Photograph by Evy Mages
Washington Post employees will begin to return to the DC office in June and should be working at least part time in the office by mid-September. That’s according to a memo to employees Wednesday from VP of HR Wayne Connell, whose missive fleshes out a plan that
Post Publisher Fred Ryan announced in March. One change from Ryan’s early announcement: 20 percent, instead of 10 percent, of each department can apply to begin working on Franklin Square during “Phase One” of the Post’s reopening, which will begin on July 6.
The
Post won’t require employees to be vaccinated to return to the office, “but we do strongly encourage it,” Connell writes. Anyone who wants to return with the earlybirds will have to demonstrate that at least two weeks have passed since their full dose was acquired.
Photo of David Grohl via Flickr user Giarc80.
Erstwhile Washingtonian Dave Grohl will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the second time. Grohl’s band, Foo Fighters, will be part of the 2021 class of inductees, and his former band Nirvana was inducted in 2014.
Grohl grew up in Springfield, and he attended a combo of Thomas Jefferson High School, Bishop Ireton High School, and Annandale High School. He’d take the Metro in to see bands play at the 9:30 Club, and he eventually played with local groups Dain Bramage, Mission Impossible, and Freak Baby before joining up with the band Scream. (He later moved to Seattle when he joined Nirvana.) The Foo Fighters also recorded at Grohl’s house in Alexandria.
Washington Post. Buzbee is currently the executive editor of the Associated Press and will be the first woman to run the
Post newsroom. Buzbee is “widely admired for her absolute integrity, boundless energy, and dedication to the essential role journalism plays in safeguarding our democracy,”
Post publisher Fred Ryan wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday.
Buzbee’s appointment comes after a search that was conducted largely out of view from most
Post employees and took place during a time when naturally gossipy journalists might have picked up clues about who was in the mix. Still, her name was not one of those bandied about by most media-watchers, including
Lafayette Square last week. Photograph by Evy Mages
Lafayette Square, the park near the White House that’s been fenced off since last summer, reopened to the public on Monday. Sort of.
The fences around the park remain; it’s only the gates to the park that have opened. They opened on a few occasions in 2020, but the park has remained mostly off-limits since protests that followed George Floyd’s murder by a cop caused former President Trump to hide in a bunker in the White House. Trump famously strode across the square for a bizarre photo op in front of St. John’s Church on June 1, 2020, after the feds cleared protesters for him by using tear gas and smoke.
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DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Monday that the city plans to end most capacity limits on May 21. On that date, restaurants, places of worship, libraries, non-essential retail, and many other aspects of pre-pandemic daily life will be able to operate at full capacity.
A few types of venues will have to wait three more weeks after May 21 to operate at full capacity: Bars, nightclubs, and large sports and entertainment venues. DC will lift limits for those on June 11.
Some of DC’s biggest venues had asked Herroner to lift such restrictions by July 1, so news of a June opening date appears to be welcome: “We’re beyond thrilled,” I.M.P. spokesperson Audrey Fix Schaefer writes in an email.