, including threats that are completely unfounded and unforgivable.”

Artists have a right to associate with whatever political figure they want. But these particular artists’ choices are sad all the same. It used to be that playing at a big national institution like the Kennedy Center, or joining a National Mall festival designed to celebrate July 4, didn’t feel like linking arms with any political figure at all.

The Trump-era personalization of the capital’s symbolic core — the president was talking up his plans for the Mall even as the cancellations rolled in — has changed the dynamic so even hokey D.C. stuff now feels inextricably tied to the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

That’s especially true for the Great American State Fair. Given that the festival is full of Make America Healthy Again content, it’s not hard to see why people would think of it as not just another bit of federal-city programming.

This change in the political valence of the Mall and its festivals, in the long run, is especially lousy for D.C. residents. We used to enjoy the benefits of capital-city events — sometimes with actual A-list stars — that you couldn't see in a regular American metropolis. Not these days.

Luckily, we can still see Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, who as of this writing have not canceled.

Is Everyone Dropping Out of Trump’s Great American State Fair Concerts?

Get the story that everyone in Washington is talking about.

D.C. Local News

Emma Uber

Locals have refused to call the iconic D.C. performing arts venue the “Trump Kennedy Center,” even after the board voted to add Trump’s name in December and changed the signs. Now, a judge says the renaming was against the law.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the removal of President Donald Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building and all official branding, ruling that the board acted unlawfully by renaming the institution without an act of Congress. In a 94-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also temporarily blocked the institution from closing for two years of renovations.

"The Kennedy Center's organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board's unilateral say-so,” wrote Cooper. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

As part of his ruling, Cooper ordered that all signage and online materials referring to the "Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts," the "Trump Kennedy Center," or anything similar must be removed within 14 days.

Cooper also found that the institution’s board had been “derelict” in failing to consider the consequences to programming when shutting down the center and called the renovation plans “murky,” writing that none of the board members had enough information to decide whether the closure was necessary. Most performances have already been canceled in anticipation of the closure that was set to begin in July — plus, the center has struggled to 

 talent since Trump installed himself as chair of the board last year.

The ruling does not prevent the Kennedy Center's board from a future closure, but the judge said that it should only do so after the board has "sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate a premiere arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen President."

Roma Daravi, a spokesperson for the center, said it would appeal the decision. In a statement Friday, she said that the Trump administration remains committed to giving the center “an urgent and significant restoration.”

“We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” she said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

In an email sent after the ruling, Daravi referred to herself as the “Trump Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations.”

In response to a request for comment, the White House referred to Trump's lengthy 

 Friday evening, in which he railed against Cooper and decried the center as in need of renovation. He also wrote he is going to be 'working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them,' though Congress already possesses legal control of the center.

"Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into “NEVER NEVER LAND.”"

The rulings mark a win for Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democratic congresswoman and board member who in December sued her fellow trustees after they voted to rename the institution after Trump. She later broadened her lawsuit to contest the closure of the center altogether.

"Today's ruling rightly affirms that this administration's efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law," Beatty said in a statement. "The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity."

In a separate decision Friday, Cooper denied a similar challenge to the renovations brought by preservationist groups.

A lawsuit filed in March by a coalition of architectural and historic preservation organizations, including the DC Preservation League, argues the Trump administration has already caused historic harm to the building and must go through a federal review process before any more work can be done. The group alleges that the administration appears intent on “major aesthetic transformation” or maybe even total demolition of the arts center.

The government countered by saying the Kennedy Center is not a federal agency subject to those review requirements, and that the construction plans do not indicate an intention to demolish the arts center.

Cooper sided with the government, but said his position could change based on the scale of the renovations.

“If the work is, say, more transformative than present testimony suggests or requires permits that the center has yet to acknowledge or secure, the court’s legal analysis might look substantially different,” the judge wrote.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the Kennedy Center’s board acted unlawfully by renaming the center without congressional approval. 


Trump’s Name Must be Removed from Kennedy Center, Judge Orders

The Stars may not be aligned for D.C. media mogul Robert Allbritton.

Last month, Allbritton’s political news site NOTUS announced it would expand its coverage and rebrand as 

 Many figured the name was an homage to his family’s former ownership of 

 – a paper that stopped printing in 1981. In 

 with the Columbia Journalism Review, Allbritton said replicating the full name of the paper would be too "backward looking.”

