Latest news with #MurielBowser
The Independent
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Army reveals scale of damage done to DC streets following Trump's military parade
The U.S. Army has presented its initial assessment of the damage done to the roads of Washington, D.C., by the heavy battle tanks that were a key part of President Donald Trump 's 250th birthday celebration for the military. The president ordered a lavish parade to honor the founding of the Army on June 14, which also happened to be Trump's birthday. In advance of the event, city officials had expressed concern that the tanks participating could place undue strain on Washington's streets, potentially requiring millions of dollars in maintenance work to repair. The budget for the festivities was estimated at $45 million, with $16 million of that total set aside for road repairs. Organizers moved in advance to place thick metal plates, up to 20 feet in length, at turning points along the route to ease the pressure, at a cost of $3 million. Speaking in advance of the event, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was 'concerned' about the potential scope of the damage. 'These are, for the most part, local streets, and if they're rendered unusable, we have to make them usable,' she said. 'Probably we would fix it and then go seek our money from the Fed. That gives me some concern about fronting costs and waiting for them to get back.' Happily, however, the Army has concluded that the damage to the capital's highways and byways was minimal. 'A tank ran over a curb, and that curb got broken – crushed,' spokesman Steve Warren said. 'So, we will be fixing that. But, right now, that's the only damage that we've identified.' He added that a 'subterranean' assessment of the roads is still ongoing to check whether the parade damaged underground cables or other infrastructure. D.C. Department of Transportation spokesman German Vigil also said a visual survey of city roads had revealed no apparent issues. The National Park Service is meanwhile waiting one month to make a final assessment of possible damage to federally controlled roadways, such as the Mall and the George Washington Parkway. Warren also revealed that the final attendance figures for the parade were approximately 198,000, some way short of the 250,000 claimed by the White House. The event itself largely passed off without adverse incident and appeared to achieve its aims. However, the president allegedly raged at U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth behind the scenes over the troops taking part, in his opinion, for presenting too cheery a demeanor. 'He's p***ed off at the soldiers,' Trump biographer Michael Wolff claimed on The Daily Beast 's podcast in its aftermath. 'He's accusing them of hamming it up, and by that, he seems to mean that they were having a good time, that they were waving, that they were enjoying themselves and showing a convivial face rather than a military face.' The show of military might came on the same day that millions of people took to the streets of America's cities for a 'No Kings' protest against Trump, hours after Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered by a political assassin and against a backdrop of unrest in Los Angeles and conflict in the Middle East.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Amid ICE sweeps, judges are protecting the rights of immigrants
The Trumpian vision of the U.S. immigration system is dramatic and nightmarish: clots of agents showing up at schools, government offices, courthouses, workplaces and homes, dressed in the jackets of an alphabet soup of agencies, sometimes masked, often armed. They scoop up undocumented immigrants and ship them off to wherever they came from — or to whatever godforsaken place will take them, if for a price. But the federal government is a hulking iceberg of bureaucracy, and deep inside its wounded guts, a quieter force persists: Even with the layoffs, buyouts, cutbacks and frequent storms of executive commands, the machine grinds on, dispensing something closer to justice. In Hyattsville, Maryland, about 12 miles from Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in D.C., on the sixth floor of a largely unmarked federal office building in the middle of a struggling suburban retail development, the U.S. immigration apparatus is still accepting and protecting newcomers from the chaos created by the president and his SWAT-team-wannabe acolytes. Across the Potomac River in Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) ordered state law enforcement to cooperate with the feds, leading to raids on hundreds of immigrants. In the District, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who often spoke of Washington as a 'proud sanctuary city,' has done a 180 and is cooperating with the president's enforcement efforts because there's little she can do to stop ICE, and, as she put it last month, 'this is Donald Trump's America.' But here in Hyattsville, 16 immigration judges churn through their endless dockets — hundreds of people, handing over reams of paperwork, speaking through tears to emotionless translators and empathetic judges, searching for some way to get legal status, some way to stay in the country that, even now, offers them their best shot. These immigrants, the great majority of whom arrived illegally, have hit the lottery: They've landed in a courthouse where judges actually seem inclined to help them find a way to stay. Let's visit Judge Rebecca Niburg's courtroom. Niburg denied asylum to only 35 percent of the people who came before her between 2019 and 2024, which is pretty much on par with her colleagues in Hyattsville but way below the national average of 58 percent. As the cases flit by, each taking only a few minutes, the stories blur: Yudy Estrada, a Bolivian woman here with her toddler, is having trouble getting records from her hometown that might convince a judge that she would face bodily harm if she went back. When the judge asks Breyser Medina Gutierrez, a refugee from Colombia who said he illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in September, what country he should be sent to if he's found ineligible for asylum, the man says, 'I don't have any country I would feel safe in except this country.' Too bad, the judge rules seconds later: 'I will designate Colombia as the country you'll be sent to if you're found to be removable.' The people coming before Niburg this day are mostly from Venezuela or Colombia. (The only English-speaking immigrant to appear is from Nigeria.) Dirimo Marin has brought a huge stack of documents to court. It's his application for asylum. The judge leafs through the pile and asks who helped put it together. 'An attorney,' Marin says. 