DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Plan on eating your lunch al fresco– today is shaping up to be a perfect, 70 degree spring day.

How the G-Word Advances Statehood Uninspired by the responses candidates had to cram into a 30-second time limit, Lydia DePillis writes her ideal answer to the "gentrification" question: "In the (mercifully short) audience question section of last night's at-large Council debate, someone launched into a sermon on social justice, and ended with this awkward double query: How would you 'stop gentrification,' and what's your plan to push for statehood for Washington D.C.?" (Washington City Paper)

Mayor Gray’s Former Chief of Staff Admits Wrongdoings, Conflicting Statements Seems the Mayor was unaware that Sulaimon Brown was hired, or that his staff had engaged in nepotism. Eleven people who were called before the Committee on Government Operations and Environment testified about "a tangled web of missteps in vetting, called-in favors and specially handled hires and conflicting reports that will prove difficult to unravel. But there was at least one common thread in several of the accounts—Gerri Mason Hall. Mason Hall, the mayor’s hired—then fired—chief of staff, admitted to wrongly setting salaries above acceptable caps among other missteps." (afro.com)

Bullet ended federal witness's plan to 'go legit' Local witness had been part of the D.C. "criminal underworld", but later worked on drug cases and with the counterterrorism division of the FBI: "Bethlehem Ayele figured she would quit selling cocaine at age 30, take her money and start a legitimate business. By all appearances, things seemed to be going according to plan. At 34, Ayele ran a popular restaurant on H Street that was getting good reviews. She also obtained her real estate license and worked for a broker in Virginia. But Ayele’s past caught up with her…" (Washington Times)

The few U.S. Muslim women who choose full veil face mix of harassment, sympathy Article highlights women in the region who choose to wear a "niqab", the garment which covers everything but the eyes: "Asra Nomani, a local Muslim feminist…is seeing more covered women in area malls and dog parks. Most of them, she suspects, are converts to Islam. “You’d be hard-pressed to find many native-born Muslims who wear niqab,” said Nomani, who would support a ban on religious face coverings here. “It’s been mostly accepted within Islam that women are not required to wear the veil. Even these women who adopt the veil voluntarily are promoting a hard-line ideology.” (The Washington Post)

D.C. police walking the beat in Hill East Hill East is, as its name implies, near the desireable Capitol Hill neighborhood; some argue that its proper name is Barney Circle. "Someone was robbed a block away from my residence recently, and since then, there have been more cops — on foot — all over my neighborhood. They are often walking alone, down semi-shady alleys, and I really respect that. I don’t know if the initiative comes down from the top (Police Chief Cathy Lanier) or from the neighborhood, but it gets right at the request I hear from countless D.C. denizens: More police on the beat, please. Not in cars, on foot. Walk in our shoes." (dccranktank.com)