District Of Columbia

How do you plan for a transportation tsunami? Where do you park 10,000 charter buses? How do you accommodate a possible 1 1/2 million would-be riders on a subway system with a capacity of about 1 million? How do you explain to people who are used to driving everywhere that their cars aren't welcome in downtown Washington? What happens on the roads, at the airports and aboard the trains when millions of visitors flood the capital region to witness history at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States?

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. appeals court struck down yesterday a strict ban on owning firearms in the nation's capital, setting the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the scope of the Second Amendment and whether it expressly protects a person's right to own a gun. Lawyers on both sides of the gun-control debate called the decision significant - the first time a federal appeals court has voided a gun law on the basis of the Second Amendment. For that reason, the case is expected to reach the nation's highest court.

Residents of the District of Columbia are inching closer to full voting representation in Congress. An important procedural vote to cut off potentially endless debate in the Senate is up for consideration today, and it deserves to pass. There should be no more excuses for denying the population of Washington - which is close in numbers to Baltimore's - a fundamental measure of democracy. The idea of giving Washington's delegate unrestricted voting rights has long been resisted by Republicans.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court again stepped squarely into the culture wars yesterday by agreeing to hear a high-profile gun ban case, one that might make firearm ownership a significant issue in the coming election year. At stake is a law that prohibits residents of the District of Columbia from owning handguns. The justices will decide sometime next spring whether such a ban violates the Constitution. If they rule that way, it could eventually spell trouble for gun bans in other cities.

Officials in Maryland and the District of Columbia have agreed to disagree over the future of an often-troubled juvenile facility in Anne Arundel County that houses district delinquents. In a "satisfactory division of agreement" statement issued last night, the disputing parties said the district government will move forward with construction of a new Oak Hill facility near the existing one on a 40-acre section of a federally owned site adjacent to Fort Meade. Though Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin has long fought to relocate the detention center into the district, the Maryland Democrat characterized yesterday's "agreement" as a partial victory because Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty is now willing to cooperate with federal and state officials about the disposition of the remaining 848 acres of the property.

Taxation Without Representation" - emblazoned on District of Columbia license plates - could be on its way out. The House voted 241-177 yesterday to give the District a voting representative in Congress. "This has been a 206-year labor of love," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, a nonvoting delegate who represents Washington's 550,000 people. However, the fate of the measure is uncertain in the Senate, where Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, is expected to introduce a version of the bill soon.

WASHINGTON -- Donna Christensen, then new in Congress, was passionately opposed to the motion to impeach President Bill Clinton in December 1998. Whatever his mistakes, Christensen believed, Clinton did not deserve to be removed from office. But Christensen, who represents the Virgin Islands, could not vote. She was reduced to speaking on the House floor only after the impeachment vote and declared that if she could have, she would have voted no. "We're all generally forgotten or on the back burner," Christensen said recently, referring to herself and the four other nonvoting delegates in the House.

WASHINGTON -- It used to be that Saturday mornings were set aside for children to have fun -- watching cartoons, playing outdoors or just sitting idly around the house.That's no longer true in Washington, where children in virtually all the District of Columbia system's 146 schools are sitting in classes and hitting the books on Saturdays to boost their reading skills.As part of the Saturday STARS program (Students and Teachers Achieving Results and Success), the students sit in class from 9 a.m. to noon, with the same teachers and the same curriculum they see during weekday classes.

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15. See below for how to submit a question.I work in the District of Columbia, for the D.C. government, but I reside in Baltimore. For two pay periods my employer mistakely sent my state taxes to D.C. instead of to Maryland. What can I do about that and how do I report my income tax?Maryland and the District of Columbia have adopted a reciprocal agreement that allows your compensation to be taxed in the state of Maryland, even though it is earned in the District of Columbia.

Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner, took himself out of the running yesterday for the post of District of Columbia health director. Beilenson, 39, had been recruited for the job and was one of two finalists. He said he lost interest because the process had dragged on for 3 1/2 months."It was putting my family in limbo and causing some disruption in the city health department," Beilenson said. "I just decided that with the chaos in D.C. right now and other factors, I should stay in Baltimore."

