NOTUS | News of the United States

JLG Is All Ears

Martin Austermuhle, Michael Brice-Saddler, Zara Norman — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:31:00 GMT

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:31:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/metro-newsletter/jlg-is-all-ears

Janeese Lewis George is spending the months before November’s general election on a citywide listening tour. (Kainaz Amaria/The Washington Sun)

Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro newsletter for Sept. 10, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

Today’s Daily Digit — 4/10: Feeling like August with highs around 90 and humidity pushing the heat index toward the mid-90s. Scattered storms possible late. Full forecast from Capital Weather.

THE LATEST

What happens when D.C.’s presumptive next mayor asks the entire city to be “unabashedly honest” about what it needs? She gets a massive, complicated to-do list.

Janeese Lewis George is spending the months before November’s general election on a citywide listening tour. From residents east of the Anacostia River pleading for consistent sanitation services, to progressives in Ward 1 demanding she abolish the police department, the tour has so far laid bare the sheer weight of Lewis George’s coming mandate, The Sun’s Michael Brice-Saddler reports.

“Everything y’all put on this list — the micro and macro things — we’re going to take a check and say, ‘Hey, did you do what you said you were going to do?’” Lewis George told the large crowd gathered for Ward 7’s listening session. “We’re basically creating accountability for ourselves.”

But taking in thousands of demands creates immense political friction. As her campaign converts into a governing machine, Lewis George must figure out how to meet voters’ sky-high expectations. She concedes that the flood of feedback is already forcing her to look past her usual legislative playbook, particularly after hearing an unexpected number of concerns regarding health care access citywide.

“That’s the difference between legislating and governing,” Lewis George said. “Governing requires me to now take into account some things that maybe I felt personally as a council member.”

Observers say the immediate test will be how she balances quick administrative wins — like easing small-business permits — against the massive, multiyear battles that would probably accompany landmark proposals such as social housing or universal child care.

“I’m less worried about disappointing people and more excited about surprising people,” she said.

_MG_0068 copy.jpg (5909x3940, AR: 1.50)

DEEP DIVE

The level of cannabis competition in the D.C. region is about to get much higher.

With Virginia set to roll out recreational sales next July, cannabis retailers in D.C. are getting increasingly nervous that they won’t survive, The Sun’s Zara Norman reports. That’s because Virginians have long made the drive into D.C. for their cannabis needs, accounting for a significant amount of what vendors in the city are selling.

“Virginia coming online will definitely, probably take 20% to 25% of our business,” said Johannes Cassidy-Seyoum, the owner of High Demand in Capitol Hill. “A good amount of our customers come from Richmond, Fredericksburg. They make a trip maybe two, three times a month and they stock up.”

Of the 2,101 non-D.C. residents who patronized D.C. cannabis retailers in July, 807 came from Virginia, according to the city’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration.

On top of high rents, cannabis sellers in D.C. face an obstacle Virginia doesn’t: Capitol Hill. For more than a decade, Congress has prohibited D.C. from legalizing recreational sales. As a workaround, D.C. has expanded its medical cannabis program, allowing anyone — including Virginians — to self-certify. But that adds paperwork and fees.

“We have a lot more restrictions in D.C. right now than Virginia will next year,” said Caroline Crandall, who owns Green Theory in the Palisades, a short drive from Virginia. “[We’re trying to] figure out ways to remain competitive.”

FROM THE DISTRICT

Metro is debuting a systemwide redesign of its station signage, to mixed reviews. Exits will no longer be labeled by the street intersections they lead to, but rather a letter that corresponds to attractions near each exit, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports. Graphics showing the remaining stops on each line will be taken off the wall of each terminal, relegating full route information to signs on the platform.

Riders pushed back on social media, saying the new signs are less intuitive and make information harder to find, but Metro defended the effort. “It may seem unfamiliar at first glance, but multiple rounds of feedback were considered to finalize this effort,” WMATA said in a post.

A National Guard member deployed in D.C. is facing felony charges after being accused of pointing a loaded service weapon at a fellow soldier during an argument over Army grooming standards, The Sun’s Jenna Monnin reports.

The candidate list for D.C.’s 345 Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats is nownullfinal. And if you were hoping for a competitive, hyperlocal election in your neighborhood come November, you may need to lower expectations. According to the D.C. Board of Elections, 82% of the ANC seats have either no candidate or a single person on the ballot for the general election, leaving a mere 62 contested ANC races citywide.

A TPS reprieve, but for how long? The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet decided whether it will terminate the Temporary Protected Status held by 200,000 Salvadorans across the U.S., The Sun’s Manuela Silva reports. That status — which protects them from deportation — has been extended for decades, largely due to political conflict and natural disasters in the Central American country. There are an estimated 30,000 Salvadorans with TPS in the Washington region.

FROM VIRGINIA

DSC05422.JPG (3504x2336, AR: 1.50)

Flock off. Several elected officials in Alexandria are pushing the city’s police department to end its contract with Flock, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports. The automatic license-plate readers have been credited with helping police solve high-profile crimes, but they have also prompted concerns over privacy and surveillance. There are 61 Flock cameras in Alexandria. Some activists in D.C. have raised their own concerns with the city’s 67 Flock cameras.

TALK TO TOM

Tom Sietsema is back answering your questions about the D.C. dining scene. Submit your questions here.

With the season about to change, I want to plan a road trip. Where would you go for a dining escape within a few hours of D.C.?

In the exurbs of Virginia, I’m high on Three Blacksmiths in Sperryville. The drill is a single seating for up to 20 guests in a handsome dining room, and a seasonal, five-course menu prepared by chefs who double as your attendants by introducing the dishes to you. Then there’s Maude & the Bear in Staunton, which began life as a Montgomery Ward home kit more than a century ago, helmed by chef Ian Boden. He, too, offers a five-course list — along with nine- and 22-course tasting menus — that the chef says includes “several little surprises.”

In Maryland, I’m always happy to settle into the inviting, Old World interior at Bas Rouge in historic Easton. Its details are rich: Zalto stemware, Bernardaud china and an antique Lobmeyr crystal chandelier to illuminate the space. As for the cooking, Harley Peet won the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic award from the James Beard Foundation two years ago.

In the full Q&A: Corkage fees, cramped dining rooms and thoughts on Rye Bunny.

SPORTS

Want proof that the Nats have truly entered a new era? Look at their minor league teams. The Sun’s Dave Sheinin reports that Washington’s new regime has overhauled the farm system with advanced analytics, new technology and a new philosophy.

“For us, it’s: ‘Let’s tether ourselves to what the evidence says contributes to winning and do our best to actually help our people get there,’” Nats president Paul Toboni told The Sun. Up in the majors, the Nats have made a habit of blowing saves this year. In fact, Washington has already set an MLB record with 38 blown saves this season. But The Sun’s Jesse Dougherty writes that the numbers are not as bleak as they appear.

After a near-perfect rookie season, Jayden Daniels had a rough 2025. Dealing with injuries, he missed more games than he played as Washington stumbled to a 5-12 record. Now, Daniels is looking to put all of that — the good and the bad — behind him. The Sun’s Martenzie Johnson reports that Washington’s quarterback has learned a new playbook, brushed off criticism and even added some muscle as he prepares for Year 3.

Washington Spirit star Trinity Rodman was busy Wednesday morning. After watching boyfriend Ben Shelton battle Carlos Alcaraz late into the night at the U.S. Open, she made her way from New York to D.C. for practice. Shelton finished off his five-set win around 3:30 a.m. and, according to the Spirit, Rodman showed up to train by 9:30.

What to Watch Today

NFL: 49ers at Rams in Australia, 8:35 p.m. (Netflix)

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The newsletter was produced by Jaden Amos, Michael Errigo and Nikie Johnson.]]>

‘It’s Trumpapalooza’

Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, Manuela Silva — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:01:00 GMT

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:01:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/newsletters/its-trumpapalooza

President Donald Trump speaking at the Republican midterm convention. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Today’s notice: A cool video reminder that we’re The Washington Sun now. Live from Dallas. The effort to defeat Susan Collins is having a bumpy takeoff. The likely next mayor of D.C. cranks up expectations. Hospitals are ignoring Trump’s pricing transparency rules. And: The Democratic generation gap goes Hollywood.

THE LATEST

Day 1 of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas was most notable for the Democrat who spoke via video and Donald Trump promising a $5,000 payment to every American if Republicans win in November. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) said many of the Democrats running for Senate are “dangerous, radical and frankly weird.” A mention of Senate Majority Leader John Thune brought boos. Attorney General Todd Blanche broke Justice Department tradition by giving a speech at the political event — and was received well by the crowd.

But who is the crowd? This is a strange event at a strange time. Polls and historic headwinds suggest Republicans are wasting valuable general election time rallying around the president. And yet: “It’s Trumpapalooza,” Ty Bommarito, part of a conservative cadre from Michigan State University invited to sit on the floor, told The Sun’s Jasmine Wright. “It’s to get everyone excited for the midterms, and I think it will energize the base.”

But for the most part, it’s not young people in the audience. “I think what you find, there’s a lot of people who have been delegates or alternate delegates in the past that are here today,” Pennsylvania state Sen. Scott Martin told The Sun’s Oriana González. “People who come here are paying their way, you know, on their flight costs, on their hotel — it’s not a freebie for them.”

They’re in Dallas for Trump, or at least his vision of Republican politics.

About that Democrat we mentioned, Sen. John Fetterman appeared in a video message to the crowd. In theory, it was an introduction to his Pennsylvania colleague, Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, whom Fetterman has regularly made public appearances with. But there was an undertone aimed at some in the Democratic Party: “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” Fetterman said.

So is this guy going to switch parties, or what? “I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party-and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on,” Fetterman said in a statement to The Sun. Keep a close eye on that should the Senate flip part.

More: Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee Loses Democratic Primary • Missouri Redistricting Case Reaches Supreme Court — Again • States Say Compliance With USPS Ballot Rule Would Take ‘Herculean’ Effort • Trump Wants the Census to Stop Collecting Race and Ethnicity Data

Open tabs:

FROM THE GREAT AI FREAKOUT

Doomscrolling has a whole new meaning: This week, a couple of AI researchers connected to the two biggest American AI companies revealed in a public online conversation that some in the industry are busily working away on a technology they believe could kill all humans.

“Anytime you have folks talking about AI moving towards extinction of human life, I think that’s got to rise to the top of priorities for us in Congress,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on House Oversight, told The Sun. He promised to investigate AI companies if Democrats win the majority. Hey, Claude: Will that be too late?

Others who have been AI skeptics all along, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), are taking this opportunity for an I told you so. Sanders is hosting a private briefing for senators with industry experts next week to discuss the “extraordinary dangers that AI poses for humanity.”

In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate, told The Sun’s Igor Bobic that it’s time for a pause on all AI development. “The speed at which this is all progressing is really quite alarming,” he said.

FROM MAINE

Democrats still haunted by the primary? “I think he’s got a very challenging road ahead,” Mark Dion, the Democratic mayor of Portland, Maine, said of his party’s nominee for Senate, Troy Jackson. The Sun’s Al Weaver has a deep dive into the Maine race as it enters the general election — and finds incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins activating her traditional all-politics-is-local strategy while Jackson struggles to unite a base fractured by the rise and dramatic fall of Graham Platner.

Al reports that one person who attended a town hall with Jackson criticized him because the movement he’s trying to harness “was built by someone else,” meaning Platner. Democrats hope this race will center around Trump and the economy, not Collins and Jackson as candidates. Republicans want the opposite — and Collins is putting a lot of emphasis on her distance from the president and his actions (read: Canadian tariffs).

“It’s certainly not helpful. There’s no doubt about that,” Collins told The Sun, adding that voters are “perplexed” and “more puzzled than anything” about the Canada trade war.

FROM THE DISTRICT

Can Janeese Lewis George meet expectations? The populist lefty presumptive next mayor of D.C. has asked residents to tell her what they want — and they are definitely doing that, The Sun’s Michael Brice-Saddler reports. On the road with Lewis George, Michael clocked a paper trail of demands calling for everything from universal child care to traffic-calming speed cameras. That’s not counting the online requests, and she’s not even mayor yet.

More: How Virginia Could Smoke Out D.C.’s Cannabis Industry • Alexandria Leaders Want to Get Rid of the City’s Flock Cameras

THE BIG ONE

Hollywood leaves Democrats to their civil war: Screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz was one of several storytellers who actively helped hone the Democratic Party’s 2018 winning message. He says this of 2026: “The Democratic Party right now is torn in a couple directions, and some of those directions I’m no longer willing to work for or countenance, and so I’m a lot more sparing about it.”

The contours of this are familiar. Hurwitz and the other messaging gurus from Tinseltown who helped in 2018 are among those turned off by the rise of the ultraleft and the party’s growing generation gap. The Sun’s Oriana González and Kadia Goba report on a far-flung front of the intraparty debate.

It’s another sign of what’s to come for a potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. He helped spearhead his party’s work with Hollywood as co-chair of the House Democrats’ messaging arm in 2018. Jeffries’ staff met with screenwriters to talk campaign messaging as recently as this July, The Sun has found.

But he may not like what they have to say these days. “Only Democrats have a hard time with this, and that’s because we tend to speak in these cotton candy terms that sound like they were dreamed up in the Harvard faculty lounge,” one filmmaker who still works with Democratic candidates said.

PODCAST

From your favorite podcast app: Today, Sun Managing Editor Kate Nocera chats with reporter Igor Bobic about our name change. Then, Igor is joined by congressional reporters Al Weaver and Avani Kalra for a look into Trump’s new ads in battleground states and how data centers are shaping midterm races.

NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN

Hospitals are not following Trump’s pricing transparency rules for the most part, The Sun’s Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. Fewer than one in five hospitals owned by the nation’s largest health systems are displaying dollar amounts for at least half of their posted items and services, despite rules written during the first Trump administration requiring them to do so. CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz has said he’ll crack down on noncompliance.

More: The AP Will Keep Using ‘Lake Ontario’ Despite Trump’s Renaming Effort • ICE Opens a Tip Line to Report Undocumented Truck Drivers • Maine Gubernatorial Candidate’s Sister Says She’s Voting for His Opponent

NOT US

Candidates contend with the rise of ‘resurfaced’ old clips, by David Weigel for Semafor
Ominous outlook for Medicare drug spending, by Adriel Bettelheim for Axios
Ken Paxton Transformed the Texas AG’s Office. What Comes Next? By Eric Benson for Texas Monthly

BE SOCIAL

DA LAS

https://x.com/MatthewARein/status/2097782015500169319

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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton. Photo by Alex Brandon/AP.]]>

Most U.S. Hospitals Aren’t Posting Their Prices Despite Trump’s Rules

Paige Winfield Cunningham — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a video to social media warning of an impending crackdown. (Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP)

Most hospitals still aren’t posting how much they charge for medical services, five years into federal transparency rules that require them to do so.

Fewer than one in five hospitals owned by the nation’s largest health systems are displaying dollar amounts for at least half of their posted items and services, according to a survey of 2,000 hospitals by price transparency group PatientRightsAdvocate.org provided to The Washington Sun.

“This is law for us to know prices,” said Cynthia Fisher, the group’s founder. “It is not hard.”

The Trump administration has demanded hospitals start complying with the transparency regulation. The rule was written by the first Trump administration and went into effect in 2021 as part of an effort to eliminate the opaque pricing schemes that leave patients ignorant of what they’ll have to pay for a visit or procedure.

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent warning letters to more than 500 hospitals and asked some to send compliance action plans. A CMS spokesperson didn’t say whether the agency had enacted any fines yet.

“CMS will continue working to undo four years of bad policy,” the spokesperson said, referring to a regulation update under the Biden administration which gave hospitals some wider latitude. “We’ve sent a clear message to noncompliant hospitals: post your prices or pay the penalty.”

