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    Michael Grass

    Michael Grass

    Editor, HuffPost DC

  • LOOK: Strange Device Spotted On Metro Train

    Last week, celebrity image consultant Brian "SynKami" Boler was on his way to a local gym and snapped this amazing photo of a woman who drove a Smartcar-like vehicle onboard a Greenbelt-bound Green Line train. Dan Stessel, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, said the transit agency is aware of the vehicle which "definitely raised some eyebrows" at Metro headquarters.

  • Reports: White House Will Use 'Taxation Without Representation' License Plates

    After mounting pressure from District of Columbia officials and local voting rights activists, the White House plans to use D.C.'s "Taxation Without Representation" license plates on President Obama's limousine starting this weekend. "President Obama has lived in the District now for four years, and has seen first-hand how patently unfair it is for working families in D.C. to work hard, raise children and pay taxes, without having a vote in Congress," Keith Maley, a White House spokesman, writes in a email statement.

  • Controversial UVA Figure Set For New 4-Year Term

    The Republican leader of the Virginia Senate plans to vote to confirm Helen Dragas to a controversial second four-year term on the University of Virginia board of visitors. The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee is expected to take up Dragas' confirmation this afternoon. Dragas, initially appointed to the board by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in 2008, as rector led the board's unsuccessful attempt to fire Sullivan.

  • Maryland Governor Announces Sweeping Gun Control Plan

    Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Monday broad details of a plan that would give Maryland among the nation's strictest gun laws. No one could buy a handgun without first passing a training course and providing fingerprints to a police database. "There is a sickness in this country, and that sickness is gun violence," O'Malley said, repeating a phrase he has used in the weeks since the December shooting that killed 20 children.

  • 'New York Times' Neighborhood Descriptions Roil D.C. Residents

    How would you describe the U Street corridor? If you're a writer or editor at The New York Times, you might think U Street is "scruffy." That's the word reporter Adam Liptak used to describe the area where Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor lives in a new feature story. "Scruffy" was a curious description and one that was questioned and mocked on Twitter.

  • Supreme Court Justice Reveals Major Gripe About Nation's Capital

    Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who moved to the nation's capital in 2009 to serve on the high court, has learned a thing or two about living in D.C., especially about the fine art of complaining about local quality-of-life issues. "I go to New York, I order food, it's at my door in 10 to 15 minutes. O.K.?" she said in an interview in her Supreme Court chambers.

  • Gay Judge's Controversial Appointment Back Before Virginia Legislators

    The General Assembly's judicial appointment subcommittees meet today to consider the full-time appointment of Richmond's Manchester General District Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland -- the first openly gay person to serve on the bench in the commonwealth. If the Courts of Justice Committees of the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate certify his nomination for a six-year term, it will again be put to a vote of the GOP-dominated House, where it foundered last May in a late-hour decision that angered and embarrassed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. With the job left unfilled, the judges of Richmond's Circuit Court in June appointed Thorne-Begland, a highly respected former Richmond prosecutor, to fill the vacant Manchester judgeship on an interim basis.

  • Honey Pig Rumors Untrue

    The recent "scuttlebutt" about Annandale, Va.'s much-loved Honey Pig Gooldaegee Korean Grill possibly coming to D.C.'s H Street corridor was just that, scuttlebutt. After PoPville floated rumors about Honey Pig eyeing a spot at 4th and H streets NE, Washington City Paper checked in and confirmed that there are no current plans for expansion in D.C. Honey Pig, which has locations in Centreville, Va., and Ellicott City, Md., will be, to the delight of many, opening up a new spot in Germantown, Md., in about 6 months.

  • This Man Could Cause A Huge Political Headache In Virginia

    Results of a recent poll on the 2013 Virginia governor's race show Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling trailing well behind if he were to launch an independent candicacy against Democrat Terry McAuliffe and fellow Republican Ken Cuccinelli. "I think they show that there clearly is a legitimate opening in this case for a more independent voice," Bolling said in an interview Wednesday evening. Bolling was referring to January polls conducted by Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac University.

  • Bob McDonnell Proposes 'Game-Changing' Tax Change

    On the eve of the 2013 General Assembly session, Gov. Bob McDonnell proposed increasing the state's sales tax and eliminating the gasoline tax in an overhaul of how the state funds transportation. If lawmakers approve the plan, Virginia would be the first state in the country without a gas tax. In the last full session of his term McDonnell is seeking a solution to the road-funding problem that has vexed Virginia lawmakers for decades.