It may not have been quite so simple. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday, the name wasn’t Allbritton’s to use. According to the suit, NOTUS twice engaged in talks with The Washington Star Company to purchase the trademark, but were unable to reach an agreement. They went with a galaxy-inspired name anyway, just dropping the “Washington.”

Now, days before the planned relaunch, that decision is proving complicated.

was actually planning its own launch, led by Dovid Efune, the publisher of the conservative 

 began posting articles on Substack this month, ending a 45-year publishing drought weeks after NOTUS announced its expansion. Efune told the 

’s newsroom, soon. According to the lawsuit, having another company with Star in the name is bad for business.

The lawsuit claims the two newspaper names are confusingly similar and, since media executive Dovid Efune holds the trademark, a judge should order NOTUS to stop using the name and pay damages for infringing on 

’s relaunch had been “some years in the making.” Federal trademark records show that Efune has held the trademark since 2023. Interestingly, records show the trademark was filed by Robert Garson, one of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful $50 million lawsuit against ex-

In a statement to City Cast DC on Thursday, Allbritton said NOTUS plans to "vigorously defend against the claims.”

“Six weeks after NOTUS announced that it was rebranding to The Star, a newly formed entity associated with Dovid Efune has sued NOTUS for trademark infringement,” the statement read. “The entity does not and cannot own the word “Star,” which has been used by and associated with dozens of media publications for over 100 years. The entity itself only even claims to have recently adopted “The Washington Star,” decades after numerous other “Star” publications have been using “Star” marks.”

Lawyers for Efune are pointing to Allbritton’s family history with 

 as another reason D.C. readers may be confused about the distinction between the two publications. Allbritton’s father, Joseph Allbritton, owned the newspaper from 1975 to 1978. The paper folded a few years later, going bankrupt after 128 years as a conservative-leaning newspaper. The 

purchased its newspaper plant, printing presses and delivery trucks after the closure, but stopped short of acquiring the paper itself. (City Cast DC is owned by Graham Holdings, formerly the Washington Post Company.)

The younger Allbritton, meanwhile, stayed in the media business, founding Politico, which ultimately sold to a German media firm for more than $1 billion — giving him the money to bankroll this new venture.

website within the next two months and print a weekend newspaper by the end of the year. 

 will publish under the oversight of right-leaning 

 until an editor in chief is named, and in his editorial Efune wrote that the publication will support “limited government” and oppose “bureaucratic corruption and federal overreach.” He hasn’t said anything about covering local Washington, and the 

 does not focus extensively on metro news in its city.

For the record, City Cast DC will not be rebranding as City Star DC.

The plaintiffs say Washington is a one-star town.

 The Washington Star Is Suing The Star In a Very Confusing Media Battle

Jamelle 'Mellie' Harris was driving when her elementary-aged son began to have a breakdown. He had long struggled with mental and behavioral health issues, but this time she just couldn’t de-escalate. She sat on the side of the road, unsure how to get back to their Southeast D.C. home without her child trying to throw himself out of the moving vehicle. 

At a loss, she called the Child and Adolescent Mobile Psychiatric Service.

The hotline workers were able to soothe him. Later, when she needed tools to address mental health episodes at home, the service, known as ChAMPS, helped her develop a safety plan and put together a sensory box full of her son’s favorite things to help calm him down. And when she recognized her son needed more intensive help but worried about calling the police on a young Black boy, she trusted ChAMPS to make sure he was taken away in an ambulance, not a police car.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have ChAMPS to call if there’s an emergency,” Harris, a 32-year-old mother of two, said.

ChAMPS is an emergency service for children and teens ages 6-17 who are having mental or behavioral crises. Under D.C.’s budget proposal, the program would be shuttered, part of a broader slate of cuts that would also phase out

the city’s contracts with a network of community-based organizations providing clinicians to D.C. schools. The proposed changes would save roughly $7 million dollars by moving those responsibilities to the city’s Department of Behavioral Health, which operates its own general crisis response team.

In a moment when the city is grappling with teen behavior – from “teen takeovers” to viral Chipotle brawls – and conversations about resources for the city’s youth have come under a national microscope, some fear it’s a dangerous time to disrupt the behavioral health care system.

More than 150 parents, educators and behavioral health professionals from over 60 D.C. schools, as well as 45 local organizations, signed a letter last month decrying the proposed changes.

"At a time when children across the District are facing deep instability, DBH is attempting to pull students’ trusted adults from their schools,” said Danielle Robinette, a senior policy attorney at Children’s Law Center, one of the organizations that signed the letter.

