Owner Daniel Snyder is contemplating setting up shop in D.C., Maryland or Virginia after the lease on FedEx Field expires in 2027 — assuming he stays on as owner, given the mountain of scandals piling up on him. In the meantime, many economists say public subsidies to fund football stadiums are a windfall for wealthy team owners and a waste for taxpayers.

• More Washington Commanders News
• Commanders send letter to FTC denying financial impropriety
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“I would say football is really the poster child for investments that don’t pay,” , a professor at Temple University and expert in sports economics, told �鶹����.

“You’re talking about building a structure that’s going to cost, these days, a billion or over a billion dollars that is used for its primary purpose eight or nine times a year. I can’t see how that’s going to be an engine for growth in a city or state,” he said.

How does it work?

Most football stadiums in the U.S. today are built using at least some taxpayer money. State and local governments issue tax-free bonds to finance the construction of stadiums, meaning taxpayers — not the NFL or team owners — are on the hook for that debt.

Revenue from the stadium, including concessions, parking, luxury boxes and licensing, goes to the owners. Taxes from that revenue go to pay off the bonds, a process that can take decades. Local governments often raise taxes in other areas to help pay off the debt.

Team owners say the investment pays off in the long run because stadiums provide an economic boost to a community.

But many economists say governments are better off investing that money — which often runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars — into schools, infrastructure and other public services that generate far more money for the community than stadiums do.

“Over the years, there have been,” said , director of state and local policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Stadiums have been examined, up, down, backward, forward … and the nearly unanimous assessment is that they don’t provide broader economic benefits for the community. They don’t create jobs; they don’t boost incomes; they don’t boost GDP; they don’t do any of the things that the community should care about.”

Construction jobs, for example, are temporary, while others, such as in concessions, are low wage and limited.

Garofalo also said “stadiums don’t exist in an economic vacuum. If people aren’t able to go to a football game, it’s not like they will just like sit around in their basement doing nothing, twiddling their thumbs, wishing for a football stadium to exist so that they could go to a football game.”

People might go to the movies or a restaurant or some other activity that generates money for local businesses, he said. “Stadium proponents like to act as … if every dollar that is spent in there would not have been spent otherwise,” but “studies show that most of it is just shuffled-around entertainment spending,” Garofalo said.

He said that for a large metro area such as D.C., the economic benefits of a stadium are “sort of a blip.”

“Whereas if you could capture all of the tax revenue that was coming out of the stadium and apply it to things that really make a difference in people’s lives — health care, education, fixing potholes, rides on the Metro, whatever you want it to be — that money could just go a lot further.”

More than parking lots  

Stadium supporters argue that in areas that aren’t well developed, stadiums can spur the creation of surrounding retail, restaurants and other businesses that do generate money for the city and state. Snyder has said he wants his stadium to be an entertainment destination that draws people year-round.

“If you’re proposing to just build a big stadium with a huge parking lot around it and nothing else for miles, I would be hesitant to buy into that,” said , a professor at George Mason University who has worked in sports and entertainment marketing, including with the Washington Football Team.

“If you’re proposing a stadium that also has other reasons to visit that area and it builds an entire community around it, including maybe some residential as well, then potentially it’s something worth looking into,” Perry said.

Leeds, of Temple University, said that argument only makes sense if “we have a wasteland, a garbage dump, that has absolutely no other possible use. If there is some other use for this that would lead to tax revenue, then that doesn’t hold.”

He argues that politicians who claim a stadium will catalyze development are “basically saying we do not have the political guts to do what we’re supposed to be doing anyway” — investing in schools, housing, infrastructure and other public services.

Pride over profits

Perry and others cite the intangible benefits or hosting a football team — i.e. pride in the hometown team. Leeds and Garofalo agree that sports bring people together, but they say owners and governments should be honest when making their case that the public is financing pride, not profit.

“If that is what a city wants, that is great,” Leeds said. “I love going to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. It’s beautiful. It’s a wonderful way to spend a summer evening, but I don’t kid myself that this is making Philadelphia rich.”

Spurring or riding D.C. revitalization?

Garofalo said not all sporting venues are created equal. Some pay off. He cited Capital One Arena, which hosts 220 events a year, including Wizards and Capitals games as well as concerts and other events. Perry credited Capital One — which was financed almost entirely with private money — with revitalizing D.C.’s Penn Quarter when it was developed nearly 25 years ago.

