News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
Storm clouds over Rosslyn (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Flyover Planned This Morning — From D.C.’s alert system: “The US Navy will conduct a flyover over the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, June 26th, 2023 at 9:15AM.”

Equipment Issue Grounds Flights — “Flights to and from airports in the Washington region were suspended for a time Sunday evening after a problem at a major air traffic control facility, according to both the Federal Aviation Administration and the local airports authority. Departures from both National and Dulles were subjected to a ground stop.” [Washington Post]

Dateline Examines Arlington Murder — “The murder of Arlington resident Andrea Cincotta, who was found strangled and stuffed inside a bedroom closet 25 years ago, [was] featured Friday night on a new episode of NBC News’ ‘Dateline.’ […] “Dateline” interviewed Cincotta’s son, Kevin Cincotta, in his first network television interview on the case.” ABC’s 20/20 also recently aired an episode about the case. [Patch, Peacock]

Arlington Rises in Dog Park Rankings — “Arlington County ranked as the fifth-best city in the U.S. for its dog parks in 2023, up from its ranking as 14th best a year ago, according to a new report by LawnStarter. Among the key metrics used by LawnStarter, Arlington ranked fourth for the number of top-rated dog parks, eighth for the number of dog parks per 100,000 residents, and 44th for the number of very hot days.” [Patch]

Dogs Go to Jail — “The Arlington County Detention Facility had some special four-legged visitors Wednesday as a local therapy dog organization, People Animals Love, interacted with those incarcerated.” [ACSO]

Pike Library to Stay Open — “Construction may be about to begin on the new Arlington Career Center building, but patrons using the adjacent Columbia Pike branch library should not see significant impacts. ‘No library services or programs will be affected and Columbia Pike Library will remain open during the construction period,’ county officials said.” [Gazette Leader]

More Metro Service Improvements — “Metro customers will see more trains, more buses, and simpler fares next week as Metro rolls out its tenth service improvement since last summer… Beginning Monday, June 26, Orange Line trains will operate every 10 minutes from opening until 9:30 p.m.” [WMATA]

It’s Monday — Chances of storms throughout the day. Storms later in the day may be severe. High near 90. South wind 6 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. At night: Showers and storms. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. Low around 66. [Weather.gov]

Around Town

ARLnow Daily Debrief for Jun 23, 2023

By ARLnow.com

Good Friday evening, Arlington. Today we published articles that were read a total of 4013 times… so far.

📈 Top stories

The following are the most-read articles for today — Jun 23, 2023.

  1. An update in the ‘wide open’ Arlington County Board race could come this afternoon
  2. Morning Notes
  3. Morning Poll: Are you more or less optimistic about Arlington than one year ago?
  4. Local kabob shop donates meals to children fighting rare diseases

Since it’s Friday, we’ve also compiled a list of the most-read articles of the week, below.

  1. Young black bear spotted in Arlington (20232 views)
  2. JUST IN: Woman stabbed to death in Virginia Square apartment building (17537 views)
  3. JUST IN: Bear spotted in another N. Arlington neighborhood (15348 views)
  4. NOW: Police searching for pursuit suspect near Air Force Memorial (7962 views)
  5. DEVELOPING: Dehghani-Tafti ahead in early vote tally as results roll in (4915 views)
  6. Shove seriously injures innocent bystander near East Falls Church Metro (3964 views)
  7. New Japanese restaurant opening in Ballston, next to Uncle Julio’s (3773 views)
  8. An update in the ‘wide open’ Arlington County Board race could come this afternoon (2679 views)
  9. Light turnout so far for Democratic primary in Arlington (2630 views)
  10. Celtic House planning to expand with lower level whisky bar (1947 views)
  11. Local civic association says parks department ignoring their pickleball court objections (1747 views)

📅 Upcoming events

Here is what’s going on Saturday in Arlington, from our event calendar.

Here are the events planned for Sunday:

⛈️ Saturday’s forecast

A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 84. Southwest wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. At night: Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 68. Southwest wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. See more from Weather.gov.

💡 Quote of the Day

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
– William James

🌅 Tonight’s sunset

We hope you have a great weekend, Arlington! Feel free to discuss the most-read stories of the week, the upcoming weekend events or anything else of local interest in the comments. 👋

Sponsored

Police investigating gunfire that damaged window in Green Valley

By ARLnow.com
Police car at night (file photo courtesy Kevin Wolf)

Arlington County police are investigating shots fired in the Green Valley neighborhood.

The gunfire rang out around 10 p.m. Friday night near The Shelton apartment complex. No injuries were reported but a bullet damaged a window in a nearby residential building.

More, below, from an ACPD crime report.

