A local farm and herbalist group in Washington, D.C. will teach the uninitiated how to make the non-alcoholic, medicinal tonic, which herbalists say is good to clear out the sinuses or warm you up on a winter day. Common Good City Farm in LeDroit Park and the D.C. chapter of the American Herbalist Guild recently for an event to taste and make fire cider at the farm on January 25.听

If that all sounds warm and cozy, you may have missed the seven year legal battle and boycott over what fire cider is and who gets to use the name. The legal dispute鈥檚 conclusion is the occasion for the D.C. event and the reason why the ad for it hawks the otherwise cryptic slogan 鈥渇ire cider is FREE!鈥�

The dispute started in 2012 when a Massachusetts-based company Shire City, now known as Fire Cider on , trademarked the name 鈥渇ire cider鈥� to refer to their recipe for the tonic. Shortly thereafter, the company started contacting herbalists on Etsy and told them to change the name of their products or stop selling.听

Herbalists told the Wash that it is traditional to share recipes in the medicinal plant community and that the recipe and name for fire cider dates back to the 1970鈥檚.听

鈥淓verybody shares everything, so when this happened it freaked people out,鈥� said Claudia Joy Wingo, who leads the health promotion department at the Maryland University for Integrative Health (MUIH), a school for alternative medicine that has no affiliation with the state鈥檚 University of Maryland.

The dispute heated up. Herbalists called for a boycott. In 2015, Shire City Herbals sued three herbalists for trademark infringement and economic damages from the boycott. The case ended up in a Massachusetts district court.

On September 30 the judge to the herbalists, declaring fire cider a generic term.听

While the trial itself centered in Massachusetts, local herbalists said that it was a big topic in the D.C. metro area, which was the site of the American Herbalist Guild鈥檚 in October. The guild is a nonprofit organization for herbal practitioners.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 trademark tradition,鈥� said Betsy Miller, an herbalist who also teaches at MUIH. While she wasn鈥檛 party to the case, she said that everyone in D.C. watched it closely.听

The idea for the D.C. event came when Elizabeth Gilhuly, President of the D.C. chapter of the American Herbalists Guild, the idea for a party 鈥渋n honor of the Free Fire Cider win.鈥� An organizer at Common Good City Farm quickly responded offering to host.

“It鈥檚 a folk thing like chicken soup,鈥� said Gilhuly. “There is no official way to make chicken soup.”

The invite for the fire cider event in LeDroit Park advertises a tasting, workshops on brewing and cooking with the tonic, and a lunch with dumplings.

Common Good City Farms has a small medicinal garden where it grows passion flowers, echinacea, and mullein, among other herbs, according to Josephine Chu, program and outreach manager at the farm. She said that the farm has regular programming on medicinal plants and herbs.

There is no clinical, peer-reviewed evidence for the medicinal benefits of fire cider, and caution that herbal supplements aren鈥檛 always held to the same scientific scrutiny and can carry risks as well as benefits.

When it comes to fire cider, most of the ingredients are common kitchen ingredients, although Gilhuly cautioned against consuming too much at once. “You don’t drink a glass of vinegar,” she said.

Shire City Herbals did not respond to a request for comment about the trademark dispute.

A statement on of its website acknowledged the loss it court. 鈥淭he Judge thought the term should be generic, and now it is! We will continue to make our Fire Cider in the same small batch, hand-made process our customers have come to know and love.鈥�

The website for the Massachusetts-based company lists ten stores in Washington D.C. that stock its fire cider tonic, although at least one store told the Wash that they were no longer stocking it.听

最新蜜桃影像 picked up a bottle at Glen鈥檚 Garden Market near Dupont Circle. The tonic opened with a sharp sour bite and ended with a slightly spicy taste of garlic. We were unable to sample a fire cider batch home-brewed in the District before publication. Miller, of the Maryland herbalism academy,听 said that she had a batch brewing, but it wouldn鈥檛 be ready for another week or two.

鈥淓very herbalist has their own recipe,鈥� said Miller, who adds an unconventional elderflower to her tonic. 鈥淚鈥檇 encourage people to learn how to make it themselves.鈥�

For now, herbalists are celebrating their win.

鈥淭he trial started in the Spring Equinox with the moon in Libra and ended with the Fall Equinox with the Sun in Libra,鈥� proclaimed the website Free Fire Cider, which was started by a group of herbalists to fight the Shire City Herbals trademark. 鈥淟IBRA is JUSTICE!鈥�

Details on the event:

When: Saturday, January 25, 2020, 11am-1pm

Where: Common Good City Farm, V St NW between 2nd and 4th

What: Taste fire cider and learn to make it

The post 鈥淔ire cider is free!鈥� and D.C. celebrates first appeared on 最新蜜桃影像.