The federal government can fine hospitals as much as $2 million annually for noncompliance. The Biden administration fined about two dozen hospitals. The Trump administration has fined a handful since President Donald Trump took office again in early 2025.

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. followed up with a June 9 video posted to social media warning of an impending crackdown.

“If those hospitals do not come into compliance and transparently display their prices to patients, they will be fined to the fullest extent the law allows,” Oz said.

“The grace period has ended,” Kennedy said.

Hospitals are supposed to post machine-readable files with pricing information, as well as consumer-friendly lists of hundreds of services that include either dollar prices or a price-estimator tool. The disclosures cover rates negotiated with insurers as well as the hospital's gross list prices and the discounted cash price available to patients paying without insurance.

Fisher’s group analyzes the websites of hospitals every year to evaluate how many are following the rules. About half of hospitals surveyed are technically complying with the regulation, but most of those are skirting the spirit of the law by posting percentages or algorithms. Federal rules allow hospitals to do so when prices cannot be expressed as a dollar amount.

Around one-third of surveyed hospitals were technically compliant in 2024, up from 16% in 2022, according to the group’s annual reports.

Trump issued an executive order last year calling for hospitals and insurance companies to make it easier to view and compare prices. Earlier this year, CMS updated the regulation to specify that if hospitals list algorithms instead of dollar prices, the public must still be able to derive the dollar amount.

Andrew Bremberg, who helped write the transparency rule at the White House Domestic Policy Council, said he had expected that getting hospitals to obey the rules would take time.

“My perspective has been that when you do something like this, they’re not going to comply, and what it’s going to take is a set period of steady enforcement by CMS,” said Bremberg, who is now a policy adviser to PatientRightsAdvocate.org.

He and Fisher stress that getting hospitals to post actual dollar amounts is critical so that patients can shop around and compare prices.

“I will call them out until the cows come home for us to see these prices,” Fisher said.

Democrats’ Hollywood Allies Think the Party Has Lost the Plot

Oriana González, Kadia Goba — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:45:00 GMT

(Illustration by Jacob Hege for The Washington Sun)

Some of the Hollywood figures who helped Democrats retake the House in 2018 are reluctant to help them do it again.

Screenwriters, directors and other entertainment industry figures who once coached Democratic candidates, wrote their speeches and helped run rapid response operations are, at best, unmotivated to help this cycle and, at worst, entirely disillusioned with the party. Still, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ camp has been turning to industry types as a messaging resource, but some executives are upset that leaders can’t control the caucus’ growing progressive wing.

“The Democratic Party right now is torn in a couple directions, and some of those directions I'm no longer willing to work for or countenance, and so I'm a lot more sparing about it,” Gregg Hurwitz, a novelist and screenwriter known for his thriller series “Orphan X,” told The Washington Sun.

Hurwitz is part of a band of entertainment industry screenwriters, directors and producers who helped Democrats pick up 40 seats to gain control of the House in 2018. He said he worked pro bono writing and producing ads and coming up with a framework for moderate messaging that, he argued, “moves people away from the far left and right extremism.”

Hurwitz worked with Democratic campaigns between 2015 and 2022 but said he decided to leave the party after helping former Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota) challenge President Joe Biden in the 2024 primary. He cited the fact that Phillips faced attacks for raising concerns about Biden’s age and said vendors associated with Phillips were met with threats of being blacklisted for life — behavior he compared to the Chinese Communist Party.

He officially signed paperwork to change his party affiliation from Democrat to independent last fall.

For Hurwitz, the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and “having candidates winning primaries now who have stated overtly that America is worse than Hamas and that white women are ‘ugly colonialist women,’” is not behavior he could condone, he said. “To me, it’s a measure of extremism that the left has permitted without drawing a line that is incredibly threatening.”

Now, the self-described liberal said he’s instead limiting his messaging strategies to more moderate Democrats and even some Republicans — including those within the Trump administration. Hurwitz declined to provide names.

“Now and then I will get a call from people on either side. It could be someone in the current administration, and if I'm convinced that they’re doing something that will benefit the American people, especially anyone who’s working class, I’m open to helping.” Hurwitz said.

Similarly, Marshall Herskovitz, a screenwriter and director known for creating the television shows “Thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life,” said that he’s done dealing with Democrats. After President Donald Trump was reelected in 2024, Democrats, he told The Sun, “seemed just absolutely incapable of dealing with the size of the disaster.”
20260905_Herskovitz_018 copy 2.jpg (3937x2624, AR: 1.50)“I no longer try to work within the apparatus of the party, which is what I did in 2018, 2020, ’22, making commercials and doing position papers that they could use or not use, that sort of thing,” Herskovitz said. He criticized the current party structure as “ossified” and told The Sun the party “basically exists to keep the same people employed.”

Instead, Herskovitz is focused on helping Democrats who he connects with organically and not through official party channels. He has met with Democratic donors and with podcast creators about developing a project where he could communicate his vision for the party.

“Since Trump was elected again, and when I saw what Democrats were doing and not doing, I just came to realize that if there were going to be any answers, it was going to come from outside the party,” Herskovitz said.

He said about the fissure between Hollywood and current Democratic leaders: “It’s sad. It shouldn’t have to be this way.”

Another filmmaker who requested anonymity since they still work with some Democratic candidates said much of the frustration comes from the language used, rather than the policies.

“Only Democrats have a hard time with it, OK? And that’s because we tend to speak in these cotton candy terms that sound like they were dreamed up in the Harvard faculty lounge,” the filmmaker said. “No one in the world says ‘bodily autonomy,’ they just don’t. Nobody says ‘unhoused’ when they mean ‘homeless.’ Nobody says ‘justice impacted individual’ when they mean ‘criminal.’ And no farmer in history ever woke up, looked at his wife and said, ‘I’m having an affordability issue.’”

Not all screenwriters and producers that worked with Democrats in the past are mad at the party — but they also aren’t rushing to help.

Shawn Ryan, a screenwriter and producer known for his shows “The Night Agent” and “S.W.A.T.”, worked with Hurwitz and Herskovitz in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic making ads for political groups. He stopped working directly with Democrats because he “was just super busy with work,” Ryan told The Sun. His involvement in politics now, he said, revolves around donating to candidates he likes.

“I’m not looking to sort of bash Democrats at the moment. Republicans have always had more discipline in their messaging than Democrats. Democrats are just a messier sort of group, but they’re also, I think, a little bit more dedicated to good governing,” Ryan said.

But, Ryan added, he understood the aggravations of Hurwitz, Herkovitz and the other filmmaker.

“They have the ear of a lot of people in the Democratic Party, so I think that’s where their frustration comes from,” Ryan said. “We’re used to, as writers, really thinking long and hard about the exact perfect word, and when we hear people saying imperfect words when the stakes are so high, of course it’s of frustration.”

Jeffries’ Ties to Hollywood Can Be Traced Back to 2018

Despite these screenwriters’ criticism, Democrats are running back to the entertainment industry for advice now that they see the majority within reach.

Jeffries’ team has hosted at least two meetings with screenwriters to discuss messaging ahead of the midterms, The Sun has learned.

His office invited a select group of chiefs of staff to meet with “Hollywood TV producers and screenwriters who are offering support to House Democrats” in the Capitol in April 2025, according to an invite sent to congressional offices viewed by The Sun. And in July, House Democratic staffers again met with screenwriters in New York to “refine and expand” their messaging, according to a Democratic strategist familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for Jeffries did not comment.

In addition to staff-led meetings, Jeffries has been a guest on non-political podcasts, like “Men in Blazers” and “The Dan Le Batard Show.” He's also talked about Jay-Z on The Ringer's “The Press Box.”

During the 2018 election cycle, Jeffries was co-chair of House Democratic leadership’s messaging arm, and he developed connections with Hollywood executives to craft the caucus’s communications.

“Our mission was to create the right messaging that would lead to us winning back the majority. And I have been communicating with screenwriters regularly since then,” former Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, who served as House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee co-chair with Jeffries at the time, told The Sun.

“They know how to tell stories compellingly, emotionally and movingly. They use the right words, the right tone and the right feel,” Bustos continued. “I can’t think of any better writers and storytellers than the screenwriters, directors and authors who I have worked with through Democratic politics.”
20260905_Herskovitz_046 copy.jpg (5411x3335, AR: 1.62)Democratic leaders also connected candidates to producers in 2018. Former Rep. Harley Rouda of California, who defeated a Republican incumbent at the time, told The Sun that candidates in the House Democrats’ flagship ‘Red to Blue’ program “had access to people in Hollywood.” Screenwriters did not just consult candidates, they were directly involved with their communication operations.

“The concept was pretty simple: They are excellent storytellers, that’s what they do for a living, and the best way to connect with voters was to be able to tell a compelling story with compelling messaging that hopefully allows you the opportunity to win the race,” Rouda said.

He added, “Prior to 2018, Hollywood and the film industry predominantly were supporters of Democratic causes and candidates with their checkbooks.” Rouda said Trump’s 2016 election prompted filmmakers to actually get involved.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which handles the ‘Red to Blue’ program, downplayed any coordination, saying in a statement, it “does not connect screenwriters to our campaigns.”

“Our mission has been recruiting candidates with working backgrounds who listen to the voters directly. What they are hearing is that the American people are pissed at House Republicans and their broken promises — it’s easy to see why folks from all walks of life are raising their hand and asking how they can help Democrats take back the House,” said DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton.

The anonymous filmmaker who is still working with Democrats told The Sun they have written speeches “for a ton” of candidates and have been flown “from state to state to do candidate training” by “private individuals” or some state Democratic parties. The filmmaker declined to say which candidates they are working with.

“This is literally half of my day. This is the unpaid half of my day. It’s helping Democrats learn how to sound less like Democrats, so that they can make the argument that independent voters can actually hear,” the filmmaker said.

One House Democrat who has worked directly with the filmmaker told The Sun that the filmmaker has met with politicians for one-on-one meetings at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, an exclusive, members-only club frequented by celebrities.

Hollywood to Dems: Stop Saying ‘Affordability’

In addition to in-person coaching sessions, the filmmaker also sends emails to dozens of Democratic lawmakers and candidates with messaging advice. The Sun viewed over half a dozen emails they had sent this election cycle, including one where they advised Democrats to stay away from their favorite word: “affordability.”

“I HATE the word affordability. No one in the real world says it. No farmer in history ever said to his wife, ‘I’m having a real affordability crisis lately.’ It’s another cotton-candy Democrat word,” the filmmaker wrote. “Try THIS instead: The Cost of Trump.”

“This can mean higher prices for eggs, gas, diesel, fertilizer, insurance, utilities. It can mean the closing of rural hospitals, the end of Medicaid, the rise of A.I. without any guardrails,” they added. “The list is endless — but ALL of these things are The COST OF TRUMP. I just tried this phrase on a breakfast attended by 20 people. It CRUSHED.”

In another email, with the subject line “WHITE POVERTY,” the filmmaker wrote: “Among the many poor and low-income voters in the US, 66 million are white. They comprise 40% of the electorate in swing states. They largely voted for Biden in 2020 and then stayed home in 2024.”

“Kamala [Harris] tried to sell joy to people who couldn't afford eggs. And we made things worse by correcting their pronouns,” they added. “All they really want is someone who will go to bat for their families in real and meaningful ways.”

And in a third email, the filmmaker urged Democrats to stop saying that Congress did not approve Trump’s war in Iran because it “sounds like whining.”

Democrats should instead say that “we are better off” without the Islamic Republic of Iran, the filmmaker wrote, but that Trump is not the person to lead because his policies “have been catastrophic.”

The House Democrat who spoke to The Sun said that some of the emails are “very eccentric but I read them and they’re helpful.”

Still, some Democrats were quick to downplay filmmakers’ involvement in the party’s messaging.
House Dems 11/12/25 (7857x5196, AR: 1.51)In 2011, after Democrats lost control of the House, then-Leader Nancy Pelosi met with people in the film industry to discuss ideas about how they could win back the majority, the former DCCC official said. But, they added, Pelosi took these meetings because “It wasn’t just Nancy Pelosi wanting to hear people’s thoughts, it was Nancy Pelosi doing very important donor maintenance.”

“Let’s just say that when I got briefed on the results of these sessions, they were not things that we ran and shared with our candidates because they just weren’t relevant,” the official said. Pelosi’s office did not respond to The Sun’s requests for comment.

Another Democratic consultant who has extensive experience with the intersection of actors, screenwriters and politicians said that sentiment continues in the 2026 election cycle.

“I don’t need them for comms strategy, I need them for their fucking fame and money,” the consultant told The Sun. “After all, the last thing any campaign needs is another cook in the kitchen when writing talking points.”

How Virginia Could Smoke Out D.C.’s Cannabis Industry

Zara Norman — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:30:00 GMT

Higher Ground, a cannabis dispensary in Northeast D.C., is a converted distillery outfitted with leather couches and a café space. (Torrie Herrington for The Washington Sun)

Johannes Cassidy-Seyoum opened his medical cannabis business in D.C. just last year. Already, he’s bracing for a devastating blow to his customer base.

Across the Potomac, Virginia lawmakers in June approved the sale of recreational cannabis beginning in July 2027. The move will upend the region’s cannabis market, which has historically seen Virginians travel to D.C. to access the city’s permissive medical program in which anyone over 21 can “self-certify” as a user.

Cannabis business owners in D.C., who already took a hit when Maryland began recreational sales in 2023, fear for their livelihoods.

“Virginia coming online will definitely, probably take 20% to 25% of our business,” said Cassidy-Seyoum, the owner of High Demand in Capitol Hill. “A good amount of our customers come from Richmond, Fredericksburg. They make a trip maybe two, three times a month and they stock up.”

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Virginia will issue 350 recreational retail licenses to cannabis businesses in February through a lottery system, with a portion set aside for smaller operators. The goal is to capture the business of both Virginia’s underground cannabis market and customers who shop in neighboring jurisdictions. The state expects its cannabis sales tax to generate $71 million in its first two years.

“We’re very concerned, our store is right on the border around Virginia,” said Caroline Crandall, who owns Green Theory in the Palisades. “Virginia and a lot of other southern states account for a decent portion of sales every month.”

Of the 2,101 non-D.C. residents who patronized D.C. cannabis retailers in July, 807 came from Virginia, according to a report from D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration.

Maryland’s cannabis regulator does not track such metrics, but about half of Virginia’s medical cannabis patients reported going out of state to purchase cannabis, according to an October 2024 survey conducted by Virginia’s Cannabis Control Authority. A quarter of those respondents said their destination was D.C. and one-fifth said it was Maryland.

That could devastate “an already difficult business,” said Greg Casten, president of the restaurant group OceanPro Industries, who’s in the permitting process to open a dispensary in Northeast D.C.

“It’s just a very scrappy time. Rent is high in D.C.,” said Allison Lipowitz, the manager of District Cannabis’ storefront in NoMa. “I think that’s why Virginia feels so scary — it’s already a very unstable market.”

Some business owners feel helpless. District voters overwhelmingly approved marijuana legalization in 2014, but Congress has blocked that from happening.

"D.C. currently lacks the democratic autonomy to enact laws affecting its own local markets without interference from federal policymakers,” Chinyere Hubbard, the president and CEO of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, told The Sun in a statement. “That disparity leaves District businesses competing on an uneven playing field with our neighboring jurisdictions.”

Since 2014, hundreds of businesses operated in a “gray market” by “gifting” cannabis alongside clothing, food or even motivational speeches out of gift stores, gas stations and delivery services. When the District began its self-certified medical program in 2022, it gave those businesses a window in which they could get licensed — 45 of them did.

