Alma Powell, a civic leader and widow of retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, the first Black national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, died July 28 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. She was 86.
Washington
Alma Powell, civic leader and widow of Colin Powell, dies at 86
In a career mostly as a military spouse, Mrs. Powell also was a children’s book author and served on the board of America’s Promise Alliance, which focuses on civic engagement, education and workforce development.
She married Powell, then a lieutenant in the Army, shortly before he left for his first deployment to Vietnam in 1962. Her husband rose to the rank of general, becoming the first Black national security adviser in 1987 and the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989.
He retired from the military in 1993, was appointed secretary of state by President George W. Bush in 2001 and spent four often-beleaguered years in that job amid the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The Powells moved more than 20 times during Colin Powell’s decades of active-duty service, and Mrs. Powell took a leading role helping other military families prepare for similar adjustments with their families. She was also a member of the Arlington Ladies, a group that attend funerals of service members at Arlington National Cemetery.
After her husband reentered civilian life, Mrs. Powell began to focus her energies more on education issues and improving children’s lives.
The couple were key to launching America’s Promise Alliance in 1997, and Mrs. Powell held several positions on its board, including her most recent post of chair emeritus. She also wrote two children’s books to support the mission of the organization, called “America’s Promise” and “My Little Red Wagon,” aimed at encouraging children to give back to their communities, according to publisher HarperCollins.
From 1989 to 2000, she was chair of the National Council of the Best Friends Foundation, which aims to improve the lives of young girls.
Mrs. Powell, who was appointed to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board during Bill Clinton’s presidency, was also picked to be on an advisory board for historically Black colleges and universities in 2010 by President Barack Obama. She sat on many other boards and won service awards.
Alma Vivian Johnson, the eldest of two daughters, was born in Birmingham, Ala., on Oct. 27, 1937. Her father was the principal of one of Birmingham’s Black high schools, and her mother ran a day care, according to the obituary sent by Cifrino.
In 1957 she received a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama at Fisk University, a historically Black college in Nashville. She returned to her hometown and briefly hosted an afternoon radio show that played music and discussed household tips.
She soon relocated to Boston, where she studied speech pathology and audiology at Emerson College and worked for the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing by providing hearing tests, fitting veterans with hearing aids and teaching the deaf to read lips, according to the family obit. She was set up on a blind date with Colin Powell in 1961.
She was reluctant to go out with a soldier and told The Washington Post she purposefully overdid her makeup and put on an unflattering dress. But when she met him, the general wrote in his memoir, she decided he looked “like a little lost twelve-year-old” and changed both her mind and her dress. Colin Powell, meanwhile, wrote that he was “mesmerized by a pair of luminous eyes, an unusual shade of green.”
They married the next year, at the First Congregational Church in her hometown, and she did not complete her graduate education.
Survivors include three children, Michael, Linda and Annemarie; four grandchildren; and a great-grandson. Michael Powell, a lobbyist, served as Federal Communications Commission chairman under President George W. Bush.
Mrs. Powell supported her husband throughout his military career, but she was opposed to him running for president, The Post reported, and despite entreaties from leaders of both parties, he said he was unenthusiastic about campaigning for high office. He also acknowledged his wife’s struggle with clinical depression in 1995 after the diagnosis became public amid heated discussion of his political prospects.
Depression, he said in 1995, “is very easily controlled with proper medication, just as my blood pressure is sometimes under control with proper medication. … When the story broke, we confirmed it immediately, and I hope that people who read that story who think they might be suffering from depression make a beeline to the doctor.”
The Post’s Bob Woodward asked the former general a few months before his death, “Who was the greatest man, woman or person you have ever known?”
“It’s Alma Powell,” he said. “She was with me the whole time. We’ve been married 58 years. And she put up with a lot. She took care of the kids when I was, you know, running around. And she was always there for me and she’d tell me, ‘That’s not a good idea.’ She was usually right.”
A man wanted in connection with the fatal stabbing of a University of Washington student was arrested after photos of him were released to the public, authorities said on Thursday, May 14.
The Seattle Police Department did not name the suspect, but said in a statement that a 31-year-old man had turned himself in to the Bellevue Police Department. In a separate statement, the Bellevue Police Department said the suspect was arrested at about 10:42 p.m. local time on May 13.
The suspect was then transferred to the custody of Seattle Police Department homicide detectives and was booked into the “King County Jail for investigation of Murder,” according to police.
The arrest comes after police released photos taken from security camera footage of the suspect on May 13 and asked for the public’s assistance in the investigation. The photos appeared to show the man inside a laundry room.
On May 10, University of Washington police officers responded to the Nordheim Court apartments, an off-campus housing complex for undergraduate students, and found a woman stabbed to death in the laundry room. The victim, who a local official previously said was a 19-year-old transgender student, was identified by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office as Juniper C. Blessing on May 14.
The incident sparked a law enforcement investigation and prompted authorities to advise Nordheim Court residents to stay in their homes and lock their doors and windows for several hours.
In a statement on May 14, University of Washington President Robert Jones announced an arrest had been made “in connection with the horrific act that took the life of one of our students on Sunday night.”
“I hope the arrest brings some sense of relief to our community,” Jones said. “But this arrest does not lessen the profound shock and grief that the victim’s loved ones and our campus are still experiencing or bring back a beloved, promising and talented member of our university.”
“Much is still unknown about what caused this tragedy, and while this development is important, we will be looking closely at the circumstances in which this event occurred as part of our continued efforts to keep our campus community safe,” he added, noting that the university “remains committed to offering resources for those who need support, including our LGBTQIA+ community, during this difficult time.”