Likewise, many credit Nationals Park for driving the development of the Navy Yard in Southeast D.C., but unlike Capital One, the District wound up paying more than $700 million to build Nats Park, which hosts roughly 80 games a year. Garofalo also questions whether Nats Park had anything to do with the Navy Yard’s growth.

“I think it rode the revitalization wave that occurred across the city,” he said, pointing out that neighborhoods such as Mount Vernon and Columbia Heights all developed without a baseball stadium. “So I think the stadium proponents … want to take credit for what was naturally occurring anyway.”

Not everyone is playing ball

Leeds said NFL owners are “masters” at getting cities to identify with a team. “They play at this identification until they want a new stadium. Then it’s kind of strictly business.”

Washington Commanders President Jason Wright recently that the team isn’t trying to pit D.C.-area governments against each other, and that any new stadium would be a “franchise-turning investment” with substantial contribution from Snyder.

Snyder might certainly need to up his game because any desire among D.C., Maryland and Virginia to compete for a new stadium may have cooled dramatically in light of the controversies that have tarnished the team’s reputation — from pervasive allegations of workplace harassment to more recent allegations of deceptive business practices that include withholding ticket revenue from visiting teams and refundable deposits from fans.

None of it has exactly endeared Snyder to fans — or local leaders.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan accused the Commanders of “trying to pit everybody against each other, but we’re not going to get into a bidding war over them. And we’re not going to be proposing $1.2 billion to build them the stadium,”

On April 12, Hogan signed legislation that would make up to $400 million in bonds available for development around FedEx Field — whether the Commanders stay there or not.

Hogan told reporters the measure “wasn’t really about the Commanders.” Rather, the money would be used to transform the area into a residential, retail and entertainment hub along Metro’s Blue Line.

Meanwhile, officials in D.C., where Snyder has said he’d like to see the team land, seem lukewarm to a stadium, at best. Mayor Muriel Bowser has said she’d welcome the Commanders but not at any price, and her latest budget did not include money to renovate RFK Stadium to return the team there.

Rather, she proposed a new indoor sports complex at the neglected site as part of larger revitalization, echoing Hogan’s call that the development happen with or without an NFL stadium. But the federal government owns that land, so any move to turn RFK into a football stadium would have to be approved by Congress — possibly a tall order, considering the House is investigating misconduct by Snyder and the team.

That leaves Virginia, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state lawmakers initially backed the creation of a football stadium authority to oversee the financing of what could be a “mini-city” anchored by the stadium. But the legislation to create the authority has been delayed and may not be taken up until a special session of the General Assembly convenes in late April.

State lawmakers are still hashing out a bid, which reportedly might come than the $1 billion that was floated in February.

Some lawmakers in Congress don’t want Virginia to shell out anything for a stadium. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) has to prevent the use of federal tax dollars to subsidize the construction of sports stadiums. “Super-rich sports team owners like Dan Snyder do not need federal support to build their stadiums,” Beyer, who represents Northern Virginia, said in a news release. “Billionaire owners who need cash can borrow from the market like any other business.”

What is Snyder thinking?

If D.C., Maryland and Virginia don’t offer Snyder a lucrative package, could he uproot the team and go somewhere else entirely? Garofalo said owners often wield the “cudgel” of threatening to move, but he doubts Snyder is going anywhere.

It’s not out of the question, though.

“You’ve seen NFL teams do some pretty amazing and what seems like crazy and stupid business decisions,” Leeds said.

In part that’s because the NFL shares revenue on ticketing and merchandise. “The one thing that tends not to be shared … is venue revenue. And if a city is willing to cut a good enough deal on stadium construction and the venue revenue — we’ll give you luxury boxes, we’ll let you keep the revenue from all the other acts that come through and use the facility, we’ll give you the parking revenue, we’ll give you this, we’ll give you that — that is in a sense where the money is” for the owner.

Perry, of George Mason University, said politicians “have to be careful not to get too caught up in the ego game” of landing a football team, “because if they make a bad deal, eventually people will figure it out and they won’t be so happy.”

He added, “I think both sides need to have skin in the game. And in some cases, probably the owner needs to have more skin in the game than the local community.”