That program, for residents, made cannabis almost as easily obtainable as it might be in a recreational market. But out-of-towners still need to pay at least $10 in fees to purchase it. Business owners have long wanted to scrap that, reduce it, or — better yet — have cannabis federally rescheduled — something Robbie Martin, president of the D.C. Cannabis Business Association, said is closer to happening than ever.

“We have a lot more restrictions in D.C. right now than Virginia will next year,” Crandall said. “[We’re trying to] figure out ways to remain competitive. One of those is hoping and praying that rescheduling of adult-use cannabis ends up happening.”
_MG_7822 copy.jpg (5452x3635, AR: 1.50)There are other ways D.C. businesses might keep their edge. Some are trying to get permits to add on-site consumption spaces to their dispensaries, Martin said. Martin runs one such a site: Higher Ground in Northeast D.C., a converted distillery stylishly outfitted with leather couches, deep green walls, artful glasswork and even a café space he hopes will soon sell sandwiches, coffee and other “munchies.” On a Tuesday afternoon last week, one customer was using it as a co-working space.

“We have a big competitive advantage in D.C.,” Martin said. “There’s very few places in the country, let alone the East Coast, with this capability.”

What’s more, Virginia is entering the marketplace with problems of its own. Existing medical dispensaries will have to pay a one-time $10 million conversion fee to become licensed as recreational facilities.

That’s “especially concerning” to JM Pedini, the development director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“These are the operators currently serving Virginia's medical cannabis patients, and the law effectively conditions their ability to continue operating on paying that fee,” Pedini said. “We should be protecting patient access and affordability during this transition, not introducing a new eight-figure cost into the medical supply chain."

Virginia has seen more than $107 million in medical cannabis sales this year as of early August, but the state’s illicit market could be worth between $1.5 billion and $3 billion, said Trent Woloveck, the chief strategy officer at Jushi Holdings. Woloveck’s company operates 42 cannabis dispensaries across eight states including Virginia, and recently launched a $50 million expansion in Manassas on the back of the legalization announcement.

That could convert to the regulated marketplace. States adopting recreational cannabis laws see both a 45% reduction in law enforcement seizures of the drug (which could either indicate a smaller illegal marketplace, or a shift in law enforcement priorities), said Nicole Fitzgerald, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University who studies illegal drug markets.

Those states also see a 9% reduction in street prices, said Angelica Meinhofer, an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College who specializes in health economics.

As further incentive, Virginia has kept its initial sales tax rate low at 6%, though municipalities can levy an additional tax of up to 3.5%. Maryland’s, by contrast, is 12%. D.C.’s tax rate is also 6%.

While D.C. businesses brainstorm ways to keep their customers, Virginia municipalities are gearing up to welcome more tax revenue, job creation and redirected sales. In Fairfax, Woloveck’s company Jushi already has a medical dispensary that Colleen Kardasz, Fairfax’s director of economic development, expects will become a recreational facility.

The city is currently evaluating how to zone recreational dispensaries as well as how to tax them, but Kardasz said she expects legalization to keep cannabis-related business in the community.

“People like convenience,” Kardasz said. “If you can get something in your own community, you’re going to choose that over traveling.”

Consumers aren’t the only ones who might choose to do business in Virginia instead of D.C.

“We are planning to hopefully expand into Virginia,” Crandall said, adding that she’ll apply for a license as soon as they open. “We’re probably not the only ones to do so.”

New Technology, New Ideas: How the Nationals Overhauled Their Farm System

Dave Sheinin — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:25:00 GMT

Nationals prospect Seaver King said he was surprised to receive an advanced-metrics-heavy plan for improvement this year. (Mike Janes/AP)

On July 7 — an otherwise unremarkable day for the Washington Nationals, who lost an unremarkable game to the Houston Astros in the middle of a mostly unremarkable summer at Nationals Park — something remarkable happened in the minor leagues.

In stadiums in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, four hitters from the Harrisburg Senators and Fredericksburg Nationals — the Nats’ Double-A and Single-A affiliates, respectively — all bashed home runs. The significance: With those four homers, Washington’s six minor league teams, collectively, had surpassed the total of 409 homers hit by those same affiliates in 2025.

And it was barely past the midpoint of the 2026 baseball calendar.

As the Nationals limp to the finish line of the MLB season, all but assured of a seventh-straight finish in either fourth or fifth place, fans of the team would be well advised to avert their eyes from Nationals Park and train them on the minor leagues, where remarkable things continue to happen.

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It is there that the organization’s transformation from a largely old-school operation under former president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo to a largely new-school model under successor Paul Toboni is most visible, with the new regime leaning heavily into advanced analytics and new technologies geared toward succeeding in a sport increasingly distilled to a clash of power-pitching versus power-hitting.

To wit: With roughly two weeks left in the minor league season, the collective home run total for the Nats’ six affiliates is up to 681 (through Sept. 8), a staggering increase of nearly 67% over 2025’s total. The system-wide slugging percentage has similarly risen from .349 to .410. All six Nats’ affiliates have seen a jump in their home run totals year over year.

On the pitching side, according to data at Prospect Savant, Nats’ prospects have pushed the farm system’s collective strikeout rate (the percentage of all plate appearances ending in a strikeout) from 21.7 in 2025 (28th out of 30 farm systems) to 24.1 in 2026 (seventh). And the system’s collective ERA of 4.58 is the best of any MLB franchise.

And what about the bottom line, which is to say: wins and losses? Collectively, the Nationals’ four-highest affiliates (Single-A Fredericksburg, high Single-A Wilmington, Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Rochester) have a winning percentage of .560 this season (through Sept. 8), up from .452 in 2025, with Rochester (up from .401 to .606, year over year) responsible for much of that improvement.

“It’s completely independent of what the previous regime did or did not do,” Toboni, 36, said when asked about the link between the massive organizational overhaul and the sudden turnaround of the farm system. The Rizzo regime, he said, “did a bunch of awesome things. Obviously, there’s a bunch of players on our roster that came from them. For us, it’s a completely separate conversation … For us, it’s: ‘Let’s tether ourselves to what the evidence says contributes to winning and do our best to actually help our people get there.’”

Paul Toboni AP - 25321818817757 (6748x4499, AR: 1.50)

The rest of the industry is certainly taking note. In its 2026 midseason farm-system rankings, released in mid-August, MLB Pipeline had the Nationals ranked sixth out of all 30 organizations, up from 17th at the start of the season and 23rd at midseason 2025. Similar double-digit jumps were seen in rankings compiled by Baseball America, ESPN and Fangraphs.

There are caveats begging to be noted here: First, a majority of players in the Nats’ farm system, including most of its highest-rated prospects, were acquired by the Rizzo regime, before he was fired last July. Also, teams such as the Nationals that are undergoing a rebuild — which typically result in veterans-for-prospects trades and high draft picks — almost always see a rise in their farm-system rankings.

But the sheer speed and acuteness of the Nationals’ rise in those rankings, in the first year of a new regime whose overarching philosophy represents an organizational sea change, makes it impossible to ignore those links. At his introductory press conference last October, Toboni vowed to turn the Nats into a “scouting and player development monster,” and less than a year in (thanks in part to trades of veterans Jose A. Ferrer, MacKenzie Gore, Luis García Jr. and Foster Griffin), he appears to be well on his way.

“To rise 17 spots in a calendar year, or 11 spots from the beginning of the year — that is highly unusual,” said MLB Pipeline senior writer Jim Callis, who has been evaluating prospects for various publications for 38 years. “You talk to anybody in the game, and [they would say] the Nats have modernized in a lot of ways. They’ve introduced a lot of technology and data. I don’t mean to make it sound like they were in the dark ages under Rizzo — because Mike was really good there for a long time, which people sometimes forget — but I do think [Toboni and his staff] have modernized a lot of things, and they’ve seen some players make huge steps forward.”

Abimelec Ortiz Rochester AP - 26149699752550 (4000x2667, AR: 1.50)

Speaking the Same Language

Some of the changes under the Toboni regime are easy to document. Whereas the front office and player-development staffs under Rizzo (who was 63 when he was fired) were full of longtime scouts and grizzled baseball lifers, Toboni has tapped the collegiate ranks and new-school, data-driven facilities (as well as other MLB organizations) in search of innovators. Of particular note: At least four of Toboni’s hires, including Nationals pitching coach Simon Mathews, spent time at Driveline Baseball, the groundbreaking, Seattle-based lab.

“We wanted to bring in people who were data-informed — not data-driven on every decision — and then we built out training environments that helped players get better,” said assistant general manager Devin Pearson. “We didn’t say, ‘We need to bring in X number of people from Driveline’ or whatever. It was more: ‘Do we all speak the same language and believe in the same things in terms of what good training looks like.”

The Nationals also acquired — at a reported cost of $15,000 to $20,000 per month apiece, with three-year-minimum leases — three high-tech Trajekt Arc pitching machines that use video, data and robotics to replicate the image, velocity, pitch-shape and arm slot of any pitcher in baseball, allowing hitters to take virtual BP against each night’s opposing starter. The team was believed to have been the last MLB franchise without at least one Trajekt machine.

“It’s like night and day,” Nationals outfielder Daylen Lile said of the analytics bent of the new regime. (That’s a more charitable characterization than what he said to Sirius MLB Network Radio during spring training: “We’re not in the dark ages anymore.”)

The investment in player development doesn’t stop at technology. The Lerner family, who have owned the Nationals since 2006, also green-lighted a massive expansion of minor league staffing under Toboni. The field staff at Triple-A Rochester, for example, has doubled in size from 2025, with the addition of assistant hitting and pitching coaches, a quality control coach, a defensive coach, an extra strength coach, an extra trainer and a technician to operate the Trajekt machine. Meanwhile, Rochester manager Matt LeCroy, a longtime Rizzo lieutenant, was kept on following a lengthy meeting with Toboni.

“From the beginning it was all about everybody buying in. Paul told you up-front: If you weren’t in, you would probably be out,” said LeCroy, who has been part of the Nationals organization, off and on, since 2006. LeCroy’s Red Wings have surged from 59-88 last year to 83-54 so far in 2026. “It’s been amazing to see this thing grow so fast and to see all this change. I’ve learned so much this year,” he said.

Matt LeCroy AP - 26122031238347 (4000x2667, AR: 1.50)

A Clear Vision

Beyond some of the obvious factors, other aspects of the new regime’s special sauce are harder to get at. Toboni and his lieutenants are understandably cautious with what they reveal about their methods and strategies.

“What it boils down to is having a really clear vision of what you want to achieve and a staff that is incredibly aligned, and then doing a really good job of communicating to the players what the greatest opportunities are for them to get better,” Toboni said. “I think maybe it was a lot for the players [to absorb] early on, but now I think they’ve felt the cadence and understand the process well enough to realize: ‘OK, I need to strike out more batters. OK, to do that I’ve got to refine my breaking ball. OK, in this bullpen session, I need my slider to have this much horizontal movement and this much vertical.’”

Twenty-three-year-old shortstop prospect Seaver King is perhaps the Toboni player-development machine’s biggest success story, a microcosm of the organization’s collective rise. In 2025, his first full year of pro ball, King, the 10th overall pick in the 2024 draft, hit just .244 with a .631 OPS, six homers in 551 plate appearances, and a strikeouts-to-walks ratio of more than four-to-one across two levels of the minors.

In his first meeting with the Nats’ new player-development staff, King was astonished to hear a detailed, advanced-metrics-heavy rundown of his assets and liabilities and a specific plan for improvement — focused on lowering his chase rate (swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone) and raising his launch angle. Defensively, he needed tweaks to his arm slot and footwork. It was almost as if they knew him better as a player than he did himself.

“It was a matter of being told, ‘Hey, this is what we think is going to make you successful,’ and then buying into it,” King said. “And the message has stayed consistent at every level: ‘We don’t want you to chase . We want you to hit the ball hard in the air.’... I’ve always hit the ball hard, but I’ve gotten away with hitting it on the ground and getting hits with my speed. But now I know, if I hit the ball at 12 [degrees of launch angle] instead of six, I could have 10 to 12 more doubles than I did last year.”

It’s not as if launch angle were a foreign concept under the old regime, King said. “We heard about it: ‘Hey, we’d like you to hit the ball in the air,’” he said. “But there was never [any guidance] like, ‘Here’s how we can train for it.’”

This season, which King has split between Double-A and Triple-A, his batting average (through Sept. 8) is more than 60 points (to .306) and his OPS more nearly 280 points (to .909), while his strikeouts-to-walks ratio has been cut in half to just above two-to-one. His chase rate of 33.4 this season (per Prospect Savant) is still high — the big-league average this year is 30.5 — but it’s a considerable improvement over 2025’s mark of 36.0.

“The process has changed,” King said. “What makes me good is when I hit the ball hard and hit it in the air. If I can hit it in the air, extra-base hits will come. RBIs will come. Leaning into that and focusing on that in [batting practice] has been great, and obviously the results speak for themselves.”

As impressive as it was for the Nationals to top their collective minor league home run total from 2025 on July 7 of this year, King got there some five weeks sooner: On May 30, he hit his seventh homer of the year, beating his 2025 total in just 44 games. He is a near-lock to be on the Nationals’ roster by next Opening Day.

Jayden Daniels Is Preparing for His Next Act

Martenzie Johnson — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:20:00 GMT

Entering Year 3, Jayden Daniels has changed his body and his mind. Daniel Kucin Jr./AP

There are many lies out there.

Honesty isn’t always the best policy. The run doesn’t always set up the pass. And sometimes you do get a second chance to make a first impression.

For Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, the 2024 season was about as good a first impression as one could have. Twelve wins. Rookie of the Year award. A Hail Mary against the Bears. One game away from the Super Bowl.

But one truth? What goes up must come down. And in 2025, Washington crash-landed back to earth as Daniels missed more games than he played and the team finished 5-12.

An ugly season, coupled with an uneven end to training camp this summer, and questions start forming. Was 2024 a fluke? Did defenses figure Daniels out?

For his part, Daniels has said all the right things about moving on from last year and putting in the work to improve himself. His coaches have raved about his accuracy and football IQ. His teammates talk about him like the 2024 season — not 2025 — was the last they saw of the quarterback.

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While it’s unclear what the coming season will bring, one thing feels certain in Ashburn: This is Jayden Daniels 2.0.

“What I did Year 1, what I did Year 2 doesn’t really matter,” Daniels said ahead of the team’s Week 1 matchup against the Eagles. “Now we’re onto Year 3. Whatever happens Sunday, that’s what people are going to talk about.”

Let the Commanders tell it, and Daniels has put in his 10,000 hours. He’s constantly tinkering with the minutiae of the game, working with each receiver after practices on where to sit down on a route, when to make a move on a defender and how they like to receive the ball. Whether he’s sending a film clip to receiver Terry McLaurin or engaging in a scheme discussion with new offensive coordinator David Blough, Daniels is working to be in full command of Washington’s offense.

Jayden Daniels AP - 26234555802029 (2933x1955, AR: 1.50)Daniels has looked sharp on the field, dropping the ball in the bucket to his receivers like a ceiling leak. On timing routes, the ball is out of Daniels’ hand the second he hits his third step. His over-the-shoulder passes end up where only his receivers can grab them.

“It’s the location of the throw. It’s one of his superpowers, is the accuracy,” coach Dan Quinn said last month. “That’s not luck.”

Blough, entering his first season as offensive coordinator after two years as assistant quarterbacks coach, agreed.

“He’s as accurate as he’s ever been,” Blough said. “It’s a testament to asking him to do something different and him wanting to grow and evolve.”

Blough’s offense will call for more play-action and bootlegs with the hope that getting Daniels outside of the pocket will lead to more downfield throws. He’ll be tasked with making more pre-snap reads and changing plays at the line of scrimmage. All while operating more under center, which he has done just 32 times through his first two seasons, according to the Commanders.

“Day by day, I just try to come in and have control of the offense and get 1% better,” Daniels said during camp.

