Arlington County police are looking for four suspects in the early morning baseball bat beating of two men.
The incident happened early Sunday in the Pentagon City area, while “the two male victims were inside a residence with the two female suspects.”
Democratic-led states are increasingly pushing back against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — and Virginia is the latest to join in.
The Virginia Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would place hefty guardrails on any proposed 287(g) agreements allowing local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration functions. The bill still must go to the House.
When Eddie Kaufholz and his family moved to Arlington nearly five years ago, they were not thinking about starting a business. They wanted to live in a place that was diverse, interesting and full of opportunity, with a school system they could rely on. Arlington fit.
In the years that followed, working out of a home office off Columbia Pike, he consulted with organizations across Northern Virginia and around the country: nonprofits, advocacy groups, mid-sized companies, agencies of various sizes. The work itself was good. But somewhere across all those projects, he started to notice a pattern.
”The agency model has gotten really bloated,” Kaufholz says. ”Layers, handoffs, middle management. The senior people who pitch the work often disappear once it starts. The idea with PILLAR was to strip all of that down; keep senior people on the work, approach each client with humility and care, do world-class strategy and execution, and pass the efficiency back to the client instead of absorbing it as agency margin.”
That thinking, slowly, became PILLAR, the Arlington-headquartered creative, communications and marketing agency Kaufholz founded.
PILLAR, he says, is built on an old idea. ”An idea that has always been possible but rarely practiced: that an agency should be structured to serve the work itself.” The team that delivers the work is assembled around the specific needs of each client and only stays as long as the work calls for them.
”The senior strategist on your kick-off call is the senior strategist writing your messaging,” Kaufholz says. ”Every person on a project is there because the work specifically calls for them.”
PILLAR’s recent work has spanned human rights, executive leadership, higher education, advocacy and direct-to-consumer ecommerce. The roster has included national nonprofits, a national multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer brand and a number of institutions navigating significant moments of strategic change. The model is built to scale up to be the agency of record for a national brand, or to scale down to design a logo for a neighborhood nonprofit. PILLAR takes equal pride and care in both.
What Kaufholz did not understand when he started, he said, was how much the County itself would matter in making any of it possible. (more…)
Just because a wipe says it’s “flushable,” that doesn’t mean it’s fit for Arlington’s sewage system.
That’s what the county’s Department of Environmental Services is reminding residents after a wad of wipes contributed to a sewage overflow last week at a ruptured sewage pipe upstream from Arlington on the Potomac River.
Arlington’s annual Feel the Heritage Festival is returning this weekend, bringing dozens of vendors, performers and history displays in celebration of Black History Month.
The 31st annual festival, taking place from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Charles Drew Community Center (3500 23rd Street S.), celebrates the national theme of this Black History Month, “A Century of Black History Commemoration.”
A collaborative Summer Solstice gathering hosted by Inner Seasons and Spiritual Enhancements.
The Summer Solstice marks the peak of the sun’s power, the moment in the Wheel of the Year when light is at its fullest expression. In many traditions, this is the season of radiance, visibility, and creative fire. It is the time when nature stands unapologetically in her fullness, inviting us to do the same.
Members of the county’s Disability Advisory Commission are deeply unhappy with recent local efforts to remove snow and ice from pedestrian pathways.
A recent meeting zeroed in on a lack of attention given to a key entrance to the Bozman Government Center, as well as lingering snow on many curb cuts and sidewalks.
A Falls Church advisory panel is asking city leaders to embrace a low-tech but potentially effective tool to promote pedestrian safety.
Discussion on providing orange flags at unsignalized street crossings came up at the Feb. 11 meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation.
Fat Tuesday Events — A number of New Orleans-themed events are being held today in honor of Fat Tuesday, including at Bayou Bakery, Ragtime and William Jeffrey’s Tavern.