A DBH spokesperson said in a statement that it remains “committed” to making services available, and that consolidating children’s crisis services in-house will allow the department to better coordinate follow-up care and encourage families to seek ongoing support. The spokesperson also pointed out that DBH’s new plan for school-based care includes telehealth, which would extend resources to public schools currently without in-person mental health clinicians. D.C. plans to spend $18 million over the next few years to establish the new school-based behavioral health program

Shaina Lamchick Hagen is a parent to an autistic first grader at John Burroughs Elementary School. At a public budget hearing, she testified that her family developed a close relationship with a contracted behavioral health specialist at the school who worked with her son to develop social skills. But the specialist recently told Hagen she will not be returning next year because of the proposed restructuring of services.

“Ms. Taylor has been a lifeline for our son and for our family,” Hagen said. “I don’t know how we are going to tell my son. He and the other students at our school receiving services from Ms. Taylor will be devastated.”

The city is facing a difficult $1.1 billion budget gap, and Mayor Muriel Bowser submitted a proposal that balanced the budget without hiking up taxes. The proposed budget also includes steep cuts to the D.C. Department of Human Services, which provides programs for housing and food assistance, and the Pay Equity Fund, which uses taxes on the city’s wealthy to fund wages for child care workers. Earlier this month, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said he identified an additional $420 million in revenue to put towards the 2027 budget, potentially softening some cuts.

During a budget markup session last week, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said she “strongly opposed” the move away from community-based organizations and recommended $6.1 million be reallocated to restore funding for contracts with community-based organizations. She also plans to fund ChAMPS and other crisis hotlines with money from a tax to D.C. residents’ phone bills.

Her colleagues from the council’s more progressive contingent like Brianne Nadeau, Zachary Parker and Charles Allen voiced similar concerns at the hearing. Parker said he doubted D.C. had the capacity to move these programs in-house, while Allen said he worried the sacrifices made in the budget came at the highest cost to the city's most vulnerable.

“A lot has been made about how our economy is shifting and we need to adapt to recent decisions by the federal government to reduce its workforce, its size, its real estate footprint," Allen said. "Unfortunately, I think the executive has chosen to go down a path where the budget may be balanced, but it’s on the backs of those who are most vulnerable.”

Harris said that as a Ward 8 resident raising fifth-generation Washingtonians, community-based organizations can feel more in-tune with neighborhood-specific concerns. She said her sons have made progress when they’ve developed relationships with school-based clinicians, and that they’ve grown comfortable with ChAMPS because they know the program was designed in part to divert children away from law enforcement and, if possible, avoid hospitalization.

“It just doesn’t seem like an ideal time to reduce or disrupt the community-based mental health resources,” Harris said. “Shifting these services into a more strictly clinical structure, it’s not attractive to my community so it might unintentionally reduce accessibility.”

Chandler Dennard, a music teacher at Kimball Elementary School in Greenway, also expressed concern about the timing. He said some of his students’ parents have lost jobs this year and have had to move in with relatives. These children need stability at school, he said, and he worried the potential loss of Kimball Elementary’s contracts with an art therapist or Hillcrest Children & Family Center could feel like a disruption.

“If we don’t protect it now, we’ll pay for it later,” said Dennard, a teacher of 25 years. “Mental health clinicians who are in the schools know the families, know the neighborhood and can step in to support the students before the behavior escalates.”

The Council will continue to make adjustments to the proposed budget in the coming weeks. A final vote is scheduled for June 23.

Under the proposed budget, D.C.'s sole mental health crisis team for kids would be shuttered — part of a broader slate of cuts that would also phase out the city’s contracts with a network of community-based organizations providing clinicians to D.C. schools.

As D.C. Weighs Budget Cuts, Families Fear Loss of Youth Mental Health Support

Between DOGE devastation, the police takeover, and a severe regional slump, D.C. has had a famously rough time over the past couple years. And those numbers showed up in City Cast’s poll of Washingtonians ahead of the mayoral race — which is full of questions about life and lifestyle that go beyond the candidates who happen to be running for office.

Eleven percent of Washingtonians, including 15 percent of Black residents, said they or someone in their household had lost a job as a result of the Donald Trump administration’s federal cutbacks. A further 34 percent said a close friend or family member had been hit.

Nearly half of residents — including significant majorities of Black D.C.ers — said they are worried about their family being able to pay for housing, utilities, and food.

Residents were also meh on the incumbent mayor, Muriel Bowser, with 49 percent calling her performance excellent or good and 48 percent rating it mediocre or bad.