The art of the deal

Some cities are figuring out they don’t need to have as much skin in the game as they thought.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, for example, the public’s share of the money used to build stadiums for the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans ranged from 70% to nearly 100%, .

But much smaller contributions began to emerge in later years, such as the 9% stake the public had in building the 49ers stadium in San Francisco in 2014 and the 14% stake the public had in the Atlanta Falcons’ stadium in 2017.

Leeds said that when cities began to say no to team owners, “the sky didn’t fall.”

On the other hand, stadiums that used to cost around $300 million to build 20 years ago today easily top $1 billion.

For example, the public’s share to build a stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020 amounted to about 40%, but taxpayers still had to put up $750 million for the $2 billion stadium.

“So I think you are seeing a significant decline in the percentage of funds that cities are putting up. That said, the dollar amounts of these facilities have gone so high that they’re still paying an incredible amount,” Leeds said.

In the most recent NFL stadium deal, New York officials agreed to shell out $850 million for the Buffalo Bills’ new $1.4 billion stadium.

New York commissioned the private consulting firm AECOM to see how much revenue it could expect to get back from the Bills. the team would generate about $27 million a year in various taxes. The bulk of that money — $19.5 million — is actually state income tax paid by players, coaches and staff.

Garofalo called the amount that New York is plowing into the Bills’ stadium “bonkers considering how depressed the Buffalo economy is.”

“Spending [nearly] a billion dollars on just about anything in the Buffalo area would be better than the stadium,” he said.

Source

But one expert says we shouldn’t be alarmed by this latest surge, just yet.

“Over the last several weeks, there’s been a significant increase in the number of cases of what we call the BA. 2 variant, which is the new variant of omicron that’s dominating the United States,” CBS News medical correspondent Dr. David Agus told �鶹����.

“But I think the important point is that there is no increase in the hospitalizations in most of the cities, and that is because there is significant immunity from vaccination and from prior infection, and that is preventing serious illness,” said Agus, who is also a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California.

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Agus said that with more people doing home tests, the number of positive COVID cases is probably far higher than the official numbers, but what matters most are hospitalizations.

“When hospitals are full, we can’t care for cancer patients or heart patients or others, and the whole community suffers. And so that is the metric we have to follow as a country, and it makes total sense,” he said.

“I think we’re nearing the end of what we call a pandemic in that the virus isn’t dominating us,” he added. “That being said, what we’re worried about is that this virus is changing daily, and we’re worried a new variant can come along and evade the vaccines and evade the immunity that we have.”

Those worries are being amplified by the discovery of two new subvariants — BA. 4 and BA. 5 — that have appeared in Africa and Europe.

Agus said that so far there’s been no evidence that these new subvariants are evading immunity or that they’re more contagious or deadlier than BA.2.

“And so we’re certainly not right now on edge over these, but it’s something that we’re paying attention to,” he said.

“Over a million years of evolution, the human genome changed 1%. This virus can change 1% on a day. So it is changing. So it is in our interest … that everyone on the globe be vaccinated for COVID-19.”

That’s why Agus criticized recent moves in Congress to strip international aid from a $10 billion COVID response bill that lawmakers have been trying to hash out.

“Because if a variant happens, someone gets on a plane [and] can unknowingly transmit here,” Agus said. “We are a mobile world, and so we are a flat world in that regard. And so it really matters to each of us what goes on globally.”

Not only should the U.S. work to ensure that the rest of the world is vaccinated, it should do the same thing at home, where only 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated.

That figure doesn’t include boosters, which Agus said are critical as the coronavirus continues to mutate and vaccine immunity wanes.

Contrary to some misconceptions, Agus said this waning immunity is not a sign that the science behind the vaccines has failed.

“The virus is changing, and therefore we have to keep immunity at a very high level,” he said. “So that third or fourth booster I think are critical for all of us to do that.”

Source

“It is important that our brand accurately represents the health system’s mission and vision for the future,” Chris Lane, VHC Health’s president and CEO, said in a news release, adding that the new name reflects the community-centered health care that the medical system offers across Virginia, Maryland and D.C.

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“Our new tagline ‘For you. For life.’ reflects our desire to serve as a health partner for lifelong care, bringing our services into the surrounding region to provide the care our patients need most.”

VHC Health, based in Arlington, recently marked several milestones, including the completion of a new garage and the opening of several new physician offices. A new outpatient pavilion is slated to open in early 2023.