But his coaches have raved about how quickly he’s picked up a new system. Quinn has repeatedly said he was taken aback by Daniels’ ability to get up to speed.

“He often makes the difficult things look easy,” Quinn said in July.

Evolution in the passing game will be a priority this season, as the Commanders look to rely less on Daniels’s running abilities. In 2024 and 2025, Daniels had the third-most rushing attempts by a quarterback (206) despite playing in just 24 games.

He’s also taken some nasty hits: In his first two seasons, Daniels broke a rib, sprained his left knee, strained his right hamstring and dislocated his left elbow.

Quinn has encouraged Daniels to live to fight another day by throwing the ball away rather than risk contact. The quarterback understands that advice, but is mindful that his legs — which he calls his “God capabilities” — are just as valuable as his right arm.

“Myself, anybody around would say they still want me to use [my legs] as a weapon. I’m pretty sure fans would say the same thing,” Daniels told The Washington Sun. “I don't want to sit back there and not be myself, but also just be smart with the opportunities and the chances I take.

“At the end of the day, I still play football. I still have a job to do to help my team win games, and if that’s taking off on third-and-3 and getting a first down instead of sitting back there and trying to make something happen, I’m gonna do it.”
Jayden Daniels Netflix AP - 25341652029435 (7800x5200, AR: 1.50)Daniels spent the offseason strengthening his entire body, particularly his legs, core and hips. He told The Sun he added “eight to 10 pounds” of muscle. But they may be hard to spot: Ever since Daniels was a 135-pound freshman in high school, there has been skepticism around his weight.

He’s too skinny. His body won’t hold up. He needs some milk.

Daniels, currently listed at 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, said it’s all a misconception.

“I think it’s more so my build,” he said. “I'm heavier than a lot of people actually give me credit for. I’m just a taller, slender guy.”

If his listed weights are accurate, Daniels has gained over 50 pounds since weighing 157 pounds his senior year of high school in 2018. He sees no reason to put on too much additional muscle.

“Not really looking to be like a bodybuilder or anything like that,” he said.

Daniels may not want to be Mr. Olympia, but he is striving to move past his first two seasons.

He does his best to ignore the analysts and pundits who believe the Commanders will sink to the bottom of the NFC East this year, choosing to maintain his approach of never getting too high or too low. He believes that returning to the successes of 2024 will require a focus on his day-to-day process rather than chasing a specific result.

“I don’t want to be my final product in Week 1,” he said. “I just want to go out there and continue to just get better each and every day, each and every game and do whatever it takes to help the team win some football games.”

DMV High School Volleyball Players of the Week

Noah Ferguson — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:15:00 GMT

Senior setter Anna Dierks helped West Springfield to an undefeated start. Courtesy of Eddie Amoros

A new fall season marks a fresh start for the D.C. area’s top high school volleyball programs. With the slate wiped clean, local powers have begun jockeying for position. The season is already in full swing in Virginia, while matches are just getting underway in Maryland and D.C. Here are three players who have made strong early impressions:

Anna Dierks, Senior, Setter, West Springfield

The Spartans are on a quest to repeat as Virginia Class 6 champions after earning the first state crown in program history last season. Dierks, who brought a steadying presence to West Springfield’s attack during its title run, is one of several key returners for coach Stephanie Noriega’s team. With Dierks back at setter for her senior season, West Springfield got off to a 6-0 start, dropping just one set. In that span, Dierks averaged 9.4 assists per set and amassed 25 serving aces.

Against fellow Class 6 contender Marshall in late August, Dierks dished 35 assists in a dominant three-set sweep. Many of those assists were lobbed to senior Milena Kibret, who racked up 15 kills. With Dierks commanding the offense and a plethora of size and versatility on the block, the Spartans look more than capable of defending their title.

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Macie Murray, Senior, Outside Hitter, Bishop O’Connell

The Knights are one of the buzziest teams in the area this season, thanks to a roster that is loaded with Division I talent. Murray, O’Connell’s veteran outside hitter, is off to a dazzling start this season. The senior averaged 4.2 kills per set and hit at an efficient .528 percent clip through the team’s first six matches.

The Knights kicked off their season with a 3-0 sweep of fellow Washington Catholic Athletic Conference contender Holy Cross, then swept each of their opponents at the Virginia Volleyball Showcase over the weekend. Murray, sophomore setter Carolyn Maria and freshman outside hitter Nadia Wooten were each named to the all-tournament team.

Ayla Sayd, Senior, Outside Hitter, Marshall

Sayd notched double-digit kills in each of Marshall’s first seven matches of the fall, announcing herself as one of the most potent offensive threats in the area early this season. The 6-foot-1 senior, who is committed to Elon, amassed 111 kills in 23 sets played to get the Statesmen off to a 6-1 start.

The team is under new leadership this season with coach Allie Selznick taking over the varsity program — and with Sayd anchoring the Marshall attack, the Statesmen look poised to make a Virginia Class 6 run. ”Even from last year to this year, she’s grown tremendously,” Selznick said of Sayd. “She’s really come into her own [and] become a powerhouse.”

Talk to Tom: Thoughts on Rye Bunny, Corkage Fees and Cramped Tables

Tom Sietsema — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:09:00 GMT

Rye Bunny's corn cappellacci with aji dulce peppers, roasted chanterelles and brown butter. (Kainaz Amaria/The Washington Sun)

Welcome to Talk to Tom, the dining-advice column that aims to point you toward good meals, steer you from the dross and solve your pressing restaurant queries. Look for a fresh Q&A every Thursday in this space.

Questions and comments can be submitted to TalkToTom@washingtonsun.com. Submissions may be edited for length and clarity.

Few of us are string beans. Why do restaurants set tables so close to one another?

Not that I want to return to pandemic times, but there was a moment then where we enjoyed pools of space between our fellow diners, a detail that’s now mostly the reserve of high-end restaurants with lofty prices. Like hush, room to stretch out is a luxury.

Restaurants pack people in mostly for financial reasons. More tables per square foot mean more potential revenue. I once had a local restaurateur tell me removing just a single table from his business would result in the loss of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” a year. There’s the buzz factor, too. A tightly packed dining room tends to feel more energetic, no doubt because people are talking louder to compensate for the conversations close to them.

The position carries some risks, and not just from people trying to navigate slivers of space. A 2009 study by Cornell University called “Don’t Sit So Close to Me” found customers were significantly happier when tables were placed at least a meter apart, and diners at cramped tables left faster and reported they were less likely to return — especially on dates and among women, who reported more discomfort than men. A follow-up study two years later tested 6-inch, foot-long, and 24-inch spacing of tables and determined that people reacted particularly poorly to the lack of space in romantic dining contexts.

There’s no industry standard for spacing. But an expert in restaurant design psychology told me 16 inches is a minimum to aim for at banquettes, which usually have the most space around them.

Curious what you think about the trade-off at Rye Bunny between the efficiency of the counter-order setup and the more relaxed rhythm one might want from a dinner out.

For those who haven’t been, the first-come, first-served Rye Bunny is the successor to Tail Up Goat in Adams Morgan, which closed in December. While I’m not a fan of standing in line to access a table, the process has impressed me twice now at the breezy Rye Bunny, where staff members welcome you upon entry and take drink orders while you wait to reach a host counter to tell an attendant what you want for dinner. Then, off you go to select where you want to sit in the dining room.

DC0A4190 copy.jpg (7791x5193, AR: 1.50)

DC0A4331 copy.jpg (7369x4912, AR: 1.50)FYI: I’ve never been in line longer than 10 minutes, which goes by fast with a drink in hand, and I’ve enjoyed some engaging chats with neighbors in line. Per the restaurant’s FAQ, waits are shortest (five to 15 minutes) Sunday through Thursday, with often no wait after 8:30 p.m. The idea is working for the restaurant. Co-owner Jill Tyler tells me some guests, unknown to one another when they stroll in, end up sitting together based on their brief interactions in line.

Want to order another drink or more food once you’re seated? Proceed as you would at another upscale restaurant and ask your server. And make sure to order the anchovy toast and whatever pasta your server raves about, among the draws on Rye Bunny’s script.

I collect wine and like to bring it to restaurants on occasion. What’s a fair corkage fee? Some are so high!

Industry insiders tell me the answer depends on a number of factors, including the restaurant concept and the beverage program. An establishment with a small list might charge a lot less for corkage or waive it altogether as an incentive to customers. Places with larger, more curated lists might charge more — or forbid outside bottles completely.

“Sometimes they might not allow it because it can be difficult to deal with old bottles if you don’t have an Ah-So (a two-pronged wine opener that doesn’t break the cork) and an experienced sommelier,” says Brent Kroll, the owner of Maxwell Park Wine Bar and a veteran wine professional. “That and possibly that older bottles require time from the sommelier for minimal revenue.”

Jenistar Ruksirisopha created the wine lists for both Takara 14 and Raw Omakase in Logan Circle. At the casual Takara 14, where the wine and sake bottles typically cost between $20 and $80, she considered $50 per bottle a fair corkage fee; at the more refined Raw Omakase, where the bottles can range from $60 to $1,200, the restaurateur asked for $75 per bottle.

“The fee is not only opening and serving the bottle but also glassware, service, and the loss of beverage sales,” says Ruksirisopha, who is no longer involved with either restaurant but plans to open, with chef Johnny Yi, an upscale sushi venue sometime next year.

The corkage fee at the popular Reveler’s Hour in Adams Morgan is $50. Owner Bill Jensen says he has mixed feelings about diners bringing in their own wine. “I love the idea of enhancing a meal by sharing a special bottle of wine” from outside, he says, but “we go out of our way to curate a dynamic, expansive selection of wines to suit all sensibilities and budgets, and we want the opportunity to share it with our guests.”

Kroll allows corkage only for large parties where there’s a minimum spend. His rationale: “We have 50 wines by the glass and just under 1,000 by the bottle.” Outside his venue, he says, “I’m happy when I see $25 and think $50 (corkage fee) is OK.” Mark’s Duck House in Falls Church, Virginia, charges $20 a bottle, and the sibling D.C. restaurants Clyde’s and Old Ebbitt Grill charge $25. Some places don’t charge on certain days. For instance, Monday is the best time to bring a bottle from home at Belga Café on the Hill, which otherwise charges $25.

My two cents: The considerate wine consumer should know not to bring in a wine that’s on a restaurant’s list and to buy at least one bottle from the restaurant. Also, some restaurants have a limit on how many bottles you can bring in. It’s always best to call ahead and ask rather than be surprised upon arrival.

With the season about to change, I want to plan a road trip. Where would you go for a dining escape within a few hours of D.C.? (We already know about the Inn at Little Washington.)

In the exurbs of Virginia, I’m high on Three Blacksmiths in Sperryville. The drill is a single seating for up to 20 guests in a handsome dining room, and a seasonal, five-course menu prepared by chefs who double as your attendants by introducing the dishes to you. Orchestrated by owners Jake and Sara Addeo, the evening starts at 6:45 p.m. with a choice of cocktails (including a zero-proof option) made using local ingredients.

Then there’s Maude & the Bear in Staunton, which began life as a Montgomery Ward home kit more than a century ago, helmed by chef Ian Boden. He, too, offers a five-course list — along with nine- and 22-course tasting menus — that the chef says include “several little surprises.” My experience with Boden, who also owns The Shack nearby, is that he focuses on good ingredients left to speak for themselves.

In Maryland, I’m always happy to settle into the inviting, Old World interior at Bas Rouge in historic Easton. The restaurant is the crown jewel of Bluepoint Hospitality, a collection of 10 culinary draws created by energy mogul Paul Prager. The details at Bas Rouge are rich: Zalto stemware, Bernardaud china and an antique Lobmeyr crystal chandelier to illuminate the space. As for the cooking, Harley Peet won the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic award from the James Beard Foundation two years ago. Peet, recently promoted to corporate executive chef, says his mission is to “continually elevate.” Some of the ingredients his team uses are plucked from the company’s fledgling Yamori Farm, 7 or so acres devoted to Japanese melons, radishes, leeks and more, watched over by Japanese farmers who fly in on a regular basis, says Peet.

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Collins Needs to Defy Political Gravity Again — and Trump Isn't Helping

Al Weaver — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:06:00 GMT

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) campaigns to hold her Senate seat in a state carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris two years ago. (Michael Kleinfeld for The Washington Sun)

BATH, Maine — The sun has just emerged from over the Kennebec River, and Republican Sen. Susan Collins is ready to greet workers ahead of the first shift at Bath Iron Works.

Shipbuilders, machinists and welders arrive in fits and starts ahead of the 7 a.m. whistle. Collins and roughly a dozen supporters and campaign staff have one goal: for these union workers to gobble up boxes of T-shirts. The navy blue tees feature “SUSAN” on the pocket (the “USA” in red, white and blue, of course) and “BATH BUILT IS BEST BUILT” displayed around the silhouette of a Navy destroyer.

“T-shirts! Get your T-shirts here!” one staffer yells as workers approach, doing his best impression of a hot dog vendor at a minor league baseball game.

The moment is important for Collins’ team, who confide before the predawn event that it’s a test of sorts. If workers take the shirts? A good sign of where the senator is two months out from Mainers deciding whether to hand her a sixth term in office. And if they don’t? An ominous sign of her prospects.

Luckily for them, medium and 2XL shirts are gone with time to spare before work starts. Even those not taking the shirts are polite enough, telling staffers, “Thanks, I’m all set,” or a straight up “No, thank you,” with minimal hostilities.
Susan_Collins_Bath_09012026_16 copy.jpg (5541x3694, AR: 1.50)There’s a reason the crew was very familiar with Collins. She’s helped steer billions of dollars and years of Pentagon contracts to the shipyard, which is the state’s fourth-largest employer. Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, has widespread union support, but Collins retains some loyalty among working-class voters.

Collins Argues Her Senate Seniority Translates Into Millions for Maine

It’s part of yet another all-politics-is-local strategy that Collins, the Senate Appropriations Committee chair, is banking on to lock down another term. Check out a sampling of her ads or campaign appearances and the message is clear: She’s responsible for securing money to rebuild a fire station or other local projects that generate jobs. That constituent services work is what Democrats concede is formidable.

“It’s given me a once-in-a-century opportunity to really deliver for the people of Maine. … I have delivered for small communities all across the state,” Collins told The Washington Sun in an interview, noting that 45 new and rebuilt fire stations exist due to federal money she’s brought home. “That matters.”

Despite that pitch, Collins finds herself in yet another reelection dogfight where she’s working to defy political gravity.

She’s the lone Senate Republican representing a state carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris two years ago. But increasingly it’s the impact of President Donald Trump’s policies that is causing her constituents to consider electing a Democrat.

Trump’s Immigration and Trade Policies Cause Headaches

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a Colombian national in Biddeford, Maine, less than two months ago amid a surge of operations in nearby Portland. But the individual wasn’t the target of the ICE operation, and the fallout has rippled across the state.

More recently, trade negotiations with Canada went belly-up, leading to a nasty break in a longstanding relationship. Collins has pleaded with the administration to resume negotiations, as her state shares a 611-mile border with the neighbor to the north and exported $1.3 billion worth of goods to Canada last year —- 41% of the state’s exports. Instead, the president is posting memes about the Canadian prime minister.

“It is [a lot]. It’s certainly not helpful. There’s no doubt about that,” Collins told The Sun, adding that voters are “perplexed” and “more puzzled than anything” about the Canada trade war.

According to a Fox News poll taken in early August, 59% of voters in the state view Trump unfavorably — and that was before the trade spat.

It’s also not an accident that Collins is trying to put more distance between herself and the president. During an event in Biddeford, Collins called on ICE to enact more reforms beyond the recent equipping of agents with body cameras. She argued the agency should stop making arrests at “sensitive” locales, including schools, hospitals, doctors offices and places of worship.

