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Jakub Vrana plays first game for Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena in over 1,200 days

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Jakub Vrana plays first game for Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena in over 1,200 days


Jakub Vrana jumped onto the ice inside Capital One Arena wearing a Washington Capitals jersey on Sunday for the first time in nearly three and a half years (1,263 days). The last time Vrana dressed in Capitals red in front of a Washington home crowd came on April 8, 2021, when the Capitals fell 4-2 to the Boston Bruins.

That game came during Peter Laviolette’s first season in charge of the club, and the Capitals’ lineup featured names like Zdeno Chara, Justin Schultz, and Daniel Carr. Vrana was dealt to the Detroit Red Wings just four days later, and since then, he and the Capitals have both gone through a world of change. But Vrana’s heart has remained in DC.

“I want to be part of this team. I love this team, and it’s great to be back here for the camp and try my best to earn a spot on the team,” he said Thursday. “It means a lot, man. This team means a lot to me.”

Capitals fans gave Vrana loud applause when he was announced as part of the team’s starting lineup on Sunday. He skated with Hendrix Lapierre and Ethen Frank on Washington’s top line against the Philadelphia Flyers. Vrana was a minus-3 in the game but recorded a team-high 5 shots and six individual scoring chances in 14:18 of ice time.

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Vrana’s love for the franchise that drafted him 13th overall in 2014 was evident almost immediately after he departed in the 2021 trade. “I have great memories with this team, built great relationships within this city, met great people, had great teammates, played in front of amazing fans, and that will always stay in my heart,” he penned on Instagram then.

Shoulder surgery and a well-known stint in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program led to Vrana playing just 37 games for Detroit in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons combined, so he had to wait a while to make his first return to Washington. The night finally came on February 21, 2023, nearly two years after his move.

The Capitals greeted the 2018 Stanley Cup champion with a tribute video featuring his time with the AHL’s Hershey Bears and his first NHL goal. The video ended with an image of him hosting the Cup over his head in Vegas, and fans gave the Czech winger a standing ovation.

Heading into that game, Vrana said of his time in Washington, “We were like one family here.”

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Vrana was traded for the second time in his career just over a week later to the St. Louis Blues, scoring 10 goals in 20 games.

After the season, he came back to Washington, DC, attending a Washington Nationals game alongside Alex Ovechkin. The two reunited on the same field where they had a legendary celebration of their Cup win in June 2018.

Vrana then started the 2023-24 campaign back with the Blues but couldn’t find the same offensive success with them he did at the end of the prior season. St. Louis ultimately decided to waive Vrana in December, and he spent most of the year with the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds.

With Springfield, Vrana made his first return to Hershey’s Giant Center to play the Bears six years and seven months after last dressing in Hershey’s chocolate and white. During the game’s first television timeout, the Bears honored Vrana with their own tribute video.

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Vrana looked up at the jumbotron as the video played. He waved to the crowd multiple times and tapped his stick on the ice, clearly touched by the tribute.

Vrana, at the Capitals’ 2024 Training Camp on a professional tryout agreement, hopes to put his time in the AHL behind him. He has a tough journey ahead of him to win one of the few open spots on Washington’s roster, but he took the first major leap of that journey on Sunday.

Vrana has already successfully drawn the attention of Washington’s general manager, Chris Patrick. Patrick has been with the Capitals since the team drafted Vrana and was closely involved with the forward’s development as Washington’s former Director of Minor League Operations.

“You can tell he’s taking this seriously,” Patrick said. “He doesn’t think anything is being handed to him, and that was kind of the point. We want to have a competitive camp. We don’t want to just give away spots to guys, we want them to earn it. He’s in a group of several players that are in that position, fighting for one or two spots.”

Washington will have another few weeks in camp and five more preseason games to make their final roster decisions. Vrana and the Capitals fans he so clearly appreciates will be hoping he has a spot won and a new contract by the time the regular season opens on October 12 against the New Jersey Devils.

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Washington Watch: CCAMPIS grant competition announced – Community College Daily

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Washington Watch: CCAMPIS grant competition announced – Community College Daily


The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “on behalf of the Department of Education (ED),” on Monday released a Notice Inviting Grant Applications for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. Applications are due by May 29.

