DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Before you leave your umbrella on the bus, enjoy some fresh links!

Condo residents fight for immigrant chief engineer they love – and need “I have 204 angels behind me,” Rua, 43, said as his teary-eyed wife, Liliana Rosario Rua, and his daughter, Andrea Rua, a freshman at Montgomery College, nodded. “No matter what happens, I am never going to forget what they did for me.” Even as anti-immigrant sentiment has swelled in large swaths of the country, many communities are willing to do battle for individual immigrants who have become part of their lives.” (The Washington Post)

Wal-Mart coming to D.C., says Tommy Wells “If Ward 6 D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells’s Twitter account is to be believed, Wal-Mart has signaled its intention to open at least one store, if not more, inside the District of Columbia. “Walmart’s coming to DC,” Wells tweeted shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday night. Technically, Ward 7′s Yvette Alexander may have been the first to break the news, though she was less specific in her tweet: “Big box retailer coming to Ward 7? Stay tuned!” (tbd.com)

Sources: Fenty holding up the budget process “Throughout his tenure, Fenty was known for sending budget proposals down at the last minute, leaving the council and the Chief Financial Office with little time to analyze the spending. Gray and Council Chairman-elect Kwame Brown have said they have been meeting with the CFO to discuss the budget changes they’d like to make once they have the mayor’s budget in-hand.” (Washington Examiner )

Study Says P.W. County Policy Led To Fewer Illegal Immigrants “The study concludes that the policy, which requires police officers to examine the citizenship status of every person they arrest, has reduced the number of illegal immigrants in Prince William County by thousands. It also concludes that the policy created ethnic divides and didn’t have a major affect on overall crime trends, though there have been decreases in assaults and hit-and-run accidents.” (wamu.org)

Financial support: Experts weigh in on how Leslie Johnson stuffed $79,600 into her bra “For the cash to fit, Johnson would have to spread the wealth around. “It would require full use of the cups, straps and band,” Palacios says. It also helps that Johnson is a conservative dresser. “In her pictures she’s always wearing a jacket, nothing form-fitting,” explains Palacios. “It would completely cover up those bills, so you would never see it.” (voices.washingtonpost.com)

Petco Repeating CVS’s Old Mistakes « “As you can see from the shot on the top and the one above, the store covers up two large picture windows with interior walls, which are used to hang goods for sale. This increases the amount of usable space for the store, but it is terrible for sidewalk…Yes, these are simply mock ups, but Safeway presented these plans as providing space for several street level shops. But what did we actually get? A nail salon, a cell phone store, and a chain pet-supply store that takes up space for three stores and covers up the glass for two of them. This is a real let down.” (georgetownmetropolitan.com)