Host Mayim Bialik and Arlington resident Alice Ciciora on the set of Jeopardy! (courtesy Jeopardy Productions, Inc.)
The long history of Arlingtonians competing on “America’s Favorite Quiz Show™” continues.
Alice Ciciora — a political scientist and researcher who lives in Arlington after moving here from Berkeley, California — is set as a contestant on Friday’s (May 26) episode, with host Mayim Bialik. She will compete against fellow challenger Diandra D’Alessio, a technical writer from Montreal, and the to-be-determined returning champion.
Jeopardy! is now in its 39th season and has featured a number of local residents over the years. The most recent was attorney Luigi de Guzman, who won the last episode of season 38 before losing in the first episode of season 39.
The quiz show airs locally at 7:30 p.m. on WJLA (ABC 7), after Wheel of Fortune.
The One Medical coming to Rosslyn (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
A new One Medical office will open in Rosslyn this fall.
The office will provide “full lab services, preventative and everyday health visits, chronic illness management and mental health support,” a spokeswoman told ARLnow.
A “coming soon” sign is posted on the lower level of the recently-built Cortland Apartments building (1788 N. Pierce Street). The clinic will sit in between a new location of a Foxtrot market and the main entrance to the high rise.
The N. Pierce Street location is the latest for the company — which partnered with MedStar Health in June 2020 to increase its foothold in the D.C. area — but the first in Arlington. There are several full-service clinics in the area, including one each in Tysons and the Mosaic District.
At the time, the clinic noted in a press release that it offers a straightforward appointment-making experience as well as as comprehensive and affordable medical services through its work with MedStar.
Amazon, which is preparing to debut the first phase of its second headquarters in Pentagon City next month, purchased One Medical in February. The acquisition marked a shift for the company, which tried, unsuccessfully, to start its own telemedicine and primary care provider.
As a 23-year-old voter in still-segregated 1960s Virginia, Portia Haskins was convinced she had followed all the rules in order to cast a ballot in Arlington.
Election officials disagreed, saying she had failed to pay the appropriate poll tax still required in the Old Dominion, maintained in part to disenfranchise Black voters.
Haskins took the county, and state, to court. She won, with her case ultimately being folded into the landmark 1966 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Haskins was an unusual legal combatant, committed to seeking unity.
After her efforts to vote were rejected at the local level, Haskins enlisted support from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to challenge the ruling. She traveled several times to the U.S. District Court in Richmond, then watched as the case and others like it moved to the Supreme Court.
Her reaction at the final outcome? “I was so happy,” she said.
The 6-3 ruling in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections effectively outlawed requiring poll taxes for state elections in those few states, like Virginia, that retained them. The poll-tax requirement for federal elections had been eliminated with ratification of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1964.
Lessons from the struggle are still valuable today, said Haskins, now 83.
“Everybody has to come together and fight” when they see injustice, she said. “You have to get together.”
Historical photo of Portia Haskins (via Black Heritage Museum of Arlington)
Haskins is among the Arlingtonians profiled in the “From Barriers to Ballots,” an exhibition marking the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Several versions of the exhibition are on display across Northern Virginia, with one at Central Library running through Nov. 4.
The Arlington Historical Society partnered on the exhibition, and was excited about the Haskins presentation, former president David Pearson said.
“She is someone we really wanted to learn about,” he said, pointing to a renewed effort to “really get out the stories of the complete history of Arlington.”
Haskins has been a member of Mount Salvation Baptist Church near the Glebewood neighborhood since 1951, and in the community she has promoted “the spirit of community and empowerment,” said Scott Taylor, president of the Black Heritage Museum.
Haskins lamented that much of the history of the civil-rights movement is being lost in the public consciousness.
“We went through a lot, but people today don’t know,” she said. Young people in particular, she said, “don’t care because they don’t know.”
Her request to today’s youth? “Let everybody know how you feel” and use the ballot box to create change.
“Voting is important. That’s what everybody really needs to do,” Haskins said.
Motorcycle riders during Rolling Thunder 2018 (Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman)
Cookouts, a dip in the pool and the sound of a thousand motorcycles cruising down the highway. Yes, Memorial Day weekend in Arlington is almost here.
If you’re not among the approximately 35% of locals traveling for the holiday — at least according to our recent poll — you can expect the return of motorcycle-riding military veterans on Friday.
The annual Rolling Thunder rallies officially ended in 2019 but were quickly succeeded by Rolling to Remember, a nearly identical annual event focused on POW/MIA advocacy and organized by the group AMVETS. At the same time, the Rolling Thunder branding has lived on in parallel, with that group organizing a Thunder Alley vendor area near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C.
Rolling to Remember, like Rolling Thunder before it, refers participants to a number of Arlington hotels, meaning that those in Crystal City and Pentagon City, as well as Rosslyn, can expect more rumbles of motorcycle engines throughout the weekend. The event has typically used the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City as its home base.
As in the past, bikers will rally in a Pentagon parking lot Sunday morning. The rally typically results in some rolling road closures in the area, as participants ride from the Pentagon, across Key Bridge and into D.C. around noon for a demonstration “to bring awareness and accountability for POWs and MIAs left behind.”
A PR rep for the Trust for Public Land said the change was less about Arlington and more about two other park systems.
“It’s mostly because Irvine and Minneapolis opened new parks that pushed them ahead — not because of problems in Arlington,” said Matthew Kagan.
D.C. repeated as No. 1 in the nation this year. St. Paul, Minnesota is No. 2.
Last year, after ranking in the top 3, the county touted that 99% of Arlington residents live within a 10-minute walk to the park.
“Our parks and recreation opportunities are a key contributor to quality of life in Arlington County,” Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol said in 2022. “From livability, bikeability, fitness, health and more, our community benefits from our parks.”
Arlington got lower marks, however, for overall and median park acreage.
2023 ParkScore rankings (courtesy Trust for Public Land)
The full press release about this year’s rankings is below.