'Probably not an attorney,' Niburg replies. There's no signature on the line where the attorney is supposed to sign — a mistake a legit lawyer probably wouldn't make. 'It's a guy,' Marin concedes. 'He's in Venezuela.' Marin's next stop is a final hearing on whether he may remain in this country, but Niburg offers to let Marin postpone that day of reckoning. 'How much time do you need?' she asks. 'As much time as you can give me,' Marin replies. Time for a helpful leading question: 'Is that because you are trying to gather evidence?' Oh, yeah, that, Marin says. He tells the judge about being struck in the back by authorities back home. The doctor who treated him was in hiding, so there are no records of his injury. He takes a deep breath and tries for a big extension: 'November?' Granted. Next case. Over and over, the same routine, the same stretching out of cases well into next year. The overall vibe here is kindly: The judge patiently explains each step, dispensing advice on how to get asylum applications in order, repeatedly offering to extend the time before their final hearing. Although these judges work for Attorney General Pam Bondi, their demeanor and approach couldn't be more different. For all the damage Elon Musk's minions have done to the government's ability to serve taxpayers, it marches on, doing its work, if fitfully at times. Down in the guts of the system, you see how much of the Trump assault is show. He and his devout MAGA appointees would have you believe they are tossing immigrants out of the country at record levels. False. The reigning champion of deportations remains President Barack Obama. The Trump administration would like us to think it pioneered the push to get undocumented immigrants to self-deport. False. As immigrants await hearings in Hyattsville, they're offered a 'self-help guide' titled 'Do You Just Want to Go Home?' It's a handy packet with instructions on how to self-deport — published by the Biden administration. This is not to say Trump and de facto immigration czar Stephen Miller are playacting. No, Miller has been pushing since his teens to clean foreigners out of the country. He and his fellow policymakers are gleefully stretching the limits of the law, fighting to expand the president's power, skirting due process and putting people on outbound planes. In response, some immigrants are lying low and some are leaving the country. Among politicians, some erstwhile supporters of newcomers have gone silent and some are groveling before Trump. But even as ICE agents show up at immigration courts and whisk people into vans that take them to who knows where, the 'deep state' can still push back. Simply by doing their job, feds who know and respect the law can mitigate Trump's lunge for authority and chaos. In federal offices across the country, largely shielded from public view, that's exactly what they're doing.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
D.C. lawmaker proposes taking violence intervention away from mayor
D.C.'s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, beleaguered by a bribery scandal involving a former D.C. lawmaker, could be dissolved under a proposal by council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) — who is also proposing drastically cutting the city's overall violence intervention funding. Pinto, who chairs the council's public safety committee, circulated a budget proposal Monday that would remove the agency's violence interruption program from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser's control and consolidate it within Cure the Streets, a separate violence interruption program run by the independent Office of the Attorney General.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Climate
- The Hill
Dangerous heat closes Washington Monument in DC
Dangerous heat closed the Washington Monument, which lies in the heart of the nation's capital, as the region experiences intense temperatures. In an alert on its website, the National Park Service said that the monument is not going to be open from Tuesday to Wednesday 'due to extreme heat in the DC area.' 'We apologize for any inconvenience,' the park service added. On the National Weather Service's (NWS) website, much of the Washington region appears to be facing an extreme heat warning. According to a Tuesday post on X from the NWS forecast office for the Baltimore and Washington region, it could see temperatures topping 101 degrees Fahrenheit. 'DC expects extreme temperatures all week. Escape the heat at one of our cooling centers located throughout the city—a convenient way to cool off, rehydrate, and stay safe during this week's high temps,' Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said in a post on X on Tuesday. Beyond the Washington region, large portions of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast also appeared to be facing an extreme heat warning, with other states east of the Rockies also facing heat advisories. 'Extremely dangerous heat will persist from the Midwest to the East Coast as numerous daily record highs and very warm overnight lows are expected through Wednesday,' the NWS said on X Tuesday.
Axios
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Axios
D.C. mayor wants to expand youth curfew
D.C. wants to expand its youth curfews this summer with longer hours and targeted neighborhoods. Why it matters: Large gatherings of juveniles are increasingly spawning brawls that lead to arrests, including in downtown and at The Wharf, city officials say. State of play: Mayor Muriel Bowser is proposing starting the city's juvenile curfew an hour earlier, at 11pm daily in July and August, and including 17-year-olds. Currently, the curfew applies to kids 16 and under and begins at midnight during July and August. The emergency law that Bowser wants to take effect would also allow the police chief to create an "extended juvenile curfew zone." In defined areas, curfews would begin at 7pm and last 15 consecutive days, or up to 30 days based on public safety considerations. What they're saying: An uptick in "large groups of juveniles engaging in harmful, and often times criminal conduct" led to the proposal, the mayor said. Her office notes incidents in Navy Yard, Dupont Circle, U Street and more. "Most of our young people are doing the right thing, but unfortunately, we continue to see troubling trends in how groups of young people are gathering in the community," Bowser said in a statement. Between the lines: Juvenile crime traditionally increases when schools are out during the summer. Zoom in: During Memorial Day weekend, a temporary curfew took effect at the privately owned Wharf. It required that anyone under 18 be accompanied by an adult 21 years or older between 5pm and 5am, per NBC4. It was imposed after crowds of teenagers descended on the Wharf, "causing disturbances" and dancing on restaurant tables, said police chief Pamela Smith.