The new displays will be rolled out Friday, with all facilities expected to be fully rebranded by the end of the year. The new name and logo will be featured on the VHCHealth.org website, on social media platforms and VHC Health physician offices opening throughout the region.

The 453-bed hospital facility has been operating in the D.C. area for more than 75 years and is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, a national network of independent health care organizations.

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Daniel Beckwitt was convicted in 2019 for the death of 21-year-old Askia Khafra, who had been hired to dig tunnels beneath Beckwitt’s home in Bethesda.

Beckwitt’s original sentence was nine years, three years of which he’s already served. On Tuesday, the court resentenced Beckwitt to 10 years in prison but suspended five of those years.

That means Beckwitt now has two more years in jail to serve, instead of the six years he originally had left.

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Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Margaret Schweitzer said that Daniel Beckwitt is already statutorily eligible for parole because he has served more than a quarter of his sentence. For that reason, she also sentenced him to five years of supervised probation after his release and ordered him to perform 250 hours of community service.

“I hope this is your opportunity to give back to our community,” she said. “I hope you do what you can do, which is use your intelligence for good.”

In 2017, Beckwitt had invested money in a company Khafra was trying to launch as he helped Beckwitt dig the network of tunnels. Beckwitt reportedly had a fixation on a possible nuclear attack by North Korea.

Prosecutors said Khafra worked in the tunnels for days at a time, eating and sleeping there and urinating and defecating into a bucket that Beckwitt lowered to him. The tunnels had lights, an air circulation system and a heater.

In September 2017, after a defective outlet sparked a fire, firefighters found Khafra’s naked, charred body in the basement of the trash-filled house. Prosecutors said the extreme hoarding conditions in the home prevented Khafra from escaping.

A hole in the concrete basement floor led to a shaft that dropped down 20 feet (6 meters) into tunnels that branched out roughly 200 feet (60 meters) in length. Investigators concluded the blaze was ignited by a defective electrical outlet in the basement.

At the trial, Montgomery County prosecutor Marybeth Ayres said Beckwitt sacrificed safety for secrecy and created “death trap” conditions in the house.

Defense attorney Robert Bonsib told jurors the fire was an accident, not a crime. The lawyer said Beckwitt screamed for help from neighbors and risked his own safety in a failed attempt to rescue his friend.

Beckwitt was sentenced in 2019 to nine years in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree “depraved heart” murder and involuntary manslaughter.

But a state appeals court overturned the “depraved heart” murder conviction in January 2021, saying Beckwitt’s conduct did not demonstrate “an extreme disregard for human life reasonably likely to cause death.”

The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, also upheld Beckwitt’s involuntary manslaughter conviction, kicking the resentencing back to the Montgomery County Circuit Court.

On Tuesday, Beckwitt told the judge he apologizes for bringing Khafra to his home and not keeping him safe.

The judge said she believes that Beckwitt’s “intellectual arrogance” misled him to believe that everything would go as he planned at the house. She expressed sympathy for Khafra’s family and said she understood why his father is frustrated.

“Please do not equate the number of years (in prison) to the value of the victim’s life in this case,” Schweitzer said. “It just can’t happen.”

After the resentencing, Maryland State’s Attorney John McCarthy issued a statement saying, “Our thoughts remain with the Khafra family who continues to grieve the loss of their son, Askia, every day. Today Judge Schweitzer sentenced at the top of the Maryland sentencing guidelines for a manslaughter charge. We respect the sentence and the legal process that brought us here.”

The Associated Press and �鶹����’s Dick Uliano contributed to this report.

Source

The organization is investigating the incident, which happened at around 6:30 a.m. on Monday in Southeast D.C. near Pomeroy Road and Sheridan Road. It was caught on several (Editor’s note: The video may be upsetting to some viewers).

Bestselling author Don Winslow is offering a $20,000 reward in addition to the $2,500 reward offered by the Humane Rescue Alliance for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person responsible.

The Humane Rescue Alliance is also seeking the public’s help in obtaining additional surveillance footage of the incident. It’s asking anyone with doorbell or surveillance cameras to review their footage from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Monday, March 28, for potential sightings of the suspect, particularly from the following streets in Southeast D.C.: Pomeroy Road, Sheridan Road, Elvans Road, Morris Road, Stanton Road, Maple View Place, Mount View Place and Martin Luther King Jr. Place.