SHOTS FIRED, 2025-10100198, 3200 block of 24th Street S. At approximately 10:01 p.m. on October 10, police were dispatched to the report of possible shots heard in the area. During the course of the investigation, officers recovered evidence confirming shots had been fired in the area and property damage to the window of a residential building was located. No injuries were reported. There are no suspect(s) descriptions. The investigation is ongoing.

The same block was the scene of a shooting in November 2024. The teen victim of that shooting survived his serious injuries.

News

WaPo: Caps and Wizards have had ‘preliminary’ talks about new arena in Arlington

By ARLnow.com
MedStar Capitals Iceplex (via Monumental Sports and Entertainment)

Could Arlington one day be the home of the Capitals and the Wizards?

The Washington Post says talks to build a new arena in the National Landing area, not far from Amazon’s HQ2, are underway — but are in the early stages. The talks come as Monumental Sports and Entertainment, which owns the NHL and NBA franchises, contemplates leaving Capital One Arena in D.C. after the expiration of a lease clause in 2027.

“MSE executives have also talked to Virginia government officials about relocating the Capitals and Wizards from downtown D.C. to Northern Virginia, near Amazon’s new HQ2, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, who were not authorized to speak publicly about negotiations,” the Post reported Friday. “Two people familiar with the talks, including a Monumental official, described them as preliminary and exploratory.”

“If Monumental were to leave for Virginia, it would follow Amazon into a neighborhood boosters have renamed ‘National Landing,’ which has already started experiencing rapid transformation,” the Post’s article adds. “The move would be a major economic development win for both Arlington County and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who has been mulling a 2024 presidential bid.”

It’s unclear where a new arena might go in the largely built-out neighborhood. The long-vacant PenPlace site, once contemplated as a possible landing spot for a Washington Nationals stadium before the team committed to D.C., is set to become the second phase of HQ2. That project, including the signature “Helix” building, is delayed but local officials expect it to get underway next year.

Another plot of land just to the west of PenPlace, however, is set for redevelopment, across from the Pentagon City Metro station, and located on a pair of high-capacity roads near I-395.

The Capitals already have a presence in Arlington — the MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Ballston hosts the hockey team’s training facility and team offices.

News

UPDATED: Coffey, Cunningham win County Board primary

By ARLnow.com
1/9

(Updated at 9:40 a.m. on 6/26/23) The ballots have all been counted and the results are finalized: Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham are the Democratic nominees for the Arlington County Board.

The results, released at 3:15 p.m. today (Saturday), culminated Arlington’s trial run of ranked-choice voting method. Eyes across the state were reportedly on Arlington, which the state legislature allowed to use the process for County Board elections one year before extending the right to the rest of the Commonwealth.

At noon today, Arlington election officials adjudicated the remaining 135 provisional ballots and began tabulating them around 1 p.m. These ballots were not expected to change the outcome of the tabulation yesterday (Friday), when officials processed ballots from early voting, primary day voting, and mail-in ballots.

On Tuesday’s primary day, no candidate in the six-way race crossed the threshold with only the first round of votes counted. Arlington waited until all the ballots were in, save provisional ballots, before eliminating lower vote-getters and tallying second- and third-place rankings.

Coffey, a researcher for the think tank American Progress, appears to have captured votes from many millennial renters like herself, receiving 10,786 votes.

Cunningham, who ran an unsuccessful bid for Arlington County Board as an independent in 2020, received 14,208 votes, initially carried by several precincts north of Langston Blvd.

Arlington County Board Democratic Primary Round 1 votes by precinct (by Jo DeVoe)

Coffey emerged victorious in the fourth round, after Jonathan Dromgoole, Tony Weaver and Julius “JD” Spain were eliminated, in that order. Cunningham crossed the victory threshold in round six, after Natalie Roy was eliminated.

How the ranking rounds played out for Arlington County Board (via Virginia Dept. of Elections)

Tabulation yesterday and today at county government headquarters was open to the public as was the certification of the results.

Both Coffey and Cunningham were both present on Friday. Coffey observed the vibe in the tabulation room was upbeat, complimenting Director of Elections Gretchen Reinemeyer for walking through every step, even though it seemed boring and technical.

“But as we waited for each step to happen, people were joking and laughing and being silly with it,” she said. “I think it’s reflective, Arlington County has some really good people.”

After the preliminary results were finalized on Friday, Coffey seemed stunned.

“This is so surreal,” she said. “This is wild.”

Cunningham was similarly upbeat.

“I am just excited at the prospect of serving our community next January,” Cunningham told ARLnow shortly after the tabulation. “I’m ready to take a true deep breath and I’m really proud of our candidates and the community for having a good and clean race.”

(more…)

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