LeNard Johnson, 47, has a job interview. He’s an IT guy who’s worked for the federal government, he says, sometimes with a security clearance. But it’s been hard to find work even after spending hours scrolling ZipRecruiter. He needs this virtual interview, at 5 p.m., to go well.
Washington, D.C
At a D.C. homeless shelter, two men face their demons in freezing weather
Johnson has been at the shelter every night since he got off a waiting list around Thanksgiving. If he misses check-in, he risks losing his bed. The sun is setting, and the first snow in more than 700 days coats the ground.
On a freezing night in a city with nearly 5,000 homeless people, Johnson does not want to be where he found himself last fall during his first extended bout with homelessness — riding the Silver Line from end to end to get some sleep.
Every liquor store is a temptation.
“I’m trying,” he says.
Robert Vaughn, 69, lines up for dinner at Central Union: Beef stew. Despite his labored breathing — Stage 3 emphysema — he’s jubilant. He says he’s been sober for 11 months, one of his longest stretches since he left home around 1967.
Central Union, founded in the 1880s to serve veterans of the Civil War, was a 14th Street landmark until about a decade ago, when it was replaced by boutique condos. Its current location — two blocks from Union Station and across the street from a luxury hotel — serves as a reminder of people in desperate straits who are stranded among policymakers, commuters and tourists at the foot of Capitol Hill.
After years living in other D.C. shelters — “hellholes,” Vaughn says — he’s in a long-term recovery program at Central Union. He lives in a four-man suite on the shelter’s third floor, having graduated from the second-floor dormitory. He’s made amends with his four adult children and agreed to a no-fault divorce from his wife. He says he no longer smokes crack. He is no longer, in his telling, a “hurricane” ruining women’s lives.
“I used to live a different way,” he says. “Now, I’m doing all the things I was told to do years ago.”
Johnson and Vaughn report to Central Union’s chapel, separated from the cafeteria by a collapsible wall. Johnson reports that his job interview went well. He was told he’s at the “top of the short list.”
“I try to remain optimistic about any opportunity,” he says. “If not, depression sets in.”
Ahead of a nightly ritual — the reading of the shelter’s rules — a chaplain welcomes guests.
“You’re making it in this cold,” he says. “Thank Him for heat. Thank Him for shelter. Can we praise the Lord tonight?”
A nondenominational Christian service begins. The service’s leader — the Rev. Norman Thomas of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Md. — gives a sermon about names. Johnson scrolls a job website as he listens.
The names God gave His creations have power, Thomas says. Those who carry these names must live up to them. In the film “Black Panther,” he says, Prince T’Challa defeated a formidable enemy by invoking the power of his mighty name.
“What is your name?” Thomas asks. “What does your name mean for you?”
Ahead of lights out, Johnson and Vaughn report to a lobby on Central Union’s second floor. The men have volunteered for housekeeping duties.
Johnson monitors the line for mandatory showers, making sure no one goes over the seven-minute limit. Vaughn polices the dormitory “tub rooms,” where residents stow personal items in plastic containers.
Vaughn takes the elevator down to a small lobby crowded with chairs and a TV. A handful of sleeping mats cover the floor. These are for “hypothermia” visitors — men who cannot be turned away during a hypothermia alert even though the dormitory is full. In the semidark, they huddle in their coats with their bags surrounding them.
At 7 a.m., it’s time to figure out where to spend tomorrow.
The lights are on, but it’s still a cold world.
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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