And they were downright appalled by the President: 86 percent disapprove, 75 percent strongly. In D.C., that’s not just a national political question, given Trump’s ambitions to remake Washington. Some 79 percent of locals are negative about plans like the luxury Hains Point golf course, the triumphal arch, or a new blue paint scheme for the reflecting pool. They also oppose the National Guard deployment by 60 to 36 percent, with just over a quarter of Washingtonians saying that “it feels like an occupation.”

The survey, conducted by the polling firm TrueDot between May 12 and 17, asked 735 District residents about the upcoming city elections as well as their general sense of the city. The poll employed a hybrid sampling design and had a margin of error of 3.7 percent for the full sample.

The most surprising finding in the poll, though, is one that cuts in the exact opposite direction: Some 54 percent of respondents said they were 

 about the city’s future, against 40 percent who aren’t. That’s not runaway happiness, but after the year we’ve had, it’s quite remarkable.

And, beyond that, the vibes are fairly consistent across the District’s various political and demographic divides: White (51%) and Black (56%); rich (54%) and poor (55%); supporters of Kenyan McDuffie (61%) and Janeese Lewis George

 subscribers (55%) and folks who get their news from Instagram and TikTok (57%); people who’ve lost federal jobs (51%) and people who haven’t (55%).

There are, of course, a couple of categories that break the mold. Members of Gen Z (60%) and the Baby Boom generation or older (66%) are happier than Millennials or Gen X (both 49%). And negative feelings lead narrowly among white people with a household income more than $150,000. But even Commanders fans (64%) and Nationals fans (60%) were positive — and neither has had much to cheer about.

So are we just a city of Polyannas? In theory, of course, that positivity could reflect a view that once you’re at rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Yet the details of the poll also showed a city with a lot of engaged citizens — and generally favorable feelings about an array of changes to local life.

Take housing, one of the most contentious issues in city politics. As housing costs have become a concern, city policy has moved — haltingly — towards a new idea: That Washington needs to build more apartments and rowhouses, even if it means upsetting some residents’ assumptions about living in leafy neighborhoods with ample parking. Each step in this direction has tended to be met with howls from people on the other side, who feel that their D.C. is being taken away.

But in our poll, it turns out that 68 percent of Washingtonians support this change, effectively welcoming the creation of a very different-looking city.

Same goes for smaller changes that might be seen as distinguishing the emerging D.C. from the historic one. Only 14 percent of residents said they want to get rid of bike lanes, a perennial point of tension. They also favor, by 61 percent to 33 percent, allowing streateries to continue.

About the only one of the daily annoyances of city life where there’s a real split is D.C.’s automated traffic enforcement cameras, which 55 percent support and 40 percent oppose. That opposition is much more pronounced among Black Washingtonians.

Though residents are closely divided over who they’ll vote for in the mayor’s race —

Lewis George leads McDuffie by 5 points — there’s actually a lot less division over major policy questions.

Some 78 percent of residents say they favor boosting the safety net even if it means more taxes, a position most associated with Lewis George, a Democratic Socialist. But 72 percent favor youth curfews, the headline-dominating issue that McDuffie has championed and Lewis George opposes.

The generation gap that appears to have become the key demographic fault line in the mayor’s race also shows up in some of the data on happiness and policy. Younger voters and those newer to D.C. are much more likely to support bike lanes, streateries, and density. And while every age group is opposed to Trump’s plans for the National Mall, members of Generation Z only oppose them by 60 percent, where nine out of ten Baby Boomers are against them.

Just like in the mayor’s race, there wasn’t a massive difference between Black and white respondents on the big question about optimism. But there was a fairly jarring one when it came to one measure of belonging and security. Asked if they think they’ll still be in D.C. in five years, seventy percent of white Washingtonians said yes, while only 49 percent of Black Washingtonians did.

The survey also polled residents about various lifestyle questions, which have a way of bleeding into views about politics and feelings about the direction of the city. Among other things it found that:

46 percent of Washingtonians had been to a restaurant in the past six months that cost more than $100 a person

44 percent had visited a Smithsonian museum during that time

33 percent had used a shared bike or scooter

30 percent had gone to a religious service when it wasn’t a holiday

27 percent had gotten an automated traffic ticket

On these questions, though, race was a significant divide — even more than income or age. White people were almost twice as likely to have gone to an expensive restaurant, almost three times as likely to have been to the Smithsonian, and seven times more likely to have been to a protest. About the only measure where the experiences of white and Black D.C. were similar is in church attendance.