Anyone with information or footage can call the Humane Rescue Alliance at 202-723-5730.

“As a humane community we can have zero tolerance for despicable violence toward animals, and we intend to fight cruelty wherever it exists,” said Lisa LaFontaine, president and CEO of the Humane Rescue Alliance, in a news release. “Our officers rely on your tips to rescue vulnerable animals and stop the cycle of cruelty and violence. We ask anyone who has information about this case to please come forward as soon as possible, and hope this reward helps. We won’t rest until the suspect is apprehended and the dog is safely in our care.”

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DC Fire and EMS said in a tweet that one person was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and several others had to be rescued from the fire on the 1500 block of Park Road NW.

Update 2 Alarm Fire 1500 block Park Rd NW. have extinguished all visible fire after intense battle. Prevented fire from spreading to adjacent buildings. Still opening up hitting hotspots. No further injuries. Investigators on scene. Number of displacements anticipated

— DC Fire and EMS (@dcfireems)

At least 28 people have been displaced and are being helped by the Red Cross and other organizations.

DC Fire and EMS said that the fire had been extinguished after an “intense battle” in which firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading to nearby buildings.

Investigators are on the scene.

• More D.C. News

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Bitterly cold temperatures and wind gusts will grip the D.C. area Sunday night into Monday, although warmer weather is expected to return Tuesday.

Cold air continues to enter our region from the west, said Storm Team4 meteorologist Clay Anderson. Strong winds gusting up to 25 mph to 30 mph could be joined by some light snow flurries through the early evening in parts north and west of the metro area. Both will help plunge temperatures into the the mid 20s closer toward D.C. But the wind will make it feel more like 20 degrees inside the Beltway and teens in the suburbs to the north and west.

A second burst of cold air will keep things chilly tomorrow, with winds steady at 15 mph to 20 mph, although gusts near 30 mph are possible.

Temperatures will take another tumble Monday night, with 20s in the D.C. area and teens and even single digits in far western zones. Wind chills will make those temperatures feel even colder.

But temperatures then climb to more seasonable levels, with a high near 50 on Tuesday and into the 50s by Wednesday. On Thursday, we could see temperatures rise to near 70, although rain is likely to be in the mix as well.

Forecast:

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mainly clear skies. Frost possible. Northwest winds 10 mph to 20 mph. Temperatures in the low 20s.

MONDAY: Partly sunny, blustery and cold. Highs in the middle 40s.

MONDAY NIGHT: Mainly clear skies but still cold and windy. Northwest winds 10 mph to 20 mph. Lows in the low 20s in the D.C. area and teens north and west of I-95.

TUESDAY: Sunny and not as cold. Highs near 50.

WEDNESDAY: Increasing clouds and milder. Highs in the upper 50s.

THURSDAY: Warm and rain likely. Highs near 70.

Current conditions:

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Amtrak said the changes are because of track and infrastructure improvements. Below are the modified schedules, which are also listed on :

• Scheduled departure and arrival times of Acela and Northeast Regional trains may change by three to 10 minutes in both directions between Boston, New York and D.C.
• Acela Train 2152 will replace 2150, operating approximately one hour later.
• All Acela trains will depart D.C. 10 minutes before the hour.

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Now, on the 50th anniversary of one of America’s most enduring political scandals, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery examines how artists captured Nixon’s ignominious downfall in “.”

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The exhibition, on view from March 25 to Sept. 5, is made up of 25 objects ranging from photography to sculpture to iconic Time magazine covers.

Those Time covers are actually part of a vast trove, said Kate Clarke Lemay, acting senior historian of the National Portrait Gallery and curator of the exhibition.

“We have around 2,000 portraits that Time Magazine donated to us over the years that were featured as cover art,” she told �鶹����. “So it was a great opportunity for us to showcase one of the real gems of our collection that I don’t think a lot of people know about.”

The magazine devoted 40 cover stories alone to the Watergate scandal, 12 of which are on display in the new exhibition. They join other pieces that offer a unique lens through which to view the series of events that began with the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices inside the Watergate complex and culminated in Nixon’s resignation two years later.

Throughout that turbulent time, the media relentlessly pursued the story, but so did artists, and their visual commentary also made a powerful statement about Nixon’s abuse of office.