Who will be the next to die because our cities spend money on sports stadiums instead of basic infrastructure? Two years ago, my former college town, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, was the site of thirteen needless fatalities when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. The tragedy occurred the same month that ground was broken on a $500 million stadium. Now, a mere 10-minute walk from my home, two Washington, D.C., Metro trains collided, killing nine and sending more than 75 to the hospital.

Very Washington DC Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $15.95 Diana Hollingsworth Gessler has forged a fascinating career out of illustrating and writing the text about fascinating American cities or states. Thus far, she has published books on New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., and California - and now Washington, D.C. Her work consists of handsome watercolors and oil paintings of prominent sites, and quirky descriptions of places, people and things. Often she emphasizes the lesser known or underappreciated figures of history, such as Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, who laid the blueprint for what would become Washington, but she also highlights some of the finest museums in the District of Columbia, from the Smithsonian to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and mentions such uniquely Washington events as the National Cherry Blossom Festival, held in spring.

Two men dead in separate incidents A man who was shot in the leg Wednesday died from his injuries and another man was found dead in a vehicle in separate incidents on Baltimore's east and west sides, police said. The two homicides bring the city's count to 65 for the year, compared with 55 at this time last year. A man was found dead in a vehicle in the 1800 block of Aiken St., in the Oliver community. Three hours later, a man was shot in the leg in the unit block of Gorman Ave. in the Penrose community, and died later.

WASHINGTON -The District of Columbia moved a step closer yesterday to gaining full membership in the House of Representatives as the Senate voted 61-37 to give the nation's capital and Utah each a House seat. Yesterday's historic vote will be followed by a vote next week in the House, where a similar bill is expected to pass easily. President Barack Obama has expressed support for Washington voting rights and is expected to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. Residents and officials of the District of Columbia - a 61-square-mile area with a population of almost 600,000, about 55 percent of it black - have engaged in a long, slow fight for representation in Congress.

How do you plan for a transportation tsunami? Where do you park 10,000 charter buses? How do you accommodate a possible 1 1/2 million would-be riders on a subway system with a capacity of about 1 million? How do you explain to people who are used to driving everywhere that their cars aren't welcome in downtown Washington? What happens on the roads, at the airports and aboard the trains when millions of visitors flood the capital region to witness history at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States?

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold yesterday urged the state attorney general to halt the District of Columbia's construction of a $42 million juvenile detention center in Laurel, arguing that the city did not get state permission to proceed. Noting the conclusion of his legal staff, Leopold said in a news release that the District of Columbia is prohibited from rebuilding Oak Hill Youth Center without written consent from the secretary of juvenile services, and that could be grounds to sue. Construction on the 888-acre wooded tract just south of Fort Meade began in September.

The state Senate approved a bill yesterday that would allow the Maryland State Athletic Commission to oversee mixed martial arts. If the legislation also passes in the House of Delegates and is signed by the governor, it would clear the way for MMA events to be staged in Maryland. John Rallo, the Canton gym owner who prompted the legalization effort, was thrilled at the vote. "If we would have tried to get it legalized without supplying the stats and making the experts available to testify, I don't think it would have ever gotten passed," he said.

For the first time since Emma Osong moved to Maryland 27 years ago, the native of Cameroon will cast a vote in an American election. That moment, which should take place sometime this morning, is good in and of itself, Osong says, but she anticipates that the real joy will come from making her mark for the person she is supporting - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Clinton's focus on universal health care and her experience in foreign policy is why Osong is backing the former first lady, and the primary reason why the 45-year-old mother of three has been volunteering for Clinton up to four hours a day since November, calling voters from the campaign's Baltimore office.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court again stepped squarely into the culture wars yesterday by agreeing to hear a high-profile gun ban case, one that might make firearm ownership a significant issue in the coming election year. At stake is a law that prohibits residents of the District of Columbia from owning handguns. The justices will decide sometime next spring whether such a ban violates the Constitution. If they rule that way, it could eventually spell trouble for gun bans in other cities.

WASHINGTON -- Donna Christensen, then new in Congress, was passionately opposed to the motion to impeach President Bill Clinton in December 1998. Whatever his mistakes, Christensen believed, Clinton did not deserve to be removed from office. But Christensen, who represents the Virgin Islands, could not vote. She was reduced to speaking on the House floor only after the impeachment vote and declared that if she could have, she would have voted no. "We're all generally forgotten or on the back burner," Christensen said recently, referring to herself and the four other nonvoting delegates in the House.