  • LOOK: Marion Barry's 'Psychic Intuition' About The Redskins

    Former District of Columbia Mayor and current Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) has never been shy about tweeting what's on his mind. The Redskins, naturally, have been a major topic of conversation, especially has the team made the playoffs for the first time since Barry was mayor of the nation's capital. "Dan Snyder is in Maryland, the team is in Maryland, and we get nothing," the so-called "Mayor for Life" later told The Washington Post.

  • Judge Hands Cuccinelli Big Victory

    Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Gov. Bob McDonnell are hailing a decision by a federal judge that the Environmental Protection Agency may not regulate stormwater runoff as a pollutant. U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady in Alexandria ruled late Thursday in favor of the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which challenged the EPA's restrictions on the flow of stormwater into Accotink Creek. The EPA sought to restrict the flow of stormwater into the creek to deal with sediment.

  • Councilmember Presses White House On Sensitive Local Issue

    A member of the District of Columbia Council hopes to send a renewed message to the White House about an issue of intense local pride. The Obama administration has chosen not to use D.C.'s politically charged local license plates that carry the message "Taxation Without Representation," a reminder that residents of the nation's capital do not enjoy full and equal representation in Congress like U.S. citizens in the 50 states. D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), according to the Examiner, wants a vote on "a sense of the council" resolution that advocates for the White House to use the special license plates in time for Obama's Jan. 21 Inauguration.

  • Virginia Gun Sales Soar To New Record

    Gun transactions in Virginia totaled 432,387 last year, a 35 percent jump from the 321,166 transactions in 2011, according to the latest Virginia State Police figures of mandatory criminal-background checks of gun buyers. Gun sales in December alone rose a staggering 79 percent over the same month in 2011 -- from 41,957 to 75,120 -- the largest month-over-month increase in the program's history. The state's surging gun sales outpaced the nation as a whole.

  • O'Malley Gets Green Light For Death Penalty Move

    Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Wednesday that he will make sure that legislation to repeal Maryland's death penalty gets a vote in his chamber if the governor lines up enough support for approval. Despite his personal support of the death penalty, Miller said, he would give Gov. Martin O'Malley the opportunity to win passage of such legislation -- which has been bottled up in a Senate committee. "If he shows me the votes, if he's got the votes on the floor of the Senate, then we'll find a way to move it forward," Miller said in an interview.

  • LOOK: Plans For New Bridge, Traffic Circles Unveiled

    District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray has released design plans for a new South Capitol Street bridgespan over the Anacostia River. The current Frederick Douglass Bridge is deteriorating and the span's condition may necessitate a future ban on heavy trucks if a new structure is not built, according to the mayor's office. "The time has now come to replace this 63-year-old bridge," Gray said in a statement released Monday.

  • Movin' On Up?

    Behind-the-scenes jostling for committee chairmanships in the U.S. Senate has left Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski poised to take over the Senate Intelligence Committee -- a move experts said Tuesday could bolster the role cybersecurity plays in the state's economy. Mikulski, the most senior member of the Senate without a committee chairmanship, is in position to receive a committee gavel following a domino-like series of moves that began this week with the death of the Senate's most senior lawmaker, Hawaii Democrat Daniel K. Inouye.

  • Marion Barry Strikes Again!

    Marion Barry sure has a way with words. Earlier this year, the former District of Columbia mayor and current Democratic councilmember representing Ward 8 had unkind words for "dirty" Asian businesses his constituents have to shop at. Amid a legislative dispute over a bill addressing job discrimination for formerly incarcerated criminals, Barry recently accused D.C. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Barbara Lang of being a "traitor" to her African-American heritage for opposing his bill, according to The Washington Post.

  • McDonnell Makes 'Fiscal Cliff' Move

    McDonnell on Monday unveiled his wish list of proposed amendments to the current two-year, $86 billion fiscal plan in his annual address to the General Assembly's money committees. McDonnell also said he would refuse to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and reiterated his position not to create a state-based health exchange to implement the act. On roads, McDonnell is trying again to pull a greater portion of the state's sales tax from the general fund to pay for transportation -- which legislators rejected this year.

  • D.C.'s Murder Rate Falls As Gun Crime Remains Problem In Nation's Capital

    It's clear that the nation's capital is no longer the nation's murder capital. With District of Columbia police on track to record less than 100 homicides in 2012, "[i]t strikes me quite often how different things are now," Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said in late November, when the murder count stood at 78. It's a far cry from the early 1990s during the grim days of the crack epidemic when nearly 500 people were killed in D.C. during one particularly horrific year and violent crime was a dominant element of the city's identity.