Local
2 gay men uninjured after car plunges into Anacostia River
Two gay men leaving Ziegfeld’s/ Secrets received only minor injuries early Sunday morning after their car plunged into the Anacostia River behind the club, where the street leads to the riverbank without a warning sign or guard rail.
D.C. police identified the two men as John Orr, 49, of Arlington, Va., and John Knew, 39, of Alexandria, Va.
“Fortunately, we were able to swim out OK,” Orr told the Agenda in a telephone interview.
A spokesperson for the D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department said fire trucks and an ambulance rushed to the scene after guards stationed at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security building, located near where the car entered the river, called 911 for help.
“Units arrived on the scene at the site where a small car went into the water,” said spokesperson Pete Piringer. “Reportedly, there were two occupants in the vehicle. One managed to get out. Fire rescue crews were able to quickly remove the other victim from the car safely.”
Orr told the Agenda that he and Knew managed to get out of the car and onto the riverbank just as rescue workers arrived.
Orr said neither he nor Knew were familiar with the warehouse district known as Buzzard’s Point, where the gay entertainment complex Ziegfeld’s/Secrets and a straight club named Crucible, are located.
Orr said he was driving the car and made a wrong turn onto a side street that he thought would take him out of the warehouse area and onto a main street.
Acknowledging that he may have been distracted, he said he continued driving until it was too late to avoid going into the river.
When visited Sunday by a reporter, the site showed no sign or guard rail at the foot of T Street, S.W., which leads into the riverbank, to indicate the river is located about 10 feet from the paved street.
Additionally, a bright light shining from a guard shack next to the Department of Homeland Security building made it difficult to see that the riverbank and a 10-foot drop into the water lies a short distance away — directly in the path of the street.
Asked if a sign or road barrier might have alerted him to the fact that he was headed toward the river, Orr said, “It probably would have helped. Yeah, it probably would have helped.”
A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Public Works, which is responsible for street maintenance, could not immediately be reached.
Orr said rescue workers offered to take him and Knew to a hospital for observation, but the two men declined the offer. Instead, he and Knew arranged for someone else to take them home.
Piringer said a D.C. police boat and a diver arrived on the scene shortly after other emergency responders arrived. He noted the diver searched the river as a precautionary measure to determine if other people were in the car, even though the two men who emerged from the water said they were the only ones in the vehicle.
In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Piringer said D.C. police were conducting a follow-up investigation into the incident.
Commander David Kamperin, who heads the First District Police station, said an officer on the scene was expected to complete a full report on the incident after Agenda deadline.
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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