She also criticized the president’s lack of strategy for launching a war with Iran, which has reached a seventh month and has grown deeply unpopular with Americans.
Pete Hegseth (4987x3325, AR: 1.50)“The president clearly did not have a well-thought-out plan for how to deal with Iran. To me, it was utterly predictable that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz,” she told reporters. “That should not have come as a surprise, and the administration and the Department of Defense should have been prepared for that.”

Gas prices in the state are averaging more than $4 per gallon. Mainers are also bracing for rising heating oil costs in the coming months, an issue that could crop up closer to Election Day.

The series of events has Collins’ allies wondering how much more of this she can handle and still win. One source close to the longtime senator noted that of all the potential administration-induced impediments that could crop up, a second ICE shooting is the one that worries them the most and could be too difficult to overcome.

“It’s frustrating. It’s almost exhausting,” Jason Levesque, the former Republican mayor of Auburn, Maine, and a political commentator, said of the string of happenings.

Collins has never been a favorite of the president, and the feeling is mutual.

He said in June that she is “not my best friend at all,” all the while touting her vote streak even though “sometimes she voted against me.” While Trump has indicated support for her, there is a gulf between the two, as they don’t have much of a relationship.

“They don’t interact often,” the source close to Collins said, noting that they have cordial interactions when they see each other at White House events.

“She’s not calling him about policy stuff, and he’s not calling her either,” the source added.

Instead, her preferred point of contact in the administration is Vice President JD Vance, who she became friendly with during his brief senatorial tenure.
Vance (2884x1923, AR: 1.50)Vance recently told supporters during a late-August event in the state that Collins has been to the Naval Observatory at least a half-dozen times, yet is “the most independent member” of the Senate and “sometimes makes my job just a little bit harder.”

There’s a different type of independence that will be a factor in November. For the first time during the Trump era, Collins will be running without the president on the ballot.

Although the two are like oil and water politically, they complimented each other well across the state in 2020, with Trump giving Collins a boost in rural areas while she overperformed him along the coast. She toppled Sara Gideon, her Democratic opponent, by 8.5 percentage points and cleared 50%, bypassing the state’s ranked choice system entirely.

This go-round, Collins has sought to beef up her support with some of Trump’s most ardent backers. She repaired what was once a fraught relationship with former Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage, the favorite to succeed Rep. Jared Golden in the 2nd Congressional District.

She’s relying on her record controlling federal spending bills, including what she has procured for rural areas. Collins has touted that she secured more than $428 million in earmarks for the state. She also has the financial muscle to get that message out after being drowned out by Democratic spending in 2020.

“I know the people of rural Maine. I am one of the people of rural Maine,” she said. “I think people understand authenticity and that they also appreciate how hard I work for rural Maine.”

Collins admits the race against Jackson, the former state Senate president who only entered the race after Graham Platner’s swift exit stage left after being accused of sexual assault, is not the race she expected.

“We had to start all over again,” Collins said. “This is the strangest race I’ve ever seen.”

Democrats Work to Nationalize the Race After Platner’s Messy Exit

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has maintained a defiant face about the race, repeatedly declaring that this is the year the party topples Collins. Democrats note that Collins’ approval rating has never been lower and that she votes with Trump at a healthy clip. And they stress that Collins’ vote to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominees helped put a stake in Roe v. Wade.

But Democrats in the state remain less sure this strategy will work.

One Maine-based Democratic operative argued that the path for Democrats centers around nationalizing the race and keeping Jackson as generic of a candidate as possible, something Republicans are quickly trying to change. Outside groups — and even Collins herself — have pointed to Jackson’s having two children with his longtime partner, who is his second cousin.

“If Democrats and Troy can keep this race about Donald Trump, affordability and what Susan Collins has or hasn’t done to help with those things, put a check on those things, then Troy has a path to victory, even though it is hard,” the operative said.
Troy_Jackson_Lewiston_09012026_26 copy.jpg (5600x3733, AR: 1.50)“The challenge is if this race becomes about Susan Collins versus Troy Jackson or anybody else,” they continued. “Susan Collins versus a specific person is really hard because Susan Collins is not a bad politician.”

Even Jackson’s most ardent supporters acknowledge that overcoming Collins’ long-standing ties is a high hurdle.

“I think he’s got a very challenging road ahead,” Portland’s Democratic mayor, Mark Dion, who was among those introducing Jackson at his first town hall in Lewiston, told The Sun in an interview.

The party is still picking up the pieces after Platner’s implosion in July, which forced party activists to choose a replacement that some voters are still smarting over. During his Lewiston town hall, a self-described independent who votes Democratic pressed Jackson, pointing to advertisements that “keep referring to ‘our movement’ that ‘we built.’”

“It feels disingenuous because the movement that was building was built by someone else,” said Tori Leigh. “You weren’t elected by the voters.”

“You are right. I didn’t build this movement. I’ve been saying that all along,” Jackson responded. “This isn’t about Troy Jackson. But I don’t even think this is about Graham. I think it’s about people across this state that know there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way things are going.”

Jackson peppered the rally with criticisms of Collins, arguing that she has lost touch with the state — citing her decision against holding town hall meetings. The pair recently agreed to four debates, with the first one set for Oct. 6.

The biggest roar at the town hall came when Jackson pressed that ICE should be “eliminated.”

There are also fears of an enthusiasm gap on the left.

Multiple attendees at the Lewiston event were quick to note that Platner held a standing room only event at the same location last fall that also featured a place for an overflow crowd. The Jackson event, meanwhile, featured dozens of empty seats in the back of the room.
Troy_Jackson_Lewiston_09012026_04 copy.jpg (6000x4000, AR: 1.50)The Maine-based Democratic operative argued that while state Democrats have reasons for excitement now, that’s “mostly fueled by being mad at Collins, not excited for Troy.”

Other top Democrats conceded that the winds have shifted since the Platner exodus.

“He’s not a pop star. He’d be the first one to tell you that,” Dion said of Jackson, adding that he is more than willing to trade “pop star status for competency.”

Polling since Jackson’s entrance has been limited, with a pair of surveys taken since the start of August showing him in a lead within the margin of error. Operatives from both parties are quick to note that the state is notoriously hard to poll.

Another question surrounding Jackson is whether he can win over enough independents and Democrats who’ve backed Collins over the years. If the Lewiston event is any indication, he has some work to do.

Tom Soule, a Democrat and a retired school principal from nearby Bowdoinham, noted that he’s supported Collins throughout the years but is considering supporting Jackson in order to more effectively take on Trump. He wasn’t a fan of Platner’s but showed up to check out Jackson’s pitch.

But Jackson’s inability to explain how he would enact change rather than tick through his positions on issues frustrated him.

He ended up leaving the event early, telling The Sun on his way out: “Not impressed.”

D.C.’s To-Do List for Janeese Lewis George Keeps Getting Longer

Michael Brice-Saddler — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:05:00 GMT

Council member Janeese Lewis George, D.C.’s presumptive next mayor, held a series of listening tours to hear concerns from residents. (Torrie Herrington/The Washington Sun)

In the warm, crowded basement of East Washington Heights Baptist Church, Timothy Harrison sat over a plate of soul food, waiting for his opening.

A Ward 7 resident who helps small businesses get off the ground, Harrison didn’t come to point out everything wrong with D.C. He came with a pitch — and a simple philosophy.

“I don’t complain. I want to help her fix this,” Harrison said, gesturing across a room where neighbors were busy scribbling their hopes and frustrations on colored sticky notes. “Anyone can come in with a complaint. But this is the first part of something. That’s why she deserves the right to work.”

Harrison hoped to pitch D.C.’s presumptive next mayor, Council member Janeese Lewis George, on addressing the root trauma of poverty through street-level mental health teams. It was the kind of deep, neighborhood-level dialogue Lewis George built her council career on. She paused by his row to listen, but with hundreds of other residents waiting to get her attention, the physical scale of her new mandate quickly closed in.

“Mayor, we’re running behind,” a staff member interrupted, whisking her away.

By imploring residents to be “unabashedly honest,” Lewis George has opened the floodgates to a city eager to be heard. From working-class residents east of the Anacostia River pleading for basic sanitation to progressive strongholds in Ward 1 demanding she abolish the police department, the first week of her citywide listening tour laid bare the sheer weight of her incoming transition.
_MG_0068 copy.jpg (5909x3940, AR: 1.50)With a clear path to victory awaiting her in November as the Democratic nominee for D.C. mayor, Lewis George has said she is using this in-between period to hunt for low-hanging fruit — policy shifts that don’t require massive budget fights and can also immediately prove to voters that her vision of government works.

But taking in thousands of granular demands also creates the opportunity for immense political friction, as the incoming administration must determine a way to meet voters’ expectations without collapsing beneath them.

It’s a tightrope she acknowledges openly.

“Everything y’all put on this list — the micro and macro things — we’re going to take a check and say, ‘Hey, did you do what you said you were going to do?’” she told the crowd. “We’re basically creating accountability for myself.”

A paper trail of promises

Accountability in government carries a unique and historic burden for residents like Joel Crooms. The 73-year-old says he embodies the wary optimism of a generation that remembers the tangible community investments of past leaders like “mayor for life” Marion Barry — those Crooms felt focused on direct neighborhood needs rather than corporate interests.

He compared Lewis George with the outgoing mayor, Muriel Bowser, whom he accused of prioritizing real estate developers over everyday residents. For Crooms, a resident of Ward 7, Lewis George’s success hinges on breaking that mold.

“As long as she doesn’t sell us out and turn into Bowser in two years,” Crooms said. “But you never know. Money talks.”

At Ward 8’s meeting, 18-year-old Atrayu Lee offered a different kind of generational mandate. A campaign volunteer whose political awakening began by publicly calling out city lawmakers for neglecting youth, the American University freshman challenged the city’s reliance on traditional policing to reduce crime. He implored D.C. leaders to instead make the city’s summer youth-employment program — named after Barry — a year-round affair.

He also urged lawmakers to find a way to get more mental health counselors in D.C. public schools, where he noted supply has failed to meet demand — a hurdle he faced recently as a student at Thurgood Marshall Academy.

“Instead of punishing people for circumstances that may be out of their control, let’s help them and uplift them,” Lee said.

_MG_9892 copy.jpg (5335x3557, AR: 1.50)

_MG_9853 copy.jpg (7200x3445, AR: 2.09)Yet the most volatile pressure tests for Lewis George’s progressive platform are surfacing in liberal strongholds like Ward 1, where she captured a commanding 66% of the primary vote. Inside her listening session at All Souls Unitarian Church in Columbia Heights, a friendly reception came paired with sky-high expectations.

Attendees pressed her on a sprawling docket: neighborhood trauma tied to the police department’s past collaborations with ICE; chronic battles over developer-driven displacement; and yawning equity gaps in neighborhood public schools.

The sheer volume of those expectations was visible at every stop on the tour, where residents have been encouraged to write their ideas on sticky notes and place them on oversize poster boards under headers like “Clean Up Trash Here!” and “Other Ideas You Have For Helping Your Community.”

Within hours, bright neon squares would crowd out the printed margin, creating a paper trail of demands calling for everything from 24-hour daycare to traffic-calming speed cameras.

For the thousands of residents who couldn’t cram into the overflowing listening sessions last week, the campaign rolled out an online “people’s survey” to capture even more data, making the solicitation of resident ideas a round-the-clock effort.

Back in Ward 7, Donna Morrow was eager to add to the paper trail. While most attendees staked out a single grievance per sticky note, she filled a bright purple square until her list of neighborhood repairs ran so long it spilled onto a second one.

“I’m gonna start writing them down at home as I think of them,” Morrow said. “Then I’ll call her office.”

From listening to governing

For Lewis George and her transition team, the citywide tour is designed to function as something of a stress test for her own platform. As her campaign apparatus converts into a governing machine, she’s conceded that the flood of feedback has already forced her to look past her usual legislative playbook.

After hearing an unexpectedly high volume of concerns regarding health care access and provider rollbacks, for example, Lewis George said she directed her team to pivot and more carefully consider how to incorporate the feedback into her administration’s early plans.
_MG_9993 copy.jpg (5219x3479, AR: 1.50)“That’s the difference between legislating and governing,” Lewis George told reporters after the Ward 1 session. “Governing requires me to now take into account some things that maybe I felt personally as a council member. I’m going into these [meetings] open to my mind being changed.”

Lewis George said she’d demonstrate her flexibility well before she’s sworn in. When she returns to the council following summer recess later this month, she intends to put forward legislation aimed at meeting the most urgent constituent demands, setting the stage for immediate executive action when she takes office.

Still, critics and allies alike are watching closely to see if her populist vision can survive the realities of municipal budgeting and other frictions that come with executive power.

The immediate test, Ward 1 Democratic Council nominee Aparna Raj noted, will be how she balances quick administrative wins — like easing small business permits — against the massive, multiyear battles that would likely accompany landmark proposals like social housing or universal child care.

Lewis George insists this pressure is precisely what should drive her administration. Standing among the lingering crowd as another listening session drew to a close, she embraced the challenges ahead.

“I’m less worried about disappointing people and more excited about surprising people,” she said.

Trump Offers $5,000 ‘Dividend’ to Every American Adult if Republicans Win Midterms

Gavin J. Quinton — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 02:30:39 GMT

President Trump spoke at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. (Alex Brandon/AP)

President Donald Trump promised to pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress in November’s midterms.

“Here is my promise,” Trump said Wednesday, “if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them — because of our tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything like what's happening, but because of our tremendous strength and success economically — I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

“That alone should win the midterms,” Trump said, speaking at the party’s midterm convention in Dallas. He added the only condition on the payment, which he dubbed the “Trump dividend,” is that Americans must spend that stimulus in the United States.

There are about 245 million adult citizens in America, meaning Trump’s promise would cost more than $1.2 trillion.

Speaking at the novel Republican midterm convention, Trump compared the proposed payments to a company distributing cash to shareholders and credited his economic policies and tariffs with making them possible.

Federal law bars anyone from offering financial compensation to persuade a voter to cast their ballot in favor of or against a particular candidate.

Trump did not specify when the payments would arrive or detail how the program would be funded. He has previously teased a stimulus payment from tariff money.

Wednesday’s proposal came midway through the president’s remarks in Dallas, where he cast November’s midterms as a choice between preserving his agenda and surrendering gains on immigration, taxes and public safety.

There, he urged Republicans to vote as though he was on the ballot.

“If we lose,” Trump warned, “you're going to lose your border, you're going to lose your tax cuts, you're going to lose your safety and security, you're going to lose your wealth.”

He also pledged to show up for some 35 competitive congressional races before November, promising rallies and town halls to help Republican candidates.

“They might be winning by a little, or losing by a little, or tied,” Trump said. “We can win every one of those races, but I’m going to go to every one of those states for congressmen and for senators.”

That effort, he said, would include returning to Texas to campaign for Ken Paxton for Senate.

Trump touted his economic record, celebrated immigration wins, predicted a swift end to the Iran war and called opposition to transgender women in women’s sports “one of our greatest sound bites of all time.”

More than anything, he said, Trump worried Democrats might switch their positions before Election Day: “I’m petrified that they’ll change.”

“The choice in this election is very, very simple. Democrats are asking you to vote for their failed far-left agendas,” Trump said. “And I'm asking you to let us finish the job we began with the greatest two years in the history of the presidency.”

This story has been updated with further comments from President Trump.

Fetterman Says He Won’t Leave His Party if Democrats Win the Senate

Igor Bobic — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 01:54:00 GMT

Bill Clark/AP

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman sought to tamp down speculation about his political future on Wednesday, vowing to remain a Democrat if his party wins the Senate in November.

“I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party-and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on,” Fetterman said in a statement to The Washington Sun.

