Photo by MudflapDC.Good morning, Washington. Just as the weekend kicked off, the jobless numbers rolled in, and the District did not fare well. According to a Labor Department report released Friday, unemployment rose in D.C. to 11.1 percent in August. That’s up from 10.8 percent in July. Estimates put the total number of jobs lost in August around 15,000.
Earlier this year, D.C.’s unemployment dropped to 9.5 percent. Now it’s nearing its record of 11.6 percent from February 1983. Experts are especially concerned because the District’s jobless level has moved up over the past few months, but exceeds the national rate of 9.1 percent, which has remained steady. Maryland and Virginia are well below the national rate. Maryland’s rate rose to 7.3 percent from 7.1 percent and Virginia’s to 6.3 percent from 6.1 percent.
>> The only daughter of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, Kara Kennedy Allen, died suddenly Friday at the Sport and Health club on Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest D.C. Allen was a lung cancer survivor, and her brother, Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island, told AP he thinks her cancer treatment “took quite a toll on her and weakened her physically.” Allen was a filmmaker and television producer, and she also produced videos for Very Special Arts, which was founded by her aunt, Jean Kennedy Smith. In an April article Allen wrote for the Boston Globe Magazine, she recalled lessons from her father: “What mattered to my father was not the scale of an accomplishment, but that we did our share to make the world better. That we learned we were part of something larger than ourselves.”
>> From September 26 to October 2, Holla Back DC! and Stop Street Harassment are going to log incidents of street harassment in order to better track and assess rates of it in the D.C. area, and to eventually create recommendations for policy makers, educators, activists, and regular citizens to make us safer. According to Stop Street Harassment, “Street harassment is any action or comment between strangers in public places that is disrespectful, unwelcome, threatening and/or harassing and is motivated by gender.”
>> Earlier this summer, on the corner of 61st and Dix Street NE, Lashai McLean, a 23-year-old transgender woman, was shot and killed. A tree near the scene of her murder became a makeshift memorial, adorned with a big teddy bear and flowers. The monument has now been destroyed.
>> There was vigorous discussion on this blog recently around whether or not it’s appropriate to mandate that young girls are vaccinated against the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which is linked to cervical cancer, before starting sixth grade. The Washington Post takes a look at why the politics of HPV are so muddled.
>> Thursday night, the Zoning Commission approved redevelopment of the Petworth Safeway, which is now zoned for a mixed-use, five-story residential project.
>> The Washington Nationals lost 4-1 to the Florida Marlins Saturday.
>> The historic Homer building is for sale.
>> And, to top it off, he’s banned backstage.
