Pro-Life Activist Sentenced to Almost Five Years in Prison over D.C. Clinic Blockade

Lauren Handy

Handy was convicted last year on two charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

Pro-life activist Lauren Handy was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison on Tuesday for organizing a blockade at an abortion clinic in 2020 in Washington, D.C.

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Antisemitism in Public K-12 Schools Spotlights Activist Teachers and Radicalized Students

Kids in a classroom

Prominent acts of antisemitism at K-12 schools nationwide since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel are raising questions about what students may have been learning before the Hamas attack that could have sparked such a quick radicalization.

School “walkouts” with praises of Hamas, student shouts of “F*** the Jews,”  and teacher-led bullying of Jewish students have been reported at Berkeley Unified School District in California. On the other side of the country, the New York City Education Department has also been hit with massive walkouts and is facing a lawsuit from Jewish teachers who say they were subjected to severe, repetitive acts of antisemitism that were perpetrated by students and ignored by other faculty members. Meanwhile, Maryland’s Montgomery County School District, which borders Washington, D.C., has been accused of repeatedly failing to punish antisemitic student behavior.

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NYC Council Appeals Ruling Against Non-Citizens Voting Law While D.C. Receives Favorable Ruling

Vote Sign

The New York City Council has filed an appeal to the state’s highest court to reverse an intermediate appellate court’s ruling that struck down the city’s law allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections while Washington, D.C., recently had its non-citizens voting law upheld.

Cities are experiencing varying levels of success with their non-citizen voting laws, as New York City’s has been struck down twice in court while D.C.’s has survived an initial challenge.

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‘All Unite for Pre-Born Rights!’: Thousands Gather to Attend March for Life amid Massive Snowstorm

Thousands of people attended the annual March for Life, joined by high-profile advocates and speakers, in Washington, D.C., on Friday to oppose abortion amid a massive snowstorm that blanketed the city.

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Crime Rate in Nation’s Capital Continues to Climb

Crime rates per capita in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, including Northern Virginia and Maryland, have increased 9% in 2022 to a rate of 18.3 crimes per 1,000 residents, according to an annual crime report released Wednesday, with 83,000 more calls for service to primary agency participants in the study.

Russell Hamill, police chiefs committee chair for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, shared the findings of the council’s annual Report on Crime and Crime Control at a meeting with the board. The report reflects data from 17 cities, counties, or entities in Maryland and 18 in Virginia, as well as from law enforcement in the district.

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Gen-Z’s First Congressman-Elect Says He Was Denied a Lease in D.C. Due to ‘Really Bad’ Credit

Florida Democratic Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost says he was denied a lease on a Washington, D.C., apartment after the landlord initially told him that his bad credit wouldn’t matter.

Frost is slated to become the first Gen-Z lawmaker in Washington when the next Congress is sworn in in January. He was previously a community organizer and will take over the seat of Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who unsuccessfully challenged Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio for his seat in the upper chamber in November.

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J6 Detainee Subjected to Post-Lawyer Meeting Strip Search

Capitol Riot

Immediately following an in-person meeting with his defense attorney, Robert Morss, a January 6 detainee held in part of the D.C. jail system used exclusively to incarcerate Capitol defendants, was subjected to a strip search where he was verbally and physically abused by prison guards.

Morss, a former Army ranger with three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was arrested in June and later indicted on numerous counts including assaulting a police officer and disorderly conduct. (Morss is named in a multi-defendant case with others who battled police near the lower west terrace tunnel, where law enforcement officers from D.C. Metro and Capitol police were attacking protesters.) In July, Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee to the D.C. District Court, denied Morss’ release pending trial.

Morss met with his attorney, John C. Kiyonaga, in advance of a status hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon. After Morss returned to the so-called “pod,” prison guards informed him he would need to be strip searched.

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Woodson Center Celebrates 40 Years of Transforming Poor Neighborhoods as Founder Announces Retirement

The life-changing impact that Robert Woodson has had on the lives of countless individuals and communities was highlighted Thursday evening during a 40th-anniversary celebration of the center named for him in Washington, D.C.

One after another, the grassroots leaders and individuals who have been touched by Woodson’s work at the Woodson Center thanked the civil rights leader for the ways in which he has empowered blacks and others living in America’s inner cities and low-income neighborhoods.

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‘Global Health Threat’: Untreatable Fungus Spreading In DC, Dallas, CDC Says

An untreatable fungus is spreading in health facilities in Washington, D.C., and Dallas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC issued an update Thursday regarding Candida auris, an emerging strain of fungus resistant to medication causing infections, fever and death. The fungus was detected in two hospitals in Dallas and a nursing home in Washington, D.C., the Associated Press reported.

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Commentary: Letters from a D.C. Jail

This week, five Republican senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding his office’s handling of January 6 protesters. The letter revealed the senators are aware that several Capitol defendants charged with mostly nonviolent crimes are being held in solitary confinement conditions in a D.C. jail used exclusively to house Capitol detainees.

Joe Biden’s Justice Department routinely requests—and partisan Beltway federal judges routinely approve—pre-trial detention for Americans arrested for their involvement in the January 6 protest. This includes everyone from an 18-year-old high school senior from Georgia to a 70-year-old Virginia farmer with no criminal record.

It is important to emphasize that the accused have languished for months in prison before their trials even have begun. Judges are keeping defendants behind bars largely based on clips selectively produced by the government from a trove of video footage under protective seal and unavailable to defense lawyers and the public—and for the thoughtcrime of doubting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

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House Democrats Pass Legislation That Would Make Washington, D.C., Nation’s 51st State

Washington DC

Democrats in the House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that would make Washington, D.C. the 51st state in the union, a move that would almost certainly strengthen the Democrats’ Senate majority and bolster their ranks in the House.

The bill passed, 216-208, without any Republican support.

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Top House Democrat Calls on FBI to Investigate Parler’s Financing, Possible Ties to Russia

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Thursday called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate financing for Parler, including whether the social media site has any ties to Russia.

Part of Maloney’s rationale for investigating Parler’s links to Russia is that the social media site’s CEO, John Matze, founded the company shortly after traveling to Russia with his wife, who is Russian.

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