Fetterman spoke out after his surprise cameo at the Republican convention in Dallas earlier Wednesday night. In a short video appearance, Fetterman criticized democratic socialists and praised his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Republican Dave McCormick. The appearance was highly unusual and drew sharp criticism from some Pennsylvania Democrats.

The senator told The Sun his comments were meant to introduce McCormick “as a great American and friend.”

“We are in different parties, but are both Team PA,” Fetterman said in the statement. “We have delivered hundreds of millions of dollars back to Pennsylvania, fought for improved transportation and affordable housing, and the Steel Way of Life.”

Speculation has grown rampant within both parties about Fetterman’s political future in recent months following his criticism of Democrats while their odds of taking control of the Senate have grown ahead of the November midterms. Some former Fetterman aides have expressed concern he could leave the party in a scenario where Democrats win a Senate majority by a single seat in November, giving him more influence.

Earlier this year, Fetterman said his “red line” for departure would be if the party officially adopts an “anti-Israel” platform. He also set up a joint fundraising committee with McCormick, another highly unusual move that raised eyebrows among his Senate colleagues.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee Loses Democratic Primary

Associated Press — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:36:21 GMT

The Associated Press called the Democratic primary for Helena Foulkes. (Mark Stockwell/AP)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Helena Foulkes has defeated Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee in the state’s Democratic primary, ending his bid for a second full term.

McKee’s defeat marks the first time in more than 30 years that a sitting Rhode Island governor has been beaten in a primary. He is the first governor in any U.S. state to lose a party primary since 2018.

Foulkes, a former senior executive at CVS and the retailer Hudson’s Bay, narrowly lost to McKee in a more crowded primary field in 2022, when the governor notably refused to take her concession call.

In their rematch, McKee has been dogged by questions about his administration’s work to replace a critical bridge in the state capital that was abruptly closed due to safety problems in 2023.

Foulkes has leveraged public exasperation over the cost and pace of the bridge project for her argument that McKee's administration isn’t working for most Rhode Islanders.

“People feel like state government just works with a powerful few,” she said. “They don’t think it’s working for them."

McKee, in response, characterized Foulkes as an out-of-touch elite who turned a blind eye to the opioid crisis during her tenure at CVS.

“The option here is somebody who wants to buy this state office who doesn’t have any credibility with their policy thoughts and someone like myself, who has a strong record in terms of working people,” McKee told The Associated Press.

Incumbent governors rarely lose party primaries. The last time it happened in Rhode Island was in 1994, when Democrat Bruce Sundlun lost to state Sen. Myrth York, ending his bid for a third term. In that race, Sundlun was facing multiple controversies and voter fatigue while York ran on reform.

McKee has been governor since 2021, when he stepped into the position after then-Gov. Gina Raimondo was tapped as U.S. commerce secretary.

In 2023, McKee closed the Washington Bridge, a vital link that carries Interstate 195 over the Seekonk River and connects Providence to its eastern suburbs, the south coast of Massachusetts. During the summer, it also carries traffic bound for Cape Cod.

State transportation officials had flagged a “critical failure” in an older part of the bridge, but demolishing and replacing it has taken longer than the governor initially estimated. Traffic continues to flow but has been squeezed into fewer lanes on a newer part of the span. This has led to lengthy commute times for many who cross the bridge daily as signs posted along the bridge thank drivers for their patience.

McKee maintains that his decisions kept people safe and that the bridge construction will be finished by 2028. He often points to Maryland, saying the Washington Bridge will be complete ahead of the replacement of Baltimore's much larger Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed and killed six construction workers in 2024 after a container ship crashed into it.

Foulkes' grandfather and uncle, Thomas and Chris Dodd, were both Democratic U.S. senators in Connecticut. She worked at CVS for 25 years, eventually becoming president of the company’s pharmacy division between 2014 and 2018. She then became chief executive officer of the Canadian retail giant Hudson’s Bay Company before leaving that job in 2020.

When pressed on her time at CVS, Foulkes argued that CVS reduced its opioid dispensing by 40% when she was president of CVS’ pharmacy division. In 2022, after Foulkes had left CVS, the company agreed to pay $5 billion to settle lawsuits nationwide over the toll of opioids without admitting wrongdoing.

The last governor to lose in a primary was former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, who narrowly lost the Republican nomination to Kris Kobach in 2018.

In the Republican gubernatorial primary, Aaron Guckian and Elaine Pelino are vying for the nomination. Guckian is a state trade association executive and was the nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022. He won the two-way primary that year with about 68% of the vote. Pelino is a former actor and first-time candidate. The state party has endorsed Guckian.

Notably, Rhode Island’s primary elections are being held on a Wednesday after state lawmakers moved the date from its typical Tuesday election day because it fell too close to Labor Day.

Only four states hold their primary elections in September: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Delaware, which has the latest primary date in the U.S., taking place this year on Sept. 15.

Sen. Tim Scott Says Democratic Senate Candidates ‘Hate’ American Culture

Torrie Herrington — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:50:23 GMT

Sen. Tim Scott focused heavily on cultural issues in criticizing Democrats. (Julio Cortez/AP)

Sen. Tim Scott accused Democratic Senate candidates of being “dangerous, radical and frankly weird” and said they “hate what it means to be American” during a speech Wednesday at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

Scott, of South Carolina, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, used his speech to attack Democratic candidates in several key Senate races, arguing that Republicans must keep their majority to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“They hate our culture,” Scott said to cheers from the crowd. “They hate what it means to be American.”

Scott singled out candidates including James Talarico in Texas, Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Troy Jackson in Maine, Josh Turek in Iowa, Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, Mary Peltola in Alaska and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

His attacks focused heavily on cultural issues.

Scott went after Talarico over his views on gender and religion, saying the candidate “claims there are six genders” and “believes God is non-binary.” Talarico is running for Senate in a race Republicans have made a major target.

Scott accused Ossoff of supporting allowing boys to play girls’ sports and criticized El-Sayed over comments Scott attributed to him criticizing football, Fourth of July fireworks and Israel.

“But worst of all, Abdul El-Sayed panders with terrorists,” Scott said, without offering evidence.

Scott’s speech came as Republicans gathered in Dallas for the party’s first-ever midterm convention, a two-day event designed to rally support for GOP candidates ahead of the November elections.

Scott closed by urging Republicans to unite behind Trump and defend the GOP’s Senate majority.

“This is a battle for the heart of our nation,” Scott said. “We will not back down. We will not grow weary.”

Missouri Redistricting Case Reaches Supreme Court — Again

Manuela Silva — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:26:23 GMT

The issue of Missouri’s redistricting is now back before the U.S. Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)

The question of which congressional map Missouri should use in the midterms is back before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The legal tussle over whether to use a 2022 map or one redrawn to favor Republicans now spans four courts and is before the nation’s high court for the second time.

On Wednesday, the citizens group People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard Von Glahn, asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court-issued order from Tuesday night that mandated Missouri use a map drawn by Republicans in 2025 that splits up one of two Democratic districts.

That legal turn came after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Denny Hoskins, the secretary of state, must use the 2022 map for the midterms.

“The Secretary has made clear that every hour the [temporary restraining order] remains in force, election officials will continue to implement a congressional map that Missouri’s highest court has held is not and never has been law,” the lawyers for People Not Politicians wrote seeking a U.S. Supreme Court intervention.

The case goes through Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Trump appointee who deals with emergency cases relating to Missouri.

Hoskins is also preparing to defend himself Thursday morning before the Missouri Supreme Court, which is threatening to hold him in contempt for giving conflicting orders as to what map election officials should use.

Missouri was one of the first states to redistrict after President Donald Trump called on Republican state lawmakers to redraw congressional maps to boost their chances this cycle.

Missouri’s state Legislature split up Kansas City in three ways, all but eliminating Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s seat.

People Not Politicians gathered more than double the amount of signatures necessary to force a referendum on the new Republican-friendly map.

Hoskins waited until the last possible day to reject the petition — the same day of the state’s primary elections. That move prompted a lawsuit by the citizens group that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which let stand Missouri’s high court ruling.

Fetterman Bashes ‘Socialism’ in Surprise GOP Convention Appearance

Gavin J. Quinton, Oriana González — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:25:53 GMT

Sen. John Fetterman spoke to the Republican convention over video. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Sen. John Fetterman staged a surprise appearance at the Republican convention Wednesday night in a video criticizing democratic socialists and praising his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Republican Dave McCormick.

“I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman promised to work with President Donald Trump to defend the Pennsylvania steel industry.

Hours after the video aired, Fetterman said in a statement that he would not leave the Democratic Party.

"I'm a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party — and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on," he said.

Questions have swirled for months over the senator’s future party affiliation, especially with Democrats now competing to win enough seats to take control of the Senate. Fetterman has consistently said he has no intention of joining Republicans, though he's at times left the door open to change. In July, Fetterman said he would switch parties if Democrats became “the anti-Israel party.” Fetterman has backed Republicans in recent Iran war powers votes and, in conservative media appearances, has increasingly supported Trump-led policies.

Fetterman wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in May that he is an “an independent voice that works with the other side to deliver for Pennsylvanians” with “no plans” to leave the Democratic Party.

“Plus,” he wrote, “I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.”

Rep. Chris Deluzio, a fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, assailed Fetterman on Wednesday night in the aftermath of his convention appearance.

“If the failing Republican politicians want him, they can have him," he said in a statement. "Like them, John Fetterman has failed the Pennsylvanians who elected him, who expected him to fight against White House corruption, health care cuts, and reckless war, not cheerlead it. He’s not going to be a Senator after 2028 — mark my words."

Eugene DePasquale, the chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, mocked the GOP convention in a statement after Fetterman's cameo, while not explicitly mentioning the senator.

"We aren't going to be distracted by GOP stunts like this video or a weak midterm convention held by a party that's entirely dedicated to enabling Trump's ego and defending his disastrous agenda while Pennsylvanians pay the price," he said.

Beating Republicans, he added, "will remain our entire focus" between now and November.

Fetterman’s video served as an introduction for McCormick's speech at the Dallas gathering. Axios reported that McCormick helped arrange the appearance. In his video, Fetterman fell short of announcing a party switch.

“He’s in a different party, but I’m proud to count him as my great friend,” Fetterman said.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Scott Martin, a Republican who watched the video from the convention floor in Dallas, told The Washington Sun that there was “symbolism” in Fetterman’s appearance.

“I think it’s the willingness to work hand in hand for two U.S. senators to focus on different issues that greatly impact Pennsylvanians,” he said in an interview. He wouldn’t go much further in speculating about Fetterman’s future.

“I know there's a lot swirling on in Democratic Party politics related to him, and they'll obviously deal with that,” Martin said. “But as long as he's a U.S. senator willing to work hand in hand on the issues that are really important to help a Pennsylvania that desperately needs to grow economically and demographically, I'll take them working together.”

He did say that if Fetterman ever switched parties, he believed his party would welcome him.

The Democratic senator’s appearance comes less than a week after he was denounced by many in his party for neglecting his senatorial duties.

Fetterman’s term ends in 2028, and he has not confirmed whether he will seek reelection.

Blanche Departs From DOJ Norms With a Speech at Republican Convention

Derek Hawkins — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:15:50 GMT

Attorney General Todd Blanche is appearing on a roster of speakers that includes numerous congressional candidates. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Attorney General Todd Blanche is set to speak Wednesday night at the most partisan of events — the Republican Party’s midterm convention — weeks after a Senate confirmation fight that focused largely on his potential to politicize the Department of Justice.

Blanche is scheduled to take the stage between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET at what has been billed as a “Trump-a-palooza.” He is appearing on a roster of speakers that includes numerous congressional candidates, other administration officials and President Donald Trump himself.

His planned remarks at the arena in Dallas represent a sharp departure from Justice Department norms and would have been barred by department policy had Trump administration officials not quietly changed the rules last year, according to former DOJ officials.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee criticized the move, accusing Blanche of violating federal law — ostensibly the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activities of federal employees. “Amazing how far the DOJ has fallen,” the committee’s Democrats said on social media.

In response, the Justice Department said Blanche was appearing in his “personal capacity,” that his appearance was legal and had been “approved by ethics.”

Blanche already broke with DOJ tradition last month when he spoke at a political rally in New York and praised a Republican candidate for governor.

His speech Wednesday is without modern precedent. In 1964, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy spoke at the Democratic National Convention, but to pay tribute to his late brother, former President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the previous November.

Attorneys general and other senior law-enforcement leaders generally don’t participate in overtly political events to avoid the appearance of using the immense weight of the Justice Department to tip the balance in an election, former DOJ officials said.

“The idea that Todd Blanche could speak at this type of event and people not take it as an official speech of his office is pure fiction,” said Joseph Tirrell, a former DOJ senior ethics official. “And he could very well ruin the fiction altogether if he says anything that makes clear he’s speaking in his official capacity, or if he starts talking about election enforcement. If he mentions where he works, if he mentions activities or programs by the Department of Justice, even if he says good things about protecting elections and making sure they’re as free and fair, that’s crossing the line.”

Blanche's close alignment with Trump, including his role as the president's former criminal defense lawyer, came up repeatedly in his confirmation hearing over the summer. Democrats pressed him on whether he could be trusted to maintain the Justice Department's historic independence from the White House.

During the proceeding, Blanche fumbled a softball question on the issue from Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), saying of Trump, "I'm his lawyer," before correcting himself to say he “was his lawyer, and now I’m the deputy attorney general.” In a “Meet the Press” interview after his confirmation, Blanche refused to say he’d act independently from the White House.

The Hatch Act limits the political activities of two groups of federal employees: those known as “less restricted” and “further restricted.”

The “less restricted” group includes most career employees in the executive branch, as well as some political appointees, who are permitted to advocate for candidates or political organizations as long as they don’t do so in their official capacity.

The “further restricted” group covers officials in leadership positions. This includes national security leaders and others directly involved in law enforcement, as well as Federal Election Commission officials and other agency heads, who must adhere to much tighter limits.

Long-standing DOJ policy considered all political appointees in the department — even those who weren’t Senate-confirmed — as falling into the latter category. The policy was written more than 20 years ago and reauthorized with minor tweaks across Republican and Democratic administrations.

“They basically can vote, they can donate money, they can put campaign signs in their yard, and that’s really about it,” said Tirrell, who served as the Department of Justice’s ethics director until then-Attorney General Pam Bondi fired him last summer. “They can speak about a candidate in personal capacity, but they can’t do it in coordination with a campaign.”

Officials in the DOJ’s upper echelons were discouraged from attending even relatively small events to avoid the appearance of bringing the department’s imprimatur to a political campaign. Tirrell said he advised DOJ officials in prior administrations not to speak at local holiday events because others on the speaker docket were elected officials running for office. Even that presented an ethical concern, he said.

“That’s how far away from crossing the boundary we tried to keep people,” Tirrell said. “Even appearing on stage by a podium with a candidate for office was considered too fine a line. Even during the first Trump administration, this is the advice that was provided and this is the advice that was heeded, because they hadn’t taken the step to rescind that rule.”

Stacey Young, a former longtime Justice Department trial attorney who now heads the DOJ alum network Justice Connection, said DOJ leaders from both parties had long held political appointees to a high standard when it came to keeping partisan politics out of government.

“The American people must trust that the department's legal judgments are impartial and insulated from politics,” she said in a statement. “The Attorney General knows this, yet sees no problem speaking at political rallies in New York and now at the RNC. These actions are extremely damaging to the department he leads, whether they comply with the letter of DOJ's recently weakened policy or not.”

Former Attorney General Eric Holder called Blanche’s speech "disgraceful" in brief comments to NewsNation on Tuesday. “Attorneys general don’t talk about political things,” Holder said. “He shouldn’t be there.”