So, after all that, it’s clear that some of the old Washington divisions remain very evident. But at least most of us say we’re happy.

See the full poll methodology and top lines here

More than 50 percent of respondents to a City Cast poll said they were hopeful about the city’s future.

Even After Everything, Washingtonians Are Optimistic, City Cast Poll Finds

Poll: Even After Everything, Washingtonians Are Optimistic

As D.C. began to feel its first hints of summer heat this weekend, people flocked to Malcolm X Park to watch water flow from the fountain that had sat dry for seven years. Toddlers splashed in the reflecting pool, dogs lapped at the water, and sunbathers listened to the cascade from the fountain’s 13 basins.

The National Park Service reopened the park’s lower plaza on May 14, filling the Italianate cascading fountain and reflecting pool with water for the first time since 2019. The $16 million renovation to the park is part of a 

 by the Trump administration to repair nine long-defunct D.C. fountains ahead of America’s 250th anniversary celebration this summer. It also plans to update nine other fountains across the city.

The restoration has brought with it the usual political debate over the federal management and control of D.C. The repairs are certainly a win for President Donald Trump, as a White House press release Tuesday 

 “an emblem of rebirth” that symbolizes “rekindling national pride” and “a rejection of mediocrity.” D.C. residents, who overwhelmingly voted against Trump, have had to begrudgingly admit that in a city where nearly 90 percent of park land is owned by the federal government, the Trump administration holds the key to whether community hubs like Malcolm X Park or Dupont Circle have a working fountain.

Those mixed feelings were evident when I interviewed residents there Tuesday morning, many of whom took issue with Trump’s characterization of the city as marred by crime and crumbling infrastructure.

“It’s not because he loves D.C. people, it’s because he wants to show off,” said Florence Navarro, 60, referring to the president. “But thank you.”

The fountain is likely one of the few times Trump’s actions could gain support from Ward 1 residents, only 

for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. They can’t even agree on what to call the park: Park Service uses the official name, Meridian Hill Park, while locals often refer to it as Malcolm X Park as a nod to the park’s history as a hub for Black activism.

The repairs also mark a win for Mayor Muriel Bowser’s controversial appeasement of Trump in his second term. Lindsey Appiah, deputy mayor for public safety, told me she spoke directly with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about the fountain repairs.

“We cannot avoid a relationship with the federal government,” Appiah said. “It is our responsibility no matter whoever is in the White House or Congress to continue to advocate for the issues that matter to D.C. residents, and D.C. residents love parks.”

Before Trump even took office for a second term, Bowser had homed in on parks as an area for collaboration with the incoming president, who had been openly hostile toward the District on the campaign trail.

While Bowser acted as a prominent figure in the Democratic resistance in Trump’s first term, she kicked off his second term on a much different note, heading to Mar-A-Lago to meet with Trump a month before he officially took office. In that initial meeting, according to a 

A few months later, when Trump launched the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, she wrote a letter to the task force director urging him to start with the federal parks. In the letter, Bowser tried to strike a delicate balance, defending a policy prohibiting D.C. police from asking about immigration status but emphasizing a shared interest in beautifying the city and attaching a list of federally-operated fountains in need of repair. 

At times, Bowser’s more compromising approach came under fire, such as her removal of Black Lives Matter Plaza amid threats of federal funding cuts, or when some residents urged her to take a harsher stance against ICE during the 30-day takeover of D.C. police.

Appiah, who oversees the D.C. government’s work with the task force, said navigating a relationship with the federal government can be complex, so it’s important to lean into the things everyone can agree on – like fountains. 

"We agree [D.C.] should be the most beautiful capital city in the world,” Appiah said.

She took a walk to see the functioning fountain this weekend, and said it was so crowded that it felt like people were making "pilgrimages" from around the District to see for themselves. “This weekend there was much rejoicing in Ward 1.”

At the fountain Tuesday, everyone appeared to be in awe.

Navarro and her husband, Steven Doll, perched on one of the park’s pebbled walls, taking in the restoration of a park they loved both for its role in the District’s history and in theirs as a couple. It’s where, sixteen years ago, they had come to celebrate their engagement and take wedding photos.

“This place is special for us,” Navarro said. “It feels so peaceful to be here in the shade, listening to the sound of the water, it’s just magical.”

Kaleen Fowler, 21, said she had been living nearby for four years but never imagined how beautiful the fountain could be, and compared it to something from Italy. Sisters Maggie and Erin Salva, 26 and 24, marveled over how clear, clean and refreshing the water looked. And Doll, 59, reminisced on how the fountain and park have acted as an “anchor” for the community for so long.

