Washington Metro News

Is he coming to our capital city over the Fourth of July weekend?

Will he welcome fans, players, military, families, kids and media at opening ceremonies on July 2?

Will he be on crutches?

How long will he stay?

Will he tool around Congressional Country Club's Blue course in a golf cart, acting host? Read more...

“There is a ton to do.” That’s what D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty told me recently when he visited my Institute for Education INFO breakfast for his annual “State of INFO” address.

Fenty has drawn headlines recently for his rigorous fitness regimen. He’s up early every day, and runs several miles a few times a week. He runs triathlons, marathons, hustles around town daily, not to mention being a father to two young boys — enough to wear out even the heartiest of souls.

But the mayor’s fitness regimen is a metaphor for his drive to succeed. You can see it in his eyes. During our early-morning breakfast, he captivated the group on a range of topics. He talked about former Baltimore mayor and now-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, one of Fenty’s mentors during his run for the mayor’s seat in 2006. Read more...

Our capital city’s mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, came to my Institute for Education INFO breakfast last week for his annual “State of INFO” address.

Let’s flash back to last year: Elected by winning every precinct in the District — yes, he won every precinct, trouncing then-City Council Chairwoman Linda W. Cropp — Fenty took office last January and came in charging like a bull. Two BlackBerrys and all.

He quickly took control of the city’s schools and appointed a novice chancellor to lead them. (Read my column about Chancellor Michelle Rhee here. Fenty told us he “drank the Michelle Rhee Kool-Aid” from the start.) He appointed the city’s first female police chief, Cathy Lanier — who rose up the ranks in the department and was supported by highly regarded former Chief Charles H. Ramsey. Read more...

Deborah Palfrey, better known as the D.C. Madam, according to reports hanged herself in a storage shed behind her mother's mobile home in the small Gulf Coast city of Tarpon Springs, Fla.

Who can ever forget the fear and rumblings in our fair city of Washington, D.C, when after Palfrey's indictment she gave volumes of her phone records to ABC News and posted them on the Internet, resulting in public identification of some prominent and powerful clients with families and careers that were threatened to be destroyed?

Remember Palfrey's former employee Brandy Britton, a former college professor who hanged herself in her Howard County home in January 2007, shortly before her scheduled trial on prostitution charges. Is this all coincidental, or do we have the makings of another Marilyn Monroe conspiracy developing? Read more...

Want a better way to start your day? Want to bridge the divides that too often break us apart in Washington?

Yesterday, a host of Washingtonians — White House staffers, diplomats, journalists, philanthropists, businesses, military personnel, members of Congress — together with our capital city's mayor took to the banks of the Anacostia River to run, jog or walk three miles before work. All for an important cause.

Participants in the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) Capital Challenge signed up as teams. California Rep. Jane Harman (D) headed the "Harmaniacs." Mayor Adrian Fenty captained the Fleet Feet team, Alan Holmer from the Treasury Department headed up the Jacksons and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) helmed Team Ensign. Read more...

It's that special time of the year here in the nation's capital. The cherry blossoms have bloomed. Our baseball team has cranked out its annual allotment of 150,000 "Wait Till Next Year" T-shirts. And the reporters and politicians are breaking bread as they temporarily cohabitate at any one of 136 annual black-tie dinners honoring the press, the First Amendment, and the 21st Amendment, for that matter ...

The Gridiron. The Alfalfa National Press Foundation. White House Correspondents. Insect World. All God's children have a dinner this time of year and if you ARE someone, or HOPE TO enter into at least the outer fringe of someoneness, you must attend at least one of these dinners sooner or later ... Read more...

April 17, 2008, our capital city, Nationals Park, Mark Tuohey’s suite, 7 a.m.

Nationals Park presents itself as light and airy. The weather has been delivered from heaven. The music takes us to the heavens.

I hear a 65-voice Intercultural Choir with members from 35 countries singing in French, Zulu and Spanish, among others. A 250-voice Papal Mass Choir and a 175-voice Children's Choir singing in Latin. An 80-voice Gospel Choir singing in 10 languages out across the stadium. Now I am in some celestial place. Read more...

For 52 years, the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation has been keeping local kids off the streets by providing them a safe haven to do homework, play tennis and set personal goals. WTEF has a 100 percent graduation rate in which kids frequently achieve athletic and academic scholarships.

When tennis legend and world class philanthropist Andre Agassi came to our capital city on April 11 to receive WTEF’s Champion of Tennis Award, it was an event to remember. Agassi hit the courts at the Fitzgerald Tennis Center with Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and various local media and business big shots thrilled to huff and puff with the famous champ. Read more...

On the front page of The Washington Post today came this story: “In his seven years, Randy Castro has been an aspiring soccer player, an accomplished Lego architect and a Royal Ranger at his Pentecostal church. He also, according to his elementary school record, sexually harassed a first-grade classmate.”



The story went on to say, “During recess at his Woodbridge school one day in November, when he was 6, he said, he smacked the classmate's bottom. The girl told the teacher. The teacher took Randy to the principal, who told him such behavior was inappropriate. School officials wrote an incident report calling it ‘Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive,’ which will remain on his student record permanently. Then, as Randy sat in the principal's office, they called the police.”

So this is what we have become as a society. Calling the police on a 6-year-old boy when he smacks a girl on the rear end.

And people wonder why our schools are in such trouble. Read more...

Across the nation, the dropout rates for high school students are appallingly high.

Here in the District of Columbia, where schools are being closed throughout the city, more than 40 percent of our students drop out, an inexcusable number in the capital of our nation in 2008.

I've been a baseball fan all my life, was a student athlete in school, and in fact I was once offered a tryout for the Dodgers at third base (though I told the scout he caught me on a good day, and I'd last an hour in spring training!).

As predisposed towards sports as I am, I think it's outrageous and ridiculous that the powers-that-be of our community rally like the 101st Airborne at Normandy to build a high-priced new baseball stadium, while schools are being closed and more than 40 percent of our kids don’t graduate. Read more...