Washington, D.C

Philosophy books and scholarships: Graduating senior from Southeast DC shares journey

Published

12 months ago

May 7, 2025

Philosophy books and scholarships: Graduating senior from Southeast DC shares journey

It’s clear to anyone who listens that Herman Buckman’s uncle, Robert Jacobs, is proud of him.

“I see him, what he went through, and look at him now,” Jacobs said. “I love it. We all love it. We all support him, let him know he can do anything.”

Buckman grew up in Southeast D.C., where he, his brothers and his sisters were raised by their grandparents. 18-year-old Buckman now lives with his aunt and uncle — who have plenty to be proud of.

“The sky is the limit, and once you reach the sky…” Jacobs said.

Buckman is a standout student athlete at Kipp College Prep in Northeast D.C.

He’s captain of the school’s track and field team, where he lead the school to its first league championship. His academic achievements include being named a LEDA scholar, a Berea scholar, a Carter G. Woodson scholar and a CBYX scholar.

Buckman also recently got the news that he was named a Gates Scholar, which comes with a full college scholarship. It’s awarded for academic achievement to low-income students — and only about 1% of applicants are chosen.

“I was ecstatic, I won’t lie,” Buckman said. “It just made me proud of myself, you know? And proud of my family for keeping me on that track. Always letting me know even if things weren’t going well.”

Like a lot of kids, Buckman hasn’t always loved going to school.

“I like learning. School hasn’t always been my favorite place to be,” he said. “I didn’t grow up in a household where it was always food on the table, you know.”

But despite those challenges, a few years ago, during COVID, learning changed for Buckman.

“My grandfather was staying with us at the time, and he bought me a book,” Buckman said. “It was called ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu. And I think that was the first book I actually enjoyed reading.”

“And in that time, it just kind of went from there,” Buckman said. “And then coming back into my ninth grade year, I met my coach Wu, and he just kept giving me books, you know, and it was very much philosophy-based. You know, Marcus Aurelius, we’re talking Friedrich Nietzsche, a lot of like philosophy books. And that kind of helped me develop my more holistic worldview of my community.”

That worldview of his community — a community, like many, plagued with crime — further inspired him to learn.

“Most of the time, it’s, the violence is not necessarily from a place of — inherent, you know. It’s not very much like an instinct, but rather it’s something that’s learned through the environment you live in,” Buckman said. “So it’s really just a negative feedback loop, you know. Poverty creates poverty, kind of thing.”

In addition to being a remarkable student athlete, Buckman is also a D.C. Youth Poet Laureate finalist.

He points to his family and his teachers for his success.

“I feel as though without something to push you, or something for you to push, you won’t really get anywhere, right?” Buckman said. “Because at that point you can go everywhere, right? So you need something to kind of burden you, but not so much that you can’t walk, but enough where if you’re walking, you’re gonna walk in that direction for a while, right? So, this was an escape.”

Buckman is also part of a remarkable graduating class. All 200 members of Kipp College Prep’s Class of 2025 have been accepted to colleges, with more than $7 million in scholarships.

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Washington, D.C

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

Published

11 hours ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

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.

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Washington, D.C

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

Published

1 day ago

April 18, 2026

Press Room

‘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.

Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

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.”

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