Sewage Line Repairs — “Emergency repairs of the Potomac Interceptor will take 4–6 weeks. Crews are close to completing the enhanced bypass system, which will allow repairs to begin soon. Added pumps are online & no overflow events were reported.” [DC Water/X, WTOP]
Feds Stepping In — “President Donald Trump said Monday that the federal government will step in to “protect” the Potomac River following the collapse of a major sewer pipe in the Washington, D.C., region, and accused local officials of mismanaging waste management systems.” [NBC News]
Carjacking Arrest — “An Arlington woman was arrested after she allegedly stole a man’s car when he refused to give her a ride, according to police. It happened around 1:59 a.m. Thursday along Seminary Road in the Bailey’s Crossroads area of Fairfax County.” [WJLA, Annandale Today]
Red Light Runner on Camera — “Red light runner, possible hit & run crash early today on S. Glebe Rd near I-395. @ArlingtonVaPD
apparently found the driver of the white vehicle a few blocks away. No serious injuries reported.” [Dave Statter/X]
GW Parkway Work Update — “After more than two and a half years of major traffic disruptions for commuters and other drivers, the National Park Service (NPS) said it has reached “substantial completion” of rehabilitation work on a northern section of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.” [WJLA]
Post Layoffs Cut Courts Reporters — “Between buyouts at the Post last year and the layoffs this month, the Post eliminated all our local courts journalists save Sal… In all, we lost 18 local reporters and 7 local editors in these layoffs; five of the 16 remaining reporters are being transferred to national politics and criminal justice coverage. (Two of those left are on fellowships and may not have jobs at the end).” [Court Watch]
Lawsuit Over D.C. Courses — “Two recreational golfers from the D.C. area have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging efforts to overhaul the East Potomac Golf Links and alleging the move could undermine its long-standing role as a public park. Dave Roberts, a Washington, D.C. resident, and Alex Dickson of Arlington, along with the D.C. Preservation League, are suing the Department of Interior and the National Park Service.” [Fox 5]
Arlington Company Expanding — “Arlington space company Umbra Lab Inc. plans to hire more than 100 employees and expand into a new 20,000-square-foot office in Reston as part of a $6.75 million investment announced Thursday. A $500,000 grant from Virginia’s Opportunity Fund is supporting the expansion.” [WBJ]
Va. Medical Leave Bill — “In Virginia, companies decide whether or not they will offer paid sick days to their employees, because there is no state policy that sets a minimum for how much sick time employers must offer. After several years of attempts, legislation to require paid sick leave for workers cleared Virginia’s House of Delegates on Monday.” [Virginia Mercury]
Lawsuit Against Fmr. AG — “A former Virginia Attorney General’s Office employee filed a lawsuit on Thursday against former Attorney General Jason Miyares, among other previous office leaders, due to allegations of wrongful termination after she spoke out about a payment she alleged was a conflict of interest.” [DC News Now]
Va. Social Media Restrictions — “Attorney General Jay Jones announces today that his office intends to fully enforce new provisions of the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, which require social media platforms to limit minors’ usage to one hour per day unless a parent opts to increase that limit.” [Press Release]
Melting Helping Disabled People — “For week two, Rochelle Harrod remained stuck. The first time she tried to leave her apartment after a late-January snowstorm left the D.C. area locked down in “snowcrete,” she made it down the elevator from her Hyattsville, Maryland, apartment but could go no further than a few feet outside the front door. The wheels of her 300-pound motorized wheelchair couldn’t make it over a snow-covered ramp.” [Washington Post]
It’s Tuesday — Expect patchy fog to clear by 8am, giving way to partly sunny skies and a high near 55 with light southwest winds. As for Tuesday night, it’ll turn cloudy with a low around 43. [NWS]
Flickr pool photo by ksrjghkegkdhgkk
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 — Feb 16, 2026.
Here is what’s going on Tuesday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect patchy fog to clear by 8am, giving way to partly sunny skies and a high near 55 with light southwest winds. As for Tuesday night, it’ll turn cloudy with a low around 43. The calm wind will gradually pick up from the south at around 5 mph after midnight. See more from Weather.gov.
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”
– Cyril Connolly
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! If you have something to say about an issue of local note not covered today, feel free to post it as a letter to the editor on our new forum.
Local news is alive and well in the D.C. area.
The layoffs at the Washington Post earlier this month were a major blow to coverage of sports, courts, transportation and other topics for which the Post was one of the few outlets (or only outlet) to have dedicated local beat reporters. But it was not a death blow to local news in the region, despite the proclamations of some prominent commentators.
In fact, a small army of reporters is still on the beat, covering our communities.
There are dozens working for local TV and radio stations, like NBC 4, Fox 5, WTOP and WAMU. In Rosslyn, the Washington Business Journal continues to closely cover the local business community. The Washington Post reportedly still has around a dozen experienced local journalists — far diminished from its heyday, but not nothing. The Washington Times is somehow still putting general local coverage out in print. The Washington City Paper often punches above its weight. There are more recent online local news startups, like The 51st in D.C. and, now, the Baltimore Banner, which is expanding into suburban Maryland and D.C. sports. Seven full-time local news reporters and editors and several freelancers work for ARLnow and our sister sites, ALXnow and FFXnow, and more work for our partner sites PoPville, MoCoShow and Potomac Local. That’s not to mention longtime outlets like the Washington Informer, Afro, Metro Weekly and the Washington Blade.
We could go on, but you get the idea. Reports of the death of local news in the D.C. area are greatly exaggerated.
Then again, if you were to only scroll your favorite social media feed, or open up your phone’s news app, you might start believing that there’s not much local news left. That’s because day-to-day local news doesn’t give them the engagement or, in some cases, prestige they optimize for. Sure, you might encounter some local stories from legitimate outlets, but you’ll encounter a whole lot more national stories and viral slop.
Which brings us to WSHnow, ARLnow’s newest sister site.
We built WSHnow to surface a wide variety of stories from across the D.C. area, highlighting the reporting being done by hard-working local journalists on our sites and those of our competitors. We check 45 outlets several times an hour, and publish direct links to more than 100 stories over the course of a typical day.
The goal is simple: to give locals a place to find quality local news coverage. We hope you bookmark WSHnow, make it part of your daily routine, and discover great local news sources you weren’t already following and never encountered amid the social algos.
Local news isn’t going to save itself — it needs readers who show up. And the best way to support the reporters still on the beat is to actually read, share and subscribe to their work.
