The messy negotiations behind D.C.'s Star wars

Star Wars

D.C.’s very own “Star” wars continue. Today, news outlet NOTUS was supposed to unveil a fresh website signaling its relaunch as The Star. But another publication, The Washington Star, had other plans.

I headed to the U.S. District Court in Alexandria yesterday to hear each side deliver its arguments. Court records reveal NOTUS had actually tried to buy The Washington Star trademark back in March – but while NOTUS started negotiations by offering $5,000 for the name, The Washington Star wanted $10 million.

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t reach a deal.

In U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. granted a temporary restraining order, ruling that readers were likely to be confused by the similar names. He ordered NOTUS to halt plans to unveil its new website and also forbade the publication from advertising the rebrand until he determined whether a preliminary injunction would be appropriate.

A hearing on that preliminary injunction isn't scheduled until July 22 – and NOTUS lawyers said the publication had already spent $1.3 million on pre-paid advertising through that month.

Latest from the D.C. Council

The D.C. Council met yesterday – here’s one thing they did vote on, and one thing they didn’t.

Open Meetings

The D.C. Council voted 10-2 to preliminarily approve a bill changing D.C.’s Open Meetings Act, which would make it easier for council members to meet behind closed doors.

Council member and mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George voted against the bill, as did council member Charles Allen. Allen also proposed a successful amendment requiring the council to give public notice after a closed meeting occurred. The final vote is scheduled for June 23.

The American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. slammed the vote.

“Public access to government meetings is a cornerstone of our democracy,” said Alissa Yass, policy advocacy director at ACLU-D.C. “Our elected leaders should not discuss policies that affect our lives behind closed doors.”

Youth Curfews

For at least the fourth time in as many months, the council again punted its vote on youth curfews. In April, it passed permanent legislation allowing the D.C. police chief to declare targeted curfew zones for groups of nine or more minors, but that law won’t go into effect until next month.

The council is one vote shy of the supermajority needed to pass an immediate curfew, and Mayor Muriel Bowser has been using executive orders to establish the curfew while hammering the council for its inaction.

In a letter to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson yesterday, Bowser named and shamed the five members opposing the curfew for “blocking the will of the public and the majority of the council.” (A City Cast DC poll found 72 percent of voters say they favor the curfew.)

This time, some of the opposing council members bit back. Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker accused Bowser of leveraging the curfew debate for “political gamemanship.”

“You’re kidding yourself if you really think a curfew is what we need now when you’re cutting the services that give young people better options in the first place,” he wrote on X. “Like, let’s be serious.”

Reporter's Notebook

Here’s what I’m working on next – what do you want to know?

Since covering the Malcolm X fountain repairs, I’ve asked the Trump administration about the other fountains, parks and statues that are being fixed in the city. I got a long list of more than 50 projects, including the World War II Memorial fountain, the Dupont Circle fountain and the Theodore Roosevelt statue and monuments.

This made me curious about how much these projects cost, and about which statues and fountains aren’t being repaired. What do you want to know? Respond to this email and I’ll see what I can find out.