A teen girl is facing charges after police say she threw food at an officer in Pentagon City.
The incident happened this past Friday around 5:15 p.m. at the Pentagon City Metro station. The girl started throwing food at an officer who stopped her male companion for fare evasion, according to an Arlington County Police Department crime report.
Primary Two Months Away — “The upcoming election on June 17 will be a Dual Party Primary! Mark your calendars with these important dates. Sample ballots will be available on our website soon.” Early voting starts Friday, May 2. [Arlington Elections/X]
Local CEO Sentenced for Fraud — “An Arlington-based mergers and acquisitions firm executive, who admitted to defrauding a total of $2,002,750 from eight companies, was sentenced in federal court earlier this month. Kiel Brendan Brandt, 34, the founder and owner of Epsilon Acquisition Services, was convicted of wire fraud in December and faced a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Instead, was sentenced on April 3 to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised release, according to court documents.” Note: Patch updated its reporting on April 17. [Patch]
Video: Crash on I-395 — “A lot of questions about this video: It sure looks like the middle vehicle was playing bumper cars on I-395S near the Pentagon just before 6 p.m. yesterday. Also, my video shows the car on the left side of the screen kept going.” [Dave Statter/X]
It’s Tuesday — Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible after 2pm. Otherwise, expect a breezy and partly sunny day, reaching highs near 65°F. West winds start at 10-15 mph, later increasing to 21-26 mph and potentially gusting up to 41 mph. There’s a 30% chance of precipitation. Tuesday night brings mostly clear skies with lows around 44°F, and west winds at 11-16 mph, gusting up to 24 mph. [NWS]
This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at [email protected].
Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?
Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.
I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.
The Local Conversation Needs to Change
If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.
Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.
Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.
Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.
Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).
This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)
Good Monday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Apr 14, 2025.
Here is what’s going on Tuesday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Scattered showers and possible thunderstorms after 2pm accompany a partly sunny day reaching highs near 65°F. West winds start at 10-15 mph, later increasing to 21-26 mph and potentially gusting up to 41 mph. There’s a 30% chance of precipitation. During Tuesday night, expect mostly clear skies with lows around 44°F, and west winds at 11-16 mph, gusting up to 24 mph. See more from Weather.gov.
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
– Albert Einstein
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.
Concerns about state and federal revenue could lead to a delay in the adoption of Arlington Public Schools’ new budget.
Superintendent Francisco Durán said Thursday that he may ask to postpone the planned May 1 approval of the $845 million spending plan to May 15.
Join the Rosslyn BID and Arlington Arts at the 34th Rosslyn Jazz Fest 2026 featuring live jazz, food trucks, local vendors, and family-friendly activities in the heart of Rosslyn! This year’s lineup is bringing a diverse mix of performers and bands redefining the jazz music genre including Plena Libre, Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars, Parlor Greens, and Dogo du Togo & the Alagaa Beat Band.
School leaders are still trying to find out what, if anything, a February letter from a federal agency means for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in Arlington.
A Feb. 14 letter from the U.S. Department of Education gave institutions an April 12 deadline to comply with a new interpretation of “nondiscrimination obligations” in order to continue receiving federal funding.
A stricter policy on banning riders from the Metro system has some leaders optimistic about better safety in Northern Virginia.
Beginning June 2, the policy will allow the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to impose longer bans on people arrested for sex crimes or assaults on Metro employees and customers.
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Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash
A group of Arlington Girl Scouts has received high honors for adding new “see me” flags to two Wilson Blvd intersections.
Twenty fifth graders from Ashlawn Elementary School saved funds from cookie sales to add baskets of bright red flags to N. Livingston and N. Liberty streets in February. Last month, Girl Scouts of the USA recognized their efforts with a Bronze Award — the highest honor a junior Scout can earn for community service.
Recently constructed apartments in Arlington are among the smallest in the country — and they’ve been getting smaller over time, a new report finds.
The average new Arlington apartment has shrunk by 70 square feet over the past decade, according to data from the real estate site RentCafe. At an average of 809 square feet, the county’s apartments rank as the 20th smallest out of 100 U.S. localities analyzed.
