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Washington, D.C

Opinion | Federal workers are not downtown D.C.’s pawns’

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Opinion | Federal workers are not downtown D.C.’s pawns’


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The Jan. 28 editorial “It’s time federal staff returned to the workplace” was misguided. The opinion that downtown D.C. is affected by vacant places of work and closed eating places due to the federal telework coverage is legitimate, however it isn’t the duty of the federal authorities to handle these points. The federal authorities and its employees have imperatives: to do the very best job for the least quantity of taxpayer cash and to serve its staff. Federal businesses can and are establishing their very own telework insurance policies that greatest serve the federal authorities and company staff. These businesses resolve when and the way usually their staff should go to the workplace, and federal staff are going into the workplace as anticipated. The brand new system is working and has turn out to be extremely valued amongst federal staff.

The editorial didn’t point out that federal employees who at the moment are capable of make money working from home no less than half time have helped cut back native visitors congestion, air pollution and power consumption. Nor did the editorial point out that federal employees who can telework have helped their native communities via elevated eating and procuring the place they stay. Federal employees, who’ve for many years commuted faithfully through the difficult Metro system or on congested highways, have now adjusted to the brand new telework insurance policies — as have their households. These devoted public servants shouldn’t now be used to prop up the D.C. economic system. They deserve higher.

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Dominic Russoli, Rockville

As an worker of the federal authorities for nearly 20 years, by no means as soon as has my job description included serving to my company “inculcate values” amongst my colleagues. Nor have I ever agreed to assist hold downtown D.C. “booming” by discounting my confirmed skill to do my job successfully from dwelling, as I’ve for the previous three years. Having no commute means spending extra time with my younger youngsters and attending to benefit from the dwelling and neighborhood my spouse and I are paying so dearly to stay in. I’d sooner stop than give these up.

Marc Pfeuffer, Takoma Park

I learn with bemusement the editorial and experiences of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) urging employers to compel their workforces to return to in-person work to “save” downtown. After years of municipal neglect and a few resentment by official D.C. towards out-of-town commuters, to search out ourselves needed is a wierd expertise. But, the newfound love would really feel extra real if it weren’t accompanied by a bunch of efforts to make the each day commute much more soul-crushing.

Jim Geraghty

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counterpointFinally, some bipartisanship on federal employees returning to the workplace

From decrease pace limits to fewer or narrower lanes, to the approaching finish of “proper on purple,” driving in D.C. has by no means been harder. Metrorail — with comparatively rare service and common delays, and now with the latest proposal to disproportionately improve fares on staff touring from the suburbs — just isn’t a gorgeous different.

Most workplace staff don’t should be within the workplace frequently to do their jobs, and forcing them to take action for some better civic good appears quixotic. Admittedly, D.C. is balancing competing objectives, together with making the town extra bike-friendly. But, if Ms. Bowser really desires to encourage returns to the workplace, one step she may take can be to make the commuting expertise as inviting as potential.

Behnam Dayanim, Silver Spring

The editorial calling for federal staff to return to the workplace targeted completely on the purported advantages of requiring federal staff to return downtown. However what in regards to the prices of doing so? What about the fee to the setting, as a whole bunch of 1000’s of further folks drive into the town in the course of the week? What about the fee to households and fairness, as ladies and different underrepresented people are pressured to pay for added baby care or drop out of the workforce altogether as a result of they’re commuting for 2 hours a day fairly than caring for his or her youngsters? What in regards to the impact on housing affordability, as extra persons are pressured to stay nearer to the town?’

We must always consider this problem based mostly on the prices and advantages to our society total, fairly than focusing solely on the town’s enterprise and actual property pursuits.

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Washington, D.C

Pickup plunges into icy Potomac after crash on Arlington Memorial Bridge

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Pickup plunges into icy Potomac after crash on Arlington Memorial Bridge


A pickup truck plunged into the icy Potomac River after a collision with another vehicle on the outbound lanes of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, D.C. Fire and EMS said.

The white pickup crashed through the railing just before 7 p.m. on a snowy evening. It’s submerged in the water.

The Metropolitan Police Department Harbor Unit is at the scene.

