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The District of Columbia, also known as Washington, D.C., has officially become a “shall issue” jurisdiction. The outcome was certain when the government of the District decided not to appeal the decision in Wrenn v. D.C and Grace v. D.C. (the cases were combined) after the United States Court of Appeals refused to grant a review of the decision en banc. From dc.gov.com: Q: Since you aren’t asking the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit decision, when does their ruling removing the District’s “good reason” requirement take effect? A: It will take effect when the D.C. Circuit issues...

Users of the Dulles Toll Road can expect to pay more in 2019, according to a 2018 draft budget presented to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board today.No increase from the $3.50 toll ($2.50 at the plaza and $1 at the ramp) is planned in 2018; however, it is expected to jump to $4.75 the following year. Numbers presented by the Board’s Finance Committee show that is only the beginning of the hikes.In 2023, the toll is projected to go up to $6. Additional jumps of $1.25 or more are projected every five years for the following two decades, resulting...

Italian vaticanista Andrea Gagliarducci writes regularly a column at his place called “Monday Vatican”. You should read him.Today, however, he has a piece at CNA about how Pope Francis seems to approach the selection of and translation of bishops. HEREAmong other things, Andrea wrote: Over the past year, Pope Francis has appointed 16 U.S. bishops, most of them in smaller dioceses or as auxiliaries. The major pending question is that of the successor of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Cardinal Wuerl is already 76 years old, more than a year beyond the normal retirement age.The post in...

The government of the District of Columbia has decided not to appeal the Circuit court decision in Wrenn v. D.C. A week ago the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that they would not rehear Wrenn v. D.C. en banc. That ended the D.C. Circuit level of appeals for the District of Columbia. The issue was whether D.C. law, that was used to arbitrarily deny concealed carry permits, was constitutional. D.C. lost. The question became, would they appeal to the Supreme Court. From foxnews.com: The city’s attorney general said the decision not to appeal the...

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has refused to grant a petition for an en banc hearing in the Wrenn v. D.C. Second Amendment case.The Court earlier ruled that the requirement for a “good cause” to issue a concealed carry permit was unconstitutional.In effect, this means in a week the District of Columbia will become a “shall issue” jurisdiction.  If a person meets the legal requirements for a concealed carry permit, the District of Columbia will be required to issue a permit.None of the 10 Circuit judges capable of requesting a vote for an...

Organizers for an art festival are seeking $90,000 to erect a 45-foot-tall sculpture of a naked woman on the National Mall as way to combat the objectification of female bodies. WTOP reports the Catharsis on the Mall organizers are trying to raise money to move the sculpture, known as R-Evolution, from San Francisco to Washington D.C. so it can be placed on the National Mall facing the White House, for all festival-goers and tourists to see. The fundraising page for the move, which has received almost $20,000 in three days (albeit only 22 percent of its goal), claims the R-Evolution sculpture can...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Thursday proposed a $9 billion plan to widen three of the state’s most congested highways — the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway — in what he said would include the largest public-private partnership for highways in North America. The projects would add four toll lanes each to Maryland’s portion of the Capital Beltway (I-495) and to I-270 from the Beltway to Frederick. It would also widen the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (MD 295) by four toll lanes after taking over ownership from the federal government. Because of private-sector involvement, Hogan said, the plan would...

Motorists on Interstate 270 could start seeing lane closures next week as construction crews begin resurfacing and restriping a highway spur that leads to the Beltway. The work marks the beginning of a $100 million project to ease traffic backups on the roadway, according to state transportation officials. “This is the first step in a major project to break daily gridlock,” Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn said in a prepared statement. The initial phase of the effort involves surfacing improvements on the section of I-270 that connects with the outer loop of the Beltway. The project, which is expected...

On one level, the saga of Madame Giselle is a story about, in no particular order, allegations by two neighbors who say they were swindled in an elaborate scheme to sell T-shirts to the Venezuelan army, a cash-stuffed envelope slipped under a doorway, a legendary bygone scandal involving the Colombian military and a glamorous woman known as “The Blonde,” an ongoing multimillion-dollar Colombian fraud case, and a supposed helicopter ride into Syria. But on another level, as illustrated in interviews and in hundreds of text messages obtained by The Washington Post, it’s a story about friendship and trust, about what...