University of Washington student was found dead in laundry room
The University of Washington also confirmed on May 14 that the suspect arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing was the man in the photos shared by police. The Seattle Police Department had described the suspect as a Black man, about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, with short black hair and a “goatee with ingrown scruff around the jaw.”
Police added that the suspect was wearing rimmed eyeglasses; a long-sleeve, dark blue full zip shirt with a white collared shirt underneath; dirty blue jeans; and “dirty dark, possibly gray shoes with a light sole.”
University of Washington police officers responded to a report of a stabbing at about 10:10 p.m. local time on May 10 at Nordheim Court, according to the Seattle Police Department. Responding officers discovered a victim in a laundry room, the Seattle Police Department said in a statement on May 11.
Responding officers and the Seattle Fire Department “attempted lifesaving treatment,” but the Seattle Police Department said the victim was pronounced dead at the scene. After campus police cordoned off the area, the Seattle Police Department took over the investigation, and detectives arrived to process the scene.
In an emergency campus alert sent at about 10:40 p.m. local time on May 10, the University of Washington said campus police were investigating a death that occurred at the Nordheim Court apartments building. The alert advised residents of Nordheim Court to “stay indoors and lock doors and windows.”
By around 11:05 p.m., the university said the area had been secured but urged residents to remain indoors. Shortly before 1 a.m. on May 11, the university told residents that they no longer needed to remain indoors but noted that the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Both police and the university later confirmed on May 11 that a student had been killed in the laundry room at Nordheim Court. The housing complex is privately managed and operated by Greystar, according to the university’s website and Balta.
Nordheim Court offers 454 units ranging in size from studios to four bedrooms, the university’s website states. The housing complex consists of eight buildings, and laundry facilities are located in Building 1 and Building 7.
The university said the student was found dead in Building 7.
‘Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known’
In a statement shared by the Human Rights Alliance of Santa Fe on behalf of Blessing’s family, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group said the family was “currently in a state of profound shock and heartbreak, processing an unimaginable loss.”
“This loss has devastated not only those closest to their child but also many others throughout the Seattle, Santa Fe, and LGBTQIA2S communities who are mourning as well,” the organization said, adding that Blessing’s family has asked for privacy.
In the statement, the family said Blessing was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and attended Littlebrook School and Princeton Middle School until they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2018. Blessing’s family described them as a “gifted singer with a transcendent voice,” who studied at the New Mexico School for the Arts from 2020 to 2024.
The family noted that Blessing loved weather since early childhood and intended to study atmospheric science at the University of Washington while also pursuing minors in music and philosophy. They added that Blessing was “courageously living their life as who they were until it was cut tragically short.”
“Our family has been shattered by the loss of our child, Juniper Blessing, to an act of unspeakable violence near the University of Washington campus in Seattle,” according to the statement. “Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known – highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others. Juniper’s loss not only devastates us but diminishes the world.”
Federal authorities are planning a “summer surge” aimed at reducing crimes committed by young people in D.C. sources tell News4.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro is expected to announce Friday that the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force will do additional enforcement and get more resources, law enforcement sources said.
The move comes about two weeks after the D.C. Council chose not to vote on extending Mayor Muriel Bowser’s emergency youth curfew zones over the summer.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 that established the task force. He declared a crime emergency and temporarily federalized the locally run Metropolitan Police Department in August 2025.
Trump threatened to seize control of MPD after teens attacked then-Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee Edward Coristine, who was known by the nickname Big Balls.
Pirro has repeatedly railed against youth who commit crimes and told News4 she would like to see children as young as 12 prosecuted as adults.
“The time for coddling young people – 14, 15, 16, 17 – is over. And it’s time that we lowered the age of criminal responsibility,” she said in August.
Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.
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HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The owner of a popular Washington Avenue restaurant says he was arrested after a dispute with city health inspectors over whether his business had a valid permit to operate.
Surveillance video recorded May 6 inside Betelgeuse Betelgeuse shows owner Chris Cusack speaking with Houston Health Department officials before he was taken into custody.
“I was pretty dazed, and all I could do is comply until it all got figured out,” Cusack said.
Cusack was charged with failure to comply with local health and sanitary laws after authorities accused the restaurant of operating without a food dealer’s permit.
The Houston Health Department says food dealer permits are valid for one year and must be renewed annually.
Cusack disputes the allegation, saying he has paperwork he believes proves the business had renewed its permit in March.
“I pulled it off the wall and showed it to him,” Cusack said. “He said it wasn’t the right business. I said it has my business’ name and address on it.”
Cusack said inspectors questioned whether the permit was tied to the correct business identification number.
“(The inspector) saw the first ID and said, ‘Ah ha, that’s the one you’re working under, so therefore this isn’t valid,’” Cusack said.
ABC13 reached out to the Houston Health Department with questions about the arrest. The department referred questions to the Houston Police Department.
According to HPD, the health department ordered the business closed in October 2025 for operating without a permit, though officials did not specify which type of permit was involved.
Police said the business was instructed to remain closed until it complied with health regulations. On May 4, inspectors learned the restaurant was open, according to HPD. Inspectors returned two days later, when Cusack was arrested.
Cusack said he was never told to shut down the business and questioned why inspectors waited months before returning.
The restaurant, known for pizza and drinks, reopened following the arrest and was serving customers again on Wednesday.
Cusack also expressed concern about what he described as aggressive enforcement targeting Washington Avenue businesses.
The entertainment district has faced increased law enforcement scrutiny in recent years as city leaders attempted to curb reckless behavior and nightlife-related crime.
“Washington Avenue business owners are just being confused by these intense raids on businesses for what are typically really basic scenarios,” Cusack said.
Court records show Cusack is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday on the charge.
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