In many ways, the work of investigative journalists, political cartoonists and artists bounced off each other, creating a vivid picture of a dysfunctional presidency.

In the exhibition, sometimes the picture that emerges is serious, other times it’s playful. Lemay said she enjoyed mixing up fine art, pop culture and other genres.

“We have some fabulous portraits by Richard Avedon, who’s a major photographer and an artist of portraiture. We also have these really funny, kind of crazy sculptures,” she said.

One of those is by Marisol Escobar, who carved a likeness of Nixon and Henry Kissinger side by side in marble, reminiscent of Mount Rushmore.

“So there’s some playfulness in this portraiture that I think helps us understand the different levels that were involved in the media’s presentation of the Watergate scandal. And I’m very pleased to … put them in conversation with very, very serious portraits,” Lemay said.

But even the dignified portraits take on a different light knowing how behind the scenes many in Nixon’s circle worked to cover up their transgressions.

Artist Stanislaw Zagorski plays on this dichotomy with his portrait of John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel, who became a key witness in the prosecution of his boss.

“It’s a really nice portrait of his face, and you really get a good likeness of him,” Lemay said.

At first glance, the portrait appears to be an oil on canvas, but Zagorski actually glued on the board cloth that looks like a tweed jacket.

“So he looks very dignified, but then you get up close to the portrait and you realize that there are these different kinds of fabrics involved” — much of them unraveling and frayed at the edges, she said.

Lemay said another striking piece comes from cartoonist Draper Hill, who blended caricature and high art to skewer an increasingly isolated and despondent Nixon.

Hill’s piece is based on Winslow Homer’s “The Gulf Stream,” which depicts a Black man struggling to navigate the stormy waters of the Atlantic in a rickety boat, with sharks encircling him. The 1899 painting speaks to the fragility of life, the legacy of slavery and other weighty issues, although Homer later added a schooner on the horizon to suggest the hope of a rescue.

Hill replaces the subject with a barefoot Nixon, sitting listlessly in a boat with a broken mast.

“But instead of having the hope of a boat in the distance, there’s just the storm and the sharks are circling,” Lemay said. “It’s funny, although it’s at [Nixon’s] expense, and it’s kind of sad, too, because these artists really saw what was coming and called it out in 1973.”

Artists, and the public, were able to see what was coming largely because of dogged reporters who worked to uncover it. That’s why Lemay said Watergate was not only a watershed moment in politics, but also in journalism.

“I do think that it’s important for us to consider … how important journalism is to uncovering abuse of power, and for audiences to contemplate how Watergate really was kind of this turning point for journalism,” she said. “And the obsession that people had, watching the Senate hearings on television, how that has marked our consumption of and understanding of the news to this day. It kind of started with this moment.

“I also think it’s important for our visitors to see how the art asks the important questions, like ‘Are politicians above the law?” she added. “Together, the art helps teach the whole cast of players in this history and underscores a lot of these ethical debates that were happening at the time that are still relevant to this day. So in that sense, the art is really timeless.”

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Streeteries were established during the pandemic to help restaurants by closing off street traffic to create outdoor dining space. They’ve popped up across the area, giving local restaurants a much-needed economic boost.

The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) said it will extend through the summer at least until Labor Day, Sept. 5. The county’s streeteries are located in the downtown areas of , and .

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“Our Streeteries program has helped reduce the transmission of the COVID virus while helping keep our restaurants in business and workers employed,” County Executive Marc Elrich said in a news release.

Restaurants are reacting to the news that the streeteries will be sticking around a bit longer.

“It’s very good news for me,” said Paul Ofwono, owner of the Hakuna Matata Grill located near downtown Wheaton on Price Avenue, told �鶹����’s Mike Murillo.

Ofwono said the outdoor dining concept has actually brought in more customers, as diners from multiple restaurants mingle and discuss the different dishes from different restaurants they are enjoying together.

“Someone can get a plate from Hakuna Matata and sit with a colleague that is getting a plate from the Limerick Pub and have a discussion about the food,” Ofwono said.

Ofwono said he would like to see the streetery become a permanent thing.

But not all restaurants are happy to see the open air eating area stick around.

“These streeteries are really disruptive to a restaurant’s ebb and flow,” said Mark Bucher, owner of Medium Rare in Bethesda. His restaurant is on the Fairmont Avenue side street near the streetery.