The US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on Friday sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson requesting that he take steps to ensure that another violent incident involving the security detail of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan does not take place during Erdoğan’s visit to New York for the UN General Assembly on Sept. 12. “The violence on May 16 outside the Turkish Ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C. was only the latest in a disturbing series of violent, unwarranted behavior by the security forces accompanying President Erdogan while in the United States. In 2011, Turkish security...

A disturbing incident involving a shooting inside a busy Washington D.C. metro station has received a lot of media attention, but all the reports conspicuously fail to mention if the suspect is an illegal immigrant. A man was captured on camera firing a gun down the escalator of the Columbia Heights Metro station in Northwest Washington in the middle of the afternoon on August 25. He eluded police for days and authorities needed help capturing him so they revealed he had an extensive criminal history and identified him as 22-year-old Cesar Morales, Hispanic with brown eyes, black hair and facial...

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In Wrenn v D.C., the D.C. Court of appeals ruled that the right to keep and bear arms applied outside of the home. The majority opinion in the three judge panel was well written. One option of the District of Columbia was to ask for an en banc hearing, where all the courts judges would hear the case, instead of the three judge panel that made the decision.As expected, the district has exercised its option to ask for an en banc hearing. From saf.org: BELLEVUE, WA – The District of Columbia has filed an appeal with the U.S. District...

Coverage from one of the local news stations in Charlottesville, NBC29. There is video if you go to the NBC29.com web site.

by: Special to the AFRO ssherman@afro.com / (Photos of Panelists by Shantella Y. Sherman and Courtesy Photo) / August 17, 2017 0 225 The love and respect Washingtonians continue to have for legendary Go-Go artist and founder Chuck Brown shows most in the indelible footprint of his music and mentorship on both the music industry and the city. In celebration of the 3rd Annual Chuck Brown Day, which is scheduled for Aug. 19, the D.C. Public Library hosted a series of workshops and screenings, including the panel discussion, “Go-Go, As D.C. History,” where lovers of his sound gathered to remember...

The mayor, more than half of the D.C. Council, and the D.C. attorney general have joined activists in calling for the removal of a statue of a Confederate general from federal land in Judiciary Square. "Albert Pike was a strong proponent of slavery and fought to try to preserve that in this country. Regardless of what he did in other parts of his life, it's inappropriate to honor him," says At-large Councilmember David Grosso, who sent a letter today to the acting director of the National Park Service calling for a statue of Pike at 3rd and D streets NW...

The Lincoln Memorial was vandalized with bright-red graffiti early Tuesday morning at around 4.30 a.m. Officials with the National Park Service (NPS) said the red spray paint appears to state “[expletive] law” on one of the memorial’s columns overlooking the National Mall. Another instance in silver spray paint was also discovered on a Smithsonian wayfinding sign in the 1400 block of Constitution Avenue. Work to remove the graffiti is already underway using a mild, gel-type architectural paint stripper, according to the NPS. The gel won’t affect the preservation of the memorial’s historic stone. The crew will apply the treatment and...

Someone has vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, the National Park Service says. The words "F--- law" were found written in red spray paint early Tuesday on a pillar at the monument that overlooks the Capitol building and National Mall, NPS said Tuesday afternoon. The graffiti was found about 4:30 a.m. Work to remove the words is underway. A preservation crew is using a "mild, gel-type architectural paint stripper" to remove the paint without damaging the stone. The crew is applying a layer of the gel, rinsing it, checking how effective it was and repeating as necessary. Additional vandalism, in silver spray...

A group that believes cannabis has a secret historical role in Christianity is forging ahead with plans to visit the largest Roman Catholic church in the nation during next week's solar eclipse, where members intend to light incense doused with cannabis-infused olive oil. Yet church leaders say the event won't happen. Anne Armstrong, founder and deaconess of Rhode Island's Healing Church, said the Monday afternoon service could "end degeneration, disaster and war" by consecrating the Americas to the Virgin Mary. ... "I don't anticipate any trouble, but if there is, we'll go outside," she said. "If they tell us to...

Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., outperformed company expectations by making a $1.97 million profit in its first four months, according to a report Thursday. The Trump Organization had projected that it would lose $2.1 million during the first four months of 2017, federal documents cited by the Washington Post show. Guests have paid an average of $652.98 a night to stay at the hotel, besting the company's expectations by 57 percent, according to documents posted online by the General Services Administration. Trump administration Cabinet members and others in the president's inner circle have frequently been spotted at the...