One person was removed from the truck and is receiving advanced life support on the shore.

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Two people from the other car involved in the collision suffered minor injuries.

Traffic came to a stop on the bridge, which has been closed. U.S. Park Police is diverting traffic.

Drivers are asked to avoid the Arlington Memorial Bridge, Rock Creek Parkway and Ohio Drive.

Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for more on this developing story.

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Indiana students embark on trip to D.C. for inaugural festivities

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Indiana students embark on trip to D.C. for inaugural festivities


A dozen students from northwest Indiana flew to Washington D.C. Thursday to experience festivities around the presidential inauguration and learn more about the democratic process.

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From Indiana to D.C.

What we know:

The students were selected by the ECIER Foundation, which supports youth development and awards scholarships.

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They won the trip to [the Capitol after competing in mock political campaigns and innovation competitions.

The foundation provided their winter gear, travel accessories and custom luggage covers.

D.C. agenda

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What’s next:

The students will visit memorials and monuments and meet other students from around the country while getting an up-close Washington experience.

The group will also meet privately with Rep. Frank Mrvan, who serves their district. 

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While the students will not get to attend the inauguration ceremony itself, they will get to go to an inaugural ball in their honor.

What they’re saying:

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Students expressed their excitement ahead of the trip to the nation’s capitol.

“I am very eager to learn about all the branches of our government,” said 9th grader Alejandro Muniz. 

Marianna Owens said she looks forward to seeing historical landmarks

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“I am definitely excited to be able to witness the experience and not only that, I’m excited to visit the MLK Memorial and the Pentagon,” Owens said.

The Source: The information in this story came from interviews with students and details from the ECIER Foundation.

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Welcome to Washington: On the Eve of the Inauguration, Monumental Advice

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Welcome to Washington: On the Eve of the Inauguration, Monumental Advice


Image by William Rudolph.

I love watching the brides pose for photos by the Lincoln Memorial and the teenagers wriggle through TikTok choreography near the Washington Monument. Their modern hopes breathe life into the centuries-old wisdom of our capital city.

I have lived in Washington DC for years and still can’t get enough of it. On sunny Saturday morning walks, my pace is casual, but the insights are profound. DC is a living lesson about what George Washington described as “the last great experiment for promoting human happiness.” The Inauguration brings new people to Washington DC and I hope they will love and learn from the city as much as I do.

One of my favorite monuments is near the Capitol. Two iron cranes stand together. Their wings thrust upward, and barbed wire falls from their beaks. Around them is a complicated mix of names: Japanese Americans who died fighting for us in World War II, and the internment camps to which their families and friends had been forced. Yet I am fiercely proud to be an American when, amidst these names, I read President Reagan’s words: “Here we admit a wrong. Here we affirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.” Few countries I’ve lived in have the strength to admit such a grave national error.

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That urge for improvement is in our national genes. As the Constitution states, we’re constantly trying to “form a more perfect union.”

Sure enough, a few miles away under a white marble dome stands a statue of Thomas Jefferson. He, too, speaks to us of striving for perfection: “…Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened … institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”

While I respect the somber challenge of those words, I love his next, more whimsical, sentence: “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

From a breezy hill in northeast Washington DC, President Lincoln also challenges us. It’s the cottage where he and his family escaped the city’s summer heat, though Lincoln daily commuted to the White House. His dusty horseback ride revealed the stakes of the Civil War: wounded soldiers bumping along in ambulances and former slaves surviving in hastily built camps after escaping behind Union lines.

Lincoln welcomed allies and adversaries alike to the cottage for advice, sometimes looking out from the veranda over the not-yet-completed Capitol and Washington Monument. As a modern visitor 150 years later, I can stand in the same place. The buildings are completed. But which of Lincoln’s hopes and fears are still in progress?

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At a newer memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr offers optimism about the timescale of our national effort: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

At an even newer memorial closer to the Capitol, President Eisenhower puts a worldwide spin on our work of becoming a more perfect union: “We look upon this shaken earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose – the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails.”

Strolling through the city, I love listening to leaders from different periods of our great experiment. I hope our elected representatives will as well.



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