ICE Opens a Tip Line to Report Undocumented Truck Drivers

Gavin J. Quinton — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:47:59 GMT

The new tip line asks Americans to report any truck driver they suspect of being undocumented. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin launched a new tip line Wednesday for reporting individuals who have fraudulently applied for a commercial driver’s license.

The new tip line, run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asks Americans to report any truck driver they suspect of being undocumented. It’s the latest move in the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraudulent commercial driver’s license holders following a number of high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers.

“Too many American lives have been lost or permanently changed because illegal aliens who have no business being on our roads have been granted CDLs,” Mullin said.

In March, some 200,000 truck drivers began losing their commercial licenses after the Department of Homeland Security announced that asylum seekers, refugees and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would no longer be eligible to obtain or renew CDLs, which are required to operate buses, semitrucks and tractor-trailers.

And though Homeland Security pointed to a series of fatal accidents around the country, federal data does not indicate that noncitizen commercial drivers cause a disproportionate share of fatal crashes, and the Transportation Department has previously said there is not enough data to establish a relationship between immigrant truckers and fatal crashes.

At a March congressional hearing, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) said at least 17 of a total 5,134 fatal crashes in 2025 involved undocumented immigrants driving commercial vehicles.

A social media post from DHS featuring a 30-second animation made in the style of a vintage cartoon called “Fraud Roadsters” garnered thousands of views on X, with many republishing the video and calling for action.

“I'm going to drive on I-35 tomorrow for however long it takes to find and report at least 10 foreigners,” one user said on X.

“REPORT EVERYONE THAT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE NOT AN AMERICAN,” wrote another.

Several civil rights groups have opposed the crackdown, aiming to reverse what they call discriminatory license cancellations. They have accused the Trump administration of using isolated crashes to portray immigrant drivers broadly as a safety threat and drumming up profiling incidents of immigrant drivers.

In a July court filing, a coalition that included the Sikh Coalition, the Asian Law Caucus, United Sikhs, Stop AAPI Hate and Truckers Movement for Justice said the administration was using immigration status as a proxy for safety. The groups asserted that the Trump administration’s policy has exposed immigrant drivers to a greater number of commercial-vehicle inspections as “a pretext for immigration arrests.”

Trump Says He’d ‘Consider’ Pardoning Michael Cohen

Jenna Monnin — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:34:48 GMT

Michael Cohen and President Donald Trump have two decades of history between them, and it now appears that the president’s former fixer is trying to get back in Trump’s good graces. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

President Donald Trump said he would “consider” a pardon for his former fixer turned foe, Michael Cohen.

Asked if he planned to pardon his former attorney, Trump told reporters Wednesday he had “never been asked that question” and reiterated that he believed Cohen had recanted his testimony in the New York fraud case against him.

“If everything is checking out, it's something I would consider,” Trump said before departing for the GOP midterm convention in Dallas. “What they did to Michael Cohen was a disgrace. They forced him to say things that he didn't want to say and that he didn't believe.”

Trump added that he appreciated that “although late, he came out and rectified the situation.”

The relationship between Trump and his former attorney soured after the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018. A judge sentenced Cohen to three years in federal prison in November of that year in connection with a hush money scheme, while Trump remained in the Oval Office.

Trump and Cohen seem to have reconciled of late; the president appeared on his former attorney’s radio show last month. On Sept. 4, Trump claimed Cohen “fully recanted his testimony” — though Cohen has not made any statements formally retracting specific claims he made in the legal or congressional record.

Cohen and Trump have two decades of history between them, and it now appears that the president’s former fixer is trying to get back in Trump’s good graces. Washington Sun reporters spotted Cohen on Wednesday at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

Trump has previously called Cohen a “convicted liar, felon and jailbird” after he turned against him during his congressional testimony and later in Trump’s criminal trial.

Cohen said he was “ashamed that [he] chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts” and called the president a “racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat,” during his testimony before Congress in 2019.

Cohen was also the star witness during Trump’s criminal trial in 2024 on hush money payments made to two women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. Cohen said that Trump directed him to “take care of it” and knew about the $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

States Say Compliance With USPS Ballot Rule Would Take ‘Herculean’ Effort

Adora Brown — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:34:47 GMT

The Trump administration has asked the justices to lift a lower court decision that has blocked key parts of the USPS rule through Election Day, Nov. 3. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)

Nearly half the states and voting rights groups are warning the Supreme Court that it might be impossible to comply with a new U.S. Postal Service rule for the midterm elections.

Amid the Trump administration’s legal push to implement the rule, new filings on Wednesday from 23 states, the District of Columbia and voting groups stressed that the USPS has not developed key parts of the system that would heap additional work on state election officials.

“The efforts that state and local elections officials would have to undertake to even begin an attempt at compliance are herculean,” the filing from the states says.

“Each step of this process is fraught with an extreme risk of error,” it continues. “And even if state and local officials were somehow able to implement the new rule perfectly, there is a high risk of technical breakdown, ineptitude, and delay on the part of USPS.”

The Trump administration has asked the justices to lift a lower court decision that has blocked key parts of the USPS rule through Election Day, Nov. 3. It is the latest development in a legal clash that has already been to the Supreme Court once, and now puts the issue back before the justices.

The states argue the harms to the election outweigh the government’s fears about the possibility of voter fraud. In the published rule, the USPS wrote that it has the legal authority to carry out the rule, “whether or not voter fraud is common or uncommon.”

That, the filing says, unravels the administration’s argument that there will be “irreparable harm” if the courts don’t allow the USPS to enforce the rule.

With the midterm elections just weeks away, the states and voting groups emphasize that complying with new rules on how to vote by mail could disenfranchise millions of voters.

That includes an approval process for ballot envelopes — which many states have already purchased for their primaries and may have to return — and upgrading systems to comply with a new Intelligent Mail barcode, or IMb, for every ballot.

For California, that requirement would mean updating the systems in all 58 counties. California’s statewide voter-registration system “is not currently equipped to receive IMb information for individual voters from county election management systems,” the state’s filing says, and those county systems are not prepared “to store and transmit” IMb information.

The process also requires uploading the information of every eligible voter into the USPS Ballot Portal. That database is untested and completely new to election officials, who will need to train staff on how it’s used, the states told the justices.

North Carolina has already begun to mail out ballots, and a handful of other states are mailing ballots in September.

Wisconsin, which has to send out ballots by Sept. 17, added in the filing that it would be impossible for it to comply.

“Wisconsin’s envelopes could only become mailable under the new USPS rule if the State’s elections officers could ‘print and hand-affix stickers with the Rule-compliant IMb codes on’ each envelope,” the filing said. “But that labor-intensive solution invites errors that risk disenfranchising voters.”

Voting rights groups added that the changes this close to an election would disenfranchise eligible voters, particularly those who “must vote by mail due to age, disabilities, language-assistance needs, college attendance, residence in rural areas, and other reasons.”

The USPS has made it clear that if a batch of ballots has errors, which could include thousands of ballots, the ballots will not be delivered. With no margin for error but a lack of safeguards for states that would have to use new technology and systems, voting rights groups expressed little confidence that the new rules would not disrupt the voting process.

“And even if compliance were possible, the members would still face substantial risk of disenfranchisement, given the high likelihood that millions of ballots will be rejected from the Rule’s rushed implementation and zero-tolerance verification regime,” voting rights groups said in the filing. “Disenfranchisement is not only ‘predictable,’ it is ‘Unavoidable.’”

Democrats in Congress Plan to Investigate AI Companies

Oriana González, Igor Bobic — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:29:23 GMT

Rep. Robert Garcia vows Democrats will investigate AI companies if they win the majority. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images) Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP

DALLAS — Democrats in Congress are planning to investigate artificial intelligence companies if they win the majority in November — plans that emerged after a former Anthropic researcher said AI technology would eventually end humanity, The Washington Sun has learned.

“There’s going to be a lot of interest from the House Democratic Caucus to immediately begin this process,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in an interview Wednesday. “Anytime you have folks talking about AI moving towards extinction of human life, I think that's got to rise to the top of priorities for us in Congress.”

In the Senate, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) sent a letter to Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urging them to create a bipartisan select committee on AI at the beginning of next Congress to conduct hearings and investigations.

“A dedicated, bipartisan committee with the … staff, authorities, and access to classified and technical briefings necessary to conduct sustained oversight is the response this moment requires,” Gallego wrote in the letter, which was shared first with The Sun.

The plans emerged after Jacob Coxon, a former researcher for Anthropic and OpenAI, announced on X he resigned from Anthropic over concerns that “neither company is acting responsibly” with the technology and are racing to improve software models with no regard for the existential threat AI poses to the global economy and human civilization.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger,” Coxon said.

Evan Hubinger, a current researcher working for Anthropic, concurred with Coxon: “Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” he said on X.

“I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to,” Hubinger added.

Garcia, who is likely to become Oversight chair if Democrats win the House in November, told The Sun he found Coxon’s claims “disturbing” and said Congress “has to move quickly.” Garcia is in Dallas doing Democratic counterprogramming while Republicans are gathered in the city for their midterm convention.

Gallego told Senate leadership that “Congress's current committee structure is not built” to police a rapidly developing technology that evolves every few months.

“Jurisdiction over AI is scattered across multiple Senate committees, each with a focused lens but none with the full picture,” the senator from Arizona wrote.

A select committee on AI, Gallego said, would give Congress “a dedicated venue for direct, sustained engagement with industry, academia, national security officials, and labor.”

“Congress should not wait for a catastrophic failure, widespread economic disruption, or a national security crisis before building the institutional capacity necessary to understand and respond to this technology,” he added.

House Democratic leadership is reportedly considering creating a select committee on AI, Politico reported, and other Democrats have called for a pause on AI development.

“There has to be public hearings; and we can get answers not just from those that are building this AI right now, but also the CEOs who are leading these companies,” Garcia said.

Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to The Washington Sun’s requests for comment.

Bernie Sanders Plans AI Briefing for Fellow Senators

Torrie Herrington — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:50:04 GMT

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced legislation in March that would pause construction of new AI data centers until national safeguards are in place. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders is bringing his campaign to slow the development of artificial intelligence to his Senate colleagues, organizing a bipartisan briefing for next week that will feature some of the country’s leading AI researchers.

Sanders sent a “dear colleague” letter to senators urging them to attend the Sept. 16 briefing, which will focus on the potential risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems, according to Axios, which first reported the letter.

“Congress needs SERIOUS discussions about this issue,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will be convening a private briefing with some of the leading experts in the world to discuss this recent incident and the extraordinary dangers that AI poses for humanity.”

The event will feature Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist often called the “godfather of AI;” Max Tegmark, a physicist and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute; and AI researcher Ajeya Cotra, according to the letter, which was later reported by Politico.

The briefing comes as Sanders has escalated his push for Congress to put the brakes on the AI industry.

Last week, Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) announced legislation that would permanently prohibit the development and deployment of artificial superintelligence while temporarily pausing the development of advanced AI until a federal regulator establishes safety rules. The bill would also direct the U.S. to pursue international agreements aimed at preventing the development of superintelligence around the world.

The briefing also comes after a viral screed by a former Anthropic researcher who resigned over the company’s “out of control” development. The employee, Jacob Coxon, also worked at OpenAI and said “neither company is acting responsibly.”

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon posted on X. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

Sanders has also taken aim at AI companies he views as irresponsibly developing the technology.

In an August letter to the CEOs of Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI, Sanders called on the companies to immediately pause AI development, arguing that they had acknowledged instances in which their systems operated outside their intended safeguards. He warned that companies were racing ahead with technology they could not fully understand or control.

Sanders has also separately pushed for a federal moratorium on new AI data centers, arguing that the rapid construction of facilities needed to power AI is creating costs for communities and workers while the government has yet to establish adequate safeguards.

He and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) introduced legislation in March that would pause construction of new AI data centers until national safeguards are in place. Sanders has argued that the pause would give lawmakers time to address AI’s effects on jobs, electricity demand, the environment, privacy and democracy.

“We cannot allow a handful of billionaires, eager to increase their wealth and power, to rush forward with a technology that will fundamentally transform humanity without democratic input or accountability,” Sanders wrote in an April op-ed.

Trump Wants the Census to Stop Collecting Race and Ethnicity Data

Natalie Alms — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:33:36 GMT

The Census Bureau proposed adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, an effort the Supreme Court blocked. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) Matt Rourke/AP

For the first time, the federal government wants to stop collecting race and ethnicity information about Americans as part of the nation’s census, a move that could undercut market research, public policy, scientific study, civil rights enforcement and more.

In a proposal published Wednesday, the Census Bureau argued that collecting demographic data doesn’t advance the “fundamental” purpose of the decennial census to dole out seats in the House of Representatives.

Among its citations for the planned change is the Supreme Court decision that limited states’ ability to draw minority-majority districts by gutting a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

The census proposal confirmed researchers’ fears that President Donald Trump would target race and ethnicity data collection as an extension of the administration's efforts to systematically scrub LGBTQ+ data from government datasets, as The Washington Sun has previously reported.

“The census is our nation’s denominator,” Denice Ross, the U.S. chief data scientist in the Biden administration, told The Sun. It’s the “foundation for all analyses about demographics.”

Prohibiting questions in the decennial census about race, ethnicity or sexual orientation is one half of a sweeping, two-part proposal. The Census Bureau is also proposing to exclude noncitizens without a green card from the population count.

Both changes would have massive implications for the American public.

The removal of many non-U.S. citizens from apportionment data — which would probably be challenged in court — would affect how seats are allocated in the House of Representatives and how Electoral College votes are distributed.

Many states also use federal census data for redistricting, and race and ethnicity data is used to inform public policy, market research and more.

Race and ethnicity breakdowns in maternal mortality data, for example, are difficult to interpret without the baseline provided by the decennial census, said Ross, who now works on federal data policy at the Federation of American Scientists. She worries that other federal agencies will now also stop collecting race and ethnicity data in forms and surveys.

“There’s no substitute for the census data on this,” said Howard Fienberg, the senior vice president for advocacy at the Insights Association, which represents the market research industry.

That industry, he said, relies on demographic data from the census to benchmark studies.

“That’s trillions of dollars in the economy that’s being put at risk if they don’t have the decision-making tools that we’re able to provide,” Fienberg said. “Procter and Gamble is not going to figure out this new breakfast cereal by talking to every single person in the country.”

Scientists also use the race and ethnicity data collected in the census to study things like population aging, adolescent development and more, said MaryJo Mitchell, the director of government affairs for the Population Association of America, which represents researchers like demographers, economists and epidemiologists.

Demographic data from the census is fundamental to even getting started by creating a representative sample, she said.

“We're looking at undoing centuries of standard census practices that have really defined what it means to have a decennial census,” she told The Washington Sun of the proposed changes. Every decennial census, which began in 1790, has included questions on race.

The other half of the new proposal resurrects failed attempts from the first Trump administration to change who is counted in the census.

The Census Bureau proposed adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, an effort the Supreme Court blocked. Trump also tried in his first term to remove immigrants without lawful status from the apportionment count, although that effort was ultimately not implemented.

The latest proposal would mean that people such as refugees, people seeking asylum, undocumented immigrants and people in the U.S. with work or student visas would not be included in the data used to divide up seats in the House among the states.

How exactly the Census Bureau plans to exclude certain people from its products is unclear.

The Census Bureau says it is considering drawing on records across the government, including information housed at the Department of Homeland Security, as well as commercial data to determine people’s legal status.

Accurately linking up different datasets is extremely difficult, however, said Beth Jarosz, the vice president of the Association of Public Data Users, meaning that U.S. citizens could be flagged as noncitizens if the Census Bureau undertakes this data-matching exercise.

“They would absolutely, in essence, disenfranchise people accidentally,” Jarosz said.

The proposal also says the Census Bureau “could” add a question about legal status on the census questionnaire itself.