Many also voiced complicated feelings about Trump’s focus on beautifying D.C., some feeling that there were more pressing matters for the commander-in-chief to tackle. Others thought Trump was actually the perfect person for the job because they felt if a Democrat tried to make the same improvements in D.C., they would be accused of prioritizing the Washington elite.

“It’s like two sides of the same coin because obviously there’s other stuff the president could be doing. But it’s still really nice,” Fowler said.

 earlier this week about the reactions to the restoration of the fountain, Trump said people were only upset because it was him who ordered the repairs. “It’s a sad thing,” he said.

The fountain had not been in operatation since 2019, during Trump’s first term. The Park Service turned the fountain off for repairs to the lower plaza, but in the process discovered several critical parts of the fountain, including the pump, needed to be replaced and extensive concrete work would be necessary.

At the beginning of this year, the Park Service announced plans to repair and update 18 fountains around D.C. in preparation for America 250 celebrations. A Park Service spokesperson told me that repair work on the Meridian Hill Park fountain began in late December and was completed on time in about 20 weeks. The repairs to the park’s water features took up the bulk of the $16 million dedicated to renovating the park, the spokesperson said. Repairs to the upper plaza like new grass, benches and lights are expected to be completed by the end of the summer.

The $16 million park renovation is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to repair defunct D.C. fountains ahead of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

At Malcolm X Park, The Fountain’s Repairs Bring Joy – and Politics

Parents whose children are found in violation of the D.C. youth curfew will face criminal charges, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced at a news conference Friday.

Pirro said her office would immediately begin “aggressively prosecuting parents” under a statute of the D.C. Code that addresses “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” If convicted, she said parents could face fines, mandatory classes or up to six months of jail time.

“Parents, if you don’t control your kids, the District will,” Pirro said.

“Teen takeovers” – large gatherings of teenagers that have at times erupted in violence – have become a fixation of Trump administration officials, D.C. leaders and local residents alike. Earlier this month, the D.C. Council voted to extend the police chief’s power to declare targeted 8 p.m. curfew zones through 2028. But the legislation is not expected to go into effect until late summer, and the council has tabled a vote on the emergency version of the bill three times, leaving the District without a stricter policy when schools get out for summer. Opponents of the curfew – including mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George – have voiced concerns that it could lead to overpolicing of teens.

Without the emergency bill in place, the current youth curfew applies to teens under 17 and begins after midnight on weekends. Young people cannot be arrested for curfew violations, but are sometimes detained and taken to the city’s youth detention facility until a parent picks them up. Police have arrested youth at teen takeovers for other offenses.

D.C. police have at times devoted more than half of the department’s on-duty officers to dispelling teens from curfew zones, a police official told City Cast DC, a resource strain on a department already facing historically low staffing levels.

Pirro said D.C. police will be responsible for issuing parental citations whenever a minor’s curfew violation is connected to a teen takeover. D.C. police and the police union did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The council needs nine votes to pass emergency legislation, but has not been able to secure the supermajority in past sessions. It keeps tabling the vote, seemingly in an effort to avoid officially rejecting the bill and giving federal officials ammo to call the council soft on crime.

But the inaction has not been well-received. Pirro has previously lambasted the council on national television, and again railed against councilmembers Friday.

“Mayor Muriel Bowser has repeatedly requested curfew zones and emergency measures while the D.C. Council refuses to deal with the problem,” Pirro said Friday. “Their lack of action creates an extremely dangerous situation for the people of the District and even the teens themselves.”

In a statement to City Cast DC, council member Brianne K. Nadeau bit back. Earlier this month, Nadeau proposed a pair of successful amendments to the curfew bill: one to sunset the curfew in 2028, which she said gives the city time to work out a long-term solution that does not involve police, and one prohibiting police from taking teens detained for curfew violations to detention centers to await parental pickup. 

"How does putting a parent in jail for letting their kid go out keep them from going out? And does it now mean they can’t take [care of] their kids?" Nadeau said in a email Friday. "Will the kids end up in foster care? All because a parent didn’t know their kid might end up at a “teen takeover,” which is not a crime? Try again."

While Pirro has focused on so-called “young punks” in her public appearances, her office is not legally permitted to prosecute anyone under the age of 16. And even then, minors prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office must be facing serious charges like murder, sexual assault or burglary. Otherwise, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office handles youth offenders.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said parents could face fines or up to six months of jail time.


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