Last November, ED announced that it had entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the CCAMPIS program. This is the first CCAMPIS competition conducted under this arrangement.

Approximately $73.5 million will go to institutions of higher education that awarded at least $250,000 in Pell grants to enrolled students in FY 2025. HHS will award about 148 grants, ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.

The terms of the grant competition are not significantly different than prior competitions. As before, there are two absolute grant priorities that every application must address – leveraging non-federal resources and utilizing a sliding-fee scale for low-income parents.

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This year’s competition includes only one invitational priority that reflects the Trump administration’s general educational policy. The new priority, entitled “Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings,” encourages applications that “expand access to education choice … including by empowering parents in choosing the early learning setting that best meets their family’s needs.” Flexible childcare programs that include drop-in care and care during nontraditional hours are also encouraged.

One other notable difference from prior competitions is an expanded “Terms and Conditions” section that not only requires compliance with applicable civil rights laws, but also refers to Trump administration Executive Orders and guidance on racial discrimination that clarify “the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to programs or initiatives that may involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.” This includes any “discriminatory equity ideology [as defined in Executive Order 14190] in violation of a federal antidiscrimination law.”

The exact scope of these terms is unclear because courts have not found many of the practices described in these Executive Orders and guidance documents to be violations of federal law.



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A look at the roots (and routes) of immigration to Washington

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A look at the roots (and routes) of immigration to Washington


The Newsfeed

This week, the team brings you stories about how communities including Filipino immigrants, Sephardic Jews and Somalis arrived in the Pacific Northwest

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Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.

Group hopes to boost recognition for Seattle’s Filipinotown 



By Venice Buhain

The group Filipinotown Seattle hopes to make sure that the legacy of Filipino Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District isn’t forgotten. 

One of the group’s current projects is pushing for a Filipinotown placemarking sign in the CID. 

“Filipino Americans have had a presence here for over 100 years in Seattle,” said Filipinotown Seattle Executive Director Devin Israel Cabanilla.  

He said that the signage is important to remind people that “the International District is not just Chinatown. Japantown. Filipinotown is here as well.” 

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The group held a poll on what signage might look like and where it might be located. It would be similar to the Chinatown sign on South Jackson Street and Fifth Avenue South, or the Wing Luke Museum  

In the early 20th century, the area now known as the CID was a hub full of businesses, entertainment, social groups and housing that served Seattle’s growing immigrant population from Asia and elsewhere. The communities all intermingled throughout the CID. 

“This area was a central place for Asian Pacific immigrants simply because of segregation,” Cabanilla said. 

Because the Philippines was a U.S. territory from 1898 to 1946, Filipino immigrants were unaffected by laws in the 1920s that restricted immigration from Japan or China. Many Filipinos came to study at the University of Washington or to work in burgeoning industries, like lumber, farming, canneries and factories.  

While the physical Filipino presence in terms of buildings and storefronts in the CID dwindled in the later 20th century with redevelopment, Seattle Filipinos and Filipino Americans continued to make impacts locally, regionally and nationally.  

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“It may not have been in terms of storefronts, but our presence has always existed in terms of politics, culture as well,” Cabanilla said. 

The Seattle Department of Transportation said it is aware that the group is working on its signage request, but the Department of Neighborhoods has not yet received a formal request. They are also working to develop a clearer process for this and other similar neighborhood signage proposals. 

Filipinotown Seattle said it hopes that the sign helps remind Seattle of the CID’s unique designation as a neighborhood shaped by many immigrants and migrants to Seattle. 

“Is it Chinatown? Is it Japantown? Is it Little Saigon? It’s all those things. And I think re cultivating that this is a multicultural district, Filipinotown is helping establish: Yes, it’s more than one thing,” Cabanilla said. 

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Venice Buhain

Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.



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The Church of Jesus Christ has announced its 384th temple

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The Church of Jesus Christ has announced its 384th temple


The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.

“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”

The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.

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The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.

Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.

The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.

In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.

“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.

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The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.

This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.

This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.

The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.

Five dozen temples are now under construction.

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President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.

At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”

Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.

  • May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
  • May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
  • May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
  • June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
  • June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
  • Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
  • Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
  • Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
  • Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
  • Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.

Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.

Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.



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