Research has found that adding a citizenship question to the decennial census would reduce the number of respondents and disproportionately affect populations that are already hard to count, like those without documentation.

The AP Will Keep Using ‘Lake Ontario’ Despite Trump’s Renaming Effort

Jenna Monnin — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:44:24 GMT

"Canada, as well as other countries and international bodies, are not required to recognize the name change, and Canada has said it will not," the Associated Press style guide notes. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The Associated Press said it will not refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America” unless it's deemed “relevant,” despite President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the body of water.

The AP provides a leading style and formatting guide for journalists, and the publication has faced criticism from the Trump administration for keeping the original names of other landmarks.

“The Associated Press will refer to Lake Ontario by its original name, including the name Trump has chosen when relevant,” AP spokesperson Patrick Maks said in a statement to The Washington Post published Wednesday. “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are recognizable to broad audiences.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the guidance from the AP.

Trump’s Aug. 27 executive order directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect Lake Ontario's name change. The president personally applied pressure on companies like Apple to make the update.

The name change for the body of water that borders both the U.S. and Canada comes as the two countries are locked in an escalating, tit-for-tat trade war.

“The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote last month on X in opposition to Trump’s order.

The AP’s online stylebook points to that dispute: “The border between the United States and Canada runs through Lake Ontario. Trump's order only affects how the United States government refers to the body of water. Canada, as well as other countries and international bodies, are not required to recognize the name change, and Canada has said it will not.”

Since the start of his second administration, Trump changed the names of several bodies of water and land features, and he has recently teased renaming states to display more America-centric titles.

The AP did not follow Trump’s lead to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” The publication cited its status as a “global news agency that disseminates news around the world” and asserted that the “body of water has shared borders between the U.S. and Mexico,” so Trump’s executive order would only carry weight in the U.S.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also did not comply with Trump’s directive to rename the gulf, saying, “For us it is still the Gulf of Mexico, and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico.”

The AP did abide by Trump’s order to rename Alaska’s Denali as Mount McKinley. Even though lawmakers changed the name in 2015 from McKinley to Denali — which translates to “the tall one” in Alaskan Native languages — Trump pushed to “restore the name of a great president.”

“The area lies solely in the United States and as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country,” the AP wrote in its style guidance on the mountain.

Minnesota Man Arrested During Trump’s ICE Surge Sent to Guantánamo

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:21:59 GMT

A control tower overlooks Guantánamo Bay’s Camp 6, a detention camp that was repurposed in 2025 to hold migrants. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Adam Abdullah’s criminal record in Minnesota consists of two parking citations for failing to move his car during snow emergencies. The Somali national paid both tickets — $56 each — in early 2025 within days of the charges, according to Minnesota court records.

But months after a run-in with federal immigration agents in December as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge, he’s now sitting in Guantánamo Bay, the infamous military prison historically used for terrorism suspects.

He told Minnesota Public Radio that he had been living legally in the United States with a work permit and a Social Security number since arriving in 2023 as an asylum seeker. He’s one of at least eight Somali nationals currently being housed at the military facility, he said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records confirm Abdullah is in custody at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp 6, a detention camp that was repurposed in 2025 to hold migrants.

Abdullah’s attorney, Marc Prokosch, told The Washington Sun that he suspects there are political underpinnings behind the eight Somalis’ detention at the storied prison.

Abdullah “was trying to do everything the proper legal way, and he is by far not a criminal,” Prokosch said Wednesday. “I do feel that there is some political motivation to the Guantanamo aspect here.”

President Donald Trump has targeted Somalis since his return to office, referring to immigrants as “garbage” and calling Somalia a “hellhole.” In January, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals.

It remains unclear to Abdullah why he has been detained at Guantánamo Bay. He was told at first that it was a refueling stop on the way to Somalia, and authorities have not provided any further information about his status or why he has remained there for two weeks.

Abdullah said he has also not received an explanation as to why immigration agents stopped his vehicle and detained him in December during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

“When they come to me, and I ask them why you pulled me over, they say, ‘We are immigration, so give me your work permit,’” Abdullah told Minnesota Public Radio, which was the first to report on his detention. “And I asked them, ‘Do you have a warrant, and what’s the reason to pull me over?’ And they say, ‘We don’t need a warrant. We are immigration, and we know you are Adam Abdullah.’”

Prokosch, who represents Abdullah, told The Sun that his client was targeted as part of ICE’s Operation Metro Surge

“With the whole Somali issue in Minnesota with this administration, it's clear that there were people that were targeted, and obviously Adam was one of them,” Prokosch said.

Abdullah said detainees in Guantánamo Bay have limited access to phone calls and physical activities. He said he’s able to talk to fellow detainees for a few hours during the day.

Prokosch said he and Abdullah have only been able to speak about the case once over a direct phone call.

“If I have a client that's detained anywhere within the 50 states, I can go to that facility as an attorney and ask for a private room,” Prokosch said. “But when you're being held at Guantanamo, I can't do that … I have no assurance — especially with what this administration has been doing, that any conversations I have would be confidential.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Wednesday that the recent flight to Guantánamo Bay included “some of the worst of the worst,” with criminal histories that included allegations of aggravated assaults, weapons offenses, robbery, trespassing, unauthorized use of a vehicle and multiple drug charges.

“President Trump and Secretary Mullin will not allow criminal illegal aliens to terrorize American citizens,” the statement said. “If you come to our country illegally, you could end up in Guantanamo Bay or even another third country.”

DHS did not respond to follow-up questions on Abdullah’s criminal record.

Abdullah’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump signed an executive order days after his inauguration to expand Guantánamo Bay’s Migrant Operations Center, a detention facility traditionally used to process migrants intercepted at sea, so it could house “high-priority criminal aliens” prior to deportation.

The first group of detainees arrived in February 2025 as legal challenges quickly mounted to prevent the transfers. The Trump administration continued to send groups to Guantánamo Bay throughout 2025, temporarily housing migrants in tent cities and occasionally sending them back to stateside detention centers.

In May, CBS News reported that six Haitian migrants were being held at Guantánamo Bay. It’s unclear how many migrants are currently being held there.

This story has been updated to include comments from Abdullah’s attorney.

Buying Back Bonds Bigger

Jenna Monnin, Brett Bachman — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:19:10 GMT

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:19:10 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/afternoon-sun-newsletter/tps-tbd

The Treasury plans to buy back $6 billion of its own debt as part of its efforts to curb rising bond yields. The amount has tripled from the originally announced $2 billion buyback last month. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Good afternoon, and welcome to The Afternoon Sun, formerly known as Final NOTUS! Read more about our new era as The Washington Sun here, but you can expect the same newsletter and comprehensive coverage of national politics and policy.

THE LATEST

Temporary Protected Status was set to expire for around 200,000 Salvadorans today, but the Trump administration has left their status in question.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that until further notice, “Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”

New financial disclosures show that Donald Trump gave several of his close aides — including executive assistant Natalie Harp — a “cash gift” of $45,000 each.

The White House said the gifts are “entirely permissible” under the law because they “have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties.”

THE ADMINISTRATION

A Minnesota man from Somalia with no apparent criminal record — save for two parking tickets — is being held in Guantanamo Bay after being detained by immigration authorities in December. Adam Abdullah told Minnesota Public Radio that he’s one of at least eight Somali nationals being held at the facility.

The White House removed the “Build the Wall” game from its controversial arcade website, just days after the gaming company behind Tetris raised copyright infringement concerns.

The Treasury plans to buy back $6 billion of its own debt as part of its efforts to curb rising bond yields. The amount has tripled from the originally announced $2 billion buyback last month.

THE HILL

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from FBI Director Kash Patel on Sept. 15 — the day after senators are set to return from recess.

THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Abdul El-Sayed called for a pause on the development of artificial intelligence after viral warnings from several top AI researchers that the technology’s “out of control” progression could lead to widespread disruption and even human extinction.

The Michigan Senate candidate called it a “break glass moment” in an exclusive interview with The Sun this morning.

A former top aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton endorsed state Rep. James Talarico in a splashy new campaign ad.

David Maxwell, who was part of a group of Paxton aides who reported their boss to the FBI in 2020, said the Republican Senate nominee “ended my five decade career because I blew the whistle on his corruption.”

DEEP BREATHS

https://x.com/paularambles/status/2097547797444911520?s=20

Thank you for reading! Today’s newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe and Erik Schutz. If you liked it, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please sign up — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at newsletters@washsun.com.]]>

Maine Gubernatorial Candidate’s Sister Says She’s Voting for His Opponent

Avani Kalra — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:15:02 GMT

Bobby Charles, the Republican nominee for governor in Maine, called for a broader discussion over disagreements with his sister. (Rich Abrahamson/The Central Maine Morning Sentinel via AP/File)

A sibling dispute is now playing out in the governor’s race in Maine, where the sister of Republican nominee Bobby Charles said publicly that she’s supporting his opponent.

Anita Charles, a Lewiston resident, wrote in the Portland Press Herald that she and her brother have never agreed politically but have historically managed their divisions with “civility.” But, she said, an increasing amount of divisive language in her brother’s campaign has motivated her to endorse the Democratic nominee, Hannah Pingree.

Anita Charles wrote in the op-ed that the pair’s mother taught them to respect diversity and treat others with “dignity” while growing up in Maine.

“Those lessons shaped my entire life, as well as my career,” Anita Charles wrote. “They are also the reason I cannot support my brother’s campaign for governor.”

Noting she has been a “lifelong educator,” Anita Charles said she specifically opposes her brother’s proposed policies for Maine’s education system and criticized his comments on the public school system.

Bobby Charles has expressed support for a Republican-backed agenda that increases parental involvement in curriculum and ends diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools. He’s dubbed the program a “no-nonsense” plan.

“I do not believe Bobby has set foot in a public school since he was 18,” Anita Charles wrote. “He has not witnessed what Maine educators do every day, yet he speaks with false certainty about what is wrong with our schools. He’s a D.C. lobbyist who spent more than 30 years in Washington.”

She also noted her brother’s relationship with disgraced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who admitted to sexually abusing teenage boys and covering up the abuse. Anita Charles wrote that she was the victim of sexual violence by an adult as a child, a fact she said her brother has known for more than 50 years.

She added that her brother’s position on abortion is also difficult for her to accept as a victim of sexual assault. Bobby Charles has called himself “unapologetically pro-life.”

“Maine deserves leadership rooted in empathy, dignity, intellectual honesty and respect for every person who calls this state home,” Anita Charles wrote. “That person is not Bobby. That is why I cannot, in good conscience, support my brother’s campaign for governor. I’m casting my vote for Hannah Pingree.”

Bobby Charles told local media Wednesday that he loves his sister and called for a broader discussion over their disagreements on various policy issues including education, public safety and abortion, News Center Maine reported.

The candidate grew emotional while speaking about his sister’s assault, clarifying his views on abortion.

"I don't believe in late-term abortion, he said. “I don't think the public should be paying for abortions, but it's not my big issue. And to be honest, that kind of a situation is so horrifying that, of course, there are exceptions.”

A poll commissioned by the Portland Press Herald and The New York Times and conducted by Siena Research in June found that Pingree had a sizable lead over Charles, with 50% of voters saying they’d vote for her to Charles’ 36%.

Bobby Charles’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Sun.

Alexandria Leaders Want to Get Rid of the City’s Flock Cameras

Kendall Staton — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:50:52 GMT

Aaron M. Sprecher/AP

The city of Alexandria wants to get rid of its Flock automated license-plate-reading cameras amid nationwide pushback against the company for reported misuse of its data.

Mayor Alyia Gaskins and multiple City Council members called for review and potential removal of Flock-brand cameras over concerns of potential invasions of privacy. Other cities across the country have reported abuse, such as officials using the license-plate readers to stalk ex-partners and track people's movements unrelated to any crime.

The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm based in Arlington, has documented more than 200 alleged instances of misuse across the U.S. since 2018. There are also concerns the information could be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to unlawfully track immigrants.

“I do not think there is a role for Flock in this community,” Gaskins said Tuesday at a City Council meeting. “There is still a role for technology … but there is agreement that we need to be moving away from the current vendor that we have.”

Getting rid of Flock cameras doesn’t necessarily mean the city will scrap license-plate cameras altogether, but there is a consensus among leaders that the city should move forward with a different vendor if it chooses to keep using the technology.

The Alexandria Police Department has 61 Flock cameras, the first of which were installed in 2023. There may be more automated license cameras in city limits, but those are maintained by other entities such as private land owners or education institutions. City cameras delete data after 21 days unless associated with an active investigation.

In the past month, the city has run 327 searches in its Flock database, according to a newly published online portal. The city has data-sharing agreements with 161 other jurisdictions within Virginia, but Alexandria Police Chief Tarrick McGuire said at Tuesday’s meeting that no agencies outside of the commonwealth, including federal agencies like ICE, are able to access the city’s cameras.

McGuire said internal audits show zero instances of misuse within the department, but reporting from the Alexandria Times showed the police had documented 56, most of which stemmed from officers not giving proper explanations as to why a search was run. McGuire said the Police Department has multiple safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the Flock system, such as internal auditing and restricting access to trained personnel.

“As leaders, our responsibility is not to choose between public safety and civil liberties. Our responsibility is to ensure that both are protected,” he said Tuesday. “The Constitution … requires us to govern in a way that safeguards the rights of individuals while protecting all persons in our communities.”

The city can terminate its contract with Flock at any time. No official action or proposal to withdraw has been taken. The city is in talks to secure an independent auditor for the system, which City Manager James Parajon said should be finalized in about a week.

Trump Says Oil Prices Will Remain High Until After the Midterms

Associated Press — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:34:13 GMT

President Donald Trump said the Iran war would end "immediately" after the election. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

By AAMER MADHANI

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that oil prices that have surged because of the Iran war likely won’t come down until after U.S. midterm elections.

Oil prices on Wednesday jumped more than 3%, pushing international Brent crude past the $100 threshold for the first time since July as salvos between the U.S. and Iran escalated.

“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.”

Trump, in an exchange with reporters before traveling to Dallas for the midterm Republican convention, added that he believes Iran will finally relent after the pivotal elections are held in the U.S.

“I think the war’s going to end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer,” Trump said.

The president at the outset of the war said it would last a matter of weeks. The conflict is now in its seventh month. The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of Gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world’s petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.

The comments were a striking acknowledgment from Trump about the conflict as his Republican administration faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran grinds on with no conclusion in sight.

Trump last week downplayed the conflict as “small potatoes" even as Republicans expressed concern the war will loom large with voters left navigating elevated gas prices and higher inflation.

The U.S. has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.

Trump's prediction that the war won't be wrapped up until after Nov. 3 comes after Vice President JD Vance last week steered clear of predicting that the conflict would be over by the midterm elections, in which Republicans are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in Congress.

Vance told reporters he didn’t want to set “artificial timelines” for the war's end.

“But when you ask, ‘When will this end?’ You’re asking me a question like, ‘When will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?’” Vance said. “I think the reality is, I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.”

U.S. benchmark crude on Wednesday gained 2.4%, pushing the price to $95.25 a barrel, and U.S. gasoline prices rose sharply overnight.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline ticked up 7 cents overnight t o hit $4.22, now more than a dollar above what it cost at this point last year, according to AAA.

Diesel prices, which can have an outsize impact on consumers because it is used in shipping and production, hit an all-time high Friday and have continued to climb since. The average price per gallon rose to $5.94 overnight, up 9 cents from Friday.

Jet fuel has become so expensive that U.S. and international carriers have cut flights while raising fares and fees.

Markets reacted after the U.S. military reported striking five Iranian tankers in response to attempted missile attacks on a Navy warship and after attacks by an Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group ignited fires at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
___

AP writer Cathy Bussewitz contributed reporting.