Bucher said that the streetery has inundated side streets with traffic, eliminated parking and made it hard for delivery drivers to pick up orders.

“As a result, a large amount of these delivery orders for these restaurants up against a streetery get canceled and the restaurant often foots the bill for it,” Bucher said.

He also said outdoor spots added at the beginning of the pandemic were lost because the streetery was set up down the street, in a location, he said, that is not beneficial to business.

The county’s  have been collecting feedback on the program and said the program has been popular with businesses and residents.

“In addition to being a popular destination for outdoor dining, streeteries have contributed to people’s health and well-being by supporting walking, biking and spending time outdoors,” said MCDOT Director Chris Conklin.

Kathie Durbin, director of the Alcohol Beverage Services, said streeteries also have a variety of business models.

“For instance, some have extended cafes with alcohol service within that area and others allow open seating with a designated area to eat and drink,” she said in the news release. “Overall, the streeteries have been very positive. Businesses have been doing a good job developing alcohol policies to keep customers safe, we have not experienced a lot of violations.”

Residents who want to offer their feedback on a local Shared Streets program can call 311 and ask to be connected to the Regional Services Office for their area.

�鶹����’s Mike Murillo contributed to this story.

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Dr. James Ryan, 48, an oral surgeon who had a practice on Observation Drive, was arrested Tuesday morning in connection with the death of Sarah Harris, 25, a former patient who later became his girlfriend. She also worked in his practice as a surgical technician.

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Police were called to the home Harris shared with Ryan in the 13900 block of Godwit Street in Clarksburg, Maryland, where they found Harris dead. An autopsy later revealed she had ketamine and diazepam in her system.

Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said investigators on the scene found various bottles of propofol, midazolam, ketamine and diazepam, all controlled substances.

“Numerous hypodermic needles, syringes and tourniquets were discovered nearby as well,” Jones said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

“These bottles are not the type of medication that would normally be dispensed from a pharmacy and are usually reserved for clinical medical settings.”

Chief Marcus Jones and Montgomery County State’s Attorney, John McCarthy, discuss the arrest of Dr. James Ryan, an Oral Surgeon.
Ryan has been charged with second-degree murder, and a list of other charges, in connection with the death of Sarah Harris.

— Montgomery County Department of Police (@mcpnews)

Investigators obtained text messages and other communications between Ryan and Harris that show Harris asking for different types of drugs from his practice, Ryan saying he’d get them for her and instructing her on how to take them.

“Dr. Ryan also provided instructions on how she could make the effects of some of the drugs more potent,” Jones said. “Additionally, he mentions bringing home and/or providing saline, fluids, needles, IV poles to aid in the administration of drugs or in the recovery from the effects.”

Jones said the messages even revealed that Ryan gave Harris ketamine while she was asleep.

They also suggest that Harris may have previously overdosed on Dec. 21.

Police said Harris, who had previous experience working in dental offices, visited Ryan in the fall of 2020 for a medical procedure. A few weeks later, Ryan hired her to work as a surgical technician in his office, and the two began dating in early 2021, with Harris moving into Ryan’s home that summer.

Jones said Harris’ family members began to notice a decline in her health in that time.

“On two different occasions, Harris was discovered at their residence surrounded by empty medicine bottles, similar to what was discovered at the death scene — used syringes and bloodied clothing,” Jones said.

Jones said investigators have not ruled out that there could be other people Ryan provided illegal drugs to. They also have not determined if Ryan took illegal drugs himself.

Jones said the case was brought to the police’s attention because the county automatically sends a narcotics investigator to every overdose — whether fatal or not — in an effort to curb the rise in drug overdoses.

John McCarthy, the state’s attorney for Maryland, said at the news conference that homicide detectives also automatically investigate every overdose death in the county in an effort to track down drug dealers. “We’ve tried to hold them responsible for not only the distribution, but for the death of the person involved.”

McCarthy said Ryan is in custody awaiting a bond review, which will likely happen Wednesday. If convicted of second-degree murder and related drug charges, Ryan could face a total of 78 years in prison.

When asked if he was cooperating with police, Jones responded: “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s being overly cooperative, but I would just say that his demeanor, you know, I don’t think he was that surprised. Let’s just put it that way.”

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D.C. police said the gunfire erupted just before 3:30 p.m. on 13th Street SE.

One man was killed at the scene, while another was taken to the hospital, where he died.

Police said they are searching for a Gray Honda Pilot with possible D.C. tags, occupied by two Black males, that was last seen going westbound on G Street SE.

If you see the car, call 911 and do not take any action.

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, along with Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., spearheaded a letter sent to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to make clear “that the agency’s lack of action is causing unnecessary confusion, as the current 2022 tax filing season is underway.”

Among the issues lawmakers want the IRS to address is “which notices are statutorily required to be issued within a specific time, and why there are still certain notices that have not yet been suspended,” .

The IRS sends notices, or letters, to taxpayers for various reasons, such as issues with federal tax returns or payment requests.

Last month, Spanberger and Menendez led a bicameral effort with 45 colleagues urging the IRS to take immediate steps to reduce its massive backlog and improve its customer service.

On March 10, the IRS said it plans to hire 10,000 new workers to chip away at that backlog, which totals around 20 million pieces of correspondence, including unprocessed returns. That is more than 15 times as large as in a normal filing season, according to the agency.

Despite an increasingly complex tax code and population growth, the IRS workforce has not increased since 1970. The slew of pandemic-related aid programs that the agency had to administer further added to the strains.

But many Republicans over the years have pushed back on calls to boost funding, or cut funding, that would have helped the IRS increase staffing and modernize its aging systems.

The recent $1.5 trillion omnibus federal spending package passed last week would provide $12.6 billion to the IRS, the largest funding increase for the agency since 2001.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The D.C. area’s winter-spring rollercoaster ride continues with a sunny, pleasant Friday that will give way to a bitterly cold, rainy and snowy Saturday, before nice weather returns again early next week.

The National �鶹���� Service issued a Winter �鶹���� Advisory starting Saturday morning that covers D.C., nearly all of Northern Virginia and parts of Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland. The advisory kicks in at 7 a.m. and will go until 3 p.m.

“A chance of snow is possible as temperatures quickly drop from the 40s and 50s into the 30s during the morning hours,” Storm Team4 meteorologist Briana Bermensolo reported. “Rain will switch to snow throughout the day in many locations across the DMV.”

The ground is warm, which will limit snow accumulation, but up to an inch of snow is possible in the immediate D.C.-metro area, with 1 to 4 inches possible north and west, according to Storm Team4 meteorologist Mike Stinneford.

Any amount of snow means slippery road conditions, so drivers are advised to travel cautiously. Strong winds are also in store, with gusts ranging between 25 to 35 mph, but maxing out around  55 mph. That means fallen branches could be clogging up roadways.

The District said it will deploy work crews on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. to treat the roads with salt. Snowplows will venture out if D.C. sees 2 or more inches of snow.

The NWS said the weather pattern will leave the area around 8 p.m. Saturday. Roads could become icy late Saturday night and into Sunday morning as temperatures fall well-below freezing. Sunshine will return on Sunday, but the chill will remain.

The wintry start to the weekend is a far cry from an idyllic Friday. Though cool in the morning with temperatures in the mid- to upper 30s, plenty of sunshine helped bring temps to the upper 50s and low 60s throughout the day.

Pleasant weather returns Monday with highs in the 50s to lower 60s.

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Radar

Forecast

FRIDAY NIGHT: Rain developing, mainly after midnight. Lows in the 40s.

SATURDAY: A Winter �鶹���� Advisory has been issued for areas north and west of D.C. from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Rain changing to snow. Becoming windy and sharply colder.

SUNDAY: Mostly sunny. Highs in the mid to upper 40s.

MONDAY: Partly cloudy and warmer. Highs in the lower 60s.

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The Delmarva Irish American Club said Thursday that it’s canceling its annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, scheduled for Saturday, because of the chilly, rainy forecast.

After a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19, the Delmarva Irish American Club was prepared to bring back the largest and best St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the State,” the club said in a news release.

“However, our members do not want to put our volunteers, participants and the thousands of spectators that line our streets for the parade in hazardous and unsafe conditions.”

The parade typically brings large crowds to Ocean City and has become annual tradition. The Delmarva Irish American Club promises it’ll be back next year to continue that tradition.

• Parades and Pubs: DC-area St. Patrick’s Day 2022 celebrations

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