Police were dispatched to the Senate Square apartment building, located at 201 I St. Northeast, around 6 p.m.

Two men had been shot in the building. Both were conscious when police arrived.听 One was taken to a hospital in an ambulance while the other arrived at a hospital as a walk in, according to Officer Sean Hickman, a spokesman for the D.C. Police Department.

Via its , police immediately put out notice they were looking for two black males, one heavyset and wearing black clothing. 最新蜜桃影像 will update this suspect description with more details as soon as they become available.

Shooting in the 200 block of I Street, NE. Lookout for two B/Ms, one heavyset, wearing all black clothing.

— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept)

最新蜜桃影像 witnessed at least four police cars parked in front of the apartment building and another near the garage at 9 p.m. The doors of the building had been propped open with trash cans, and a few residents came in and out, walking their dogs.

Residents said that the 5^th floor of the building was cordoned off with police tape but that they had not received an official notice from the building or police.

There have been 1,461 instances of assault with a deadly weapon in D.C. in 2019, according to city crime statistics.

The post Police search for suspects in Northeast shooting first appeared on 最新蜜桃影像.

All of this progress happened in the heart of D.C., but it was funded in large part by a government in the Middle East.

The Children鈥檚 National Medical Center, a leading pediatric hospital headquartered near the Columbia Heights neighborhood, has received more than $180 million from the United Arab Emirates and its ambassador, Yousef Al Otaiba, over the past decade, according to .

The latest pledge of $30 million this year is set to revamp a part of the former Walter Reed Medical Center, into a cutting-edge pediatric research institute. Plans for the 12-acre lot, located in Bethesda, Maryland, include a new research lab and an outpatient center for children with rare genetic and metabolic diseases.

But it comes in a context of greater scrutiny towards charitable donations in general and towards the United Arab Emirates in particular, as lawmakers in Congress have increasingly called for an end to a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen that was backed by the UAE. A U.N. last year found that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had committed war crimes, including the bombing of medical centers in Yemen.

The oil rich gulf nation 鈥� with a population less than Michigan 鈥� is the 6^th biggest spender on foreign lobbying, according to the transparency organization, Open Secrets, but this tally doesn鈥檛 count donations to think tanks or charities, which don鈥檛 have to register as foreign agents.

Experts say that these gifts are often just as much about exerting influence as the lobbying.

鈥淲hen you give a lot of money to a giant hospital, you get invited to the board dinners, the wine tastings,鈥� said Daniel Schuman, the policy director for Demand Progress, a government reform advocacy organization. 鈥淵ou network with the people who are well networked.鈥�

Ben Freeman, the Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, said that he didn鈥檛 see anything wrong with donating to a hospital but that it was a way of exerting soft power. He called the UAE 鈥渙ne of the savviest鈥� foreign governments in terms of its outreach in the United States. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about lobbyists. They know it鈥檚 very beneficial to your cause if you make these charitable commitments,鈥� he said.

It鈥檚 this savvy that may have helped the UAE keep its insider status, even after several legal firms, academic institutions, and think tanks dropped accounts with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, according to a report by the . In fact, Otaiba has cultivated a close with the Trump administration through the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The UAE Embassy did not respond to a request for comment before publication. Otaiba told the Washington Post in April that the donation to the hospital was not motivated by tactical political reasons.

But hospital fundraising has put the UAE ambassador in contact with some of the biggest movers and shakers in the city.

In 2014 Ambassador Otaiba and his wife, Abeer Al Otaiba, a trained civil engineer who directs a high-end fashion-line, raised nearly $10 million hosting the annual fundraising gala for the children鈥檚 hospital alongside Brett Baier, Fox News鈥檚 chief political anchor. Lawmakers and think tank heads also attend the annual galas.

The Otaibas have a personal connection at the hospital as well. Their infant daughter underwent lung surgery in 2013. (At that time, the UAE had already directed $150 million to the hospital).

The donation to the hospital may also be part of a broader plan to build links between U.S. hospitals and the gulf state to improve care for Emirati citizens. The UAE has signed with at least seven hospitals to ensure that Emirati citizens receive quick care with the help of translators, according to a press release from the UAE embassy. More than 100 Emirati patients receive care at Children鈥檚 National every year, largely paid for by the government.

Many U.S. hospitals, for their part, have begun aggressively recruiting international patients, who are often willing to pay full price, and some, such as the Cleveland Clinic, have even opened up branches in the UAE, which is rapidly becoming a destination for medical tourism of its own and has identified healthcare services as a key element in diversifying it economy.

So far, hospitals have not received much pushback for accepting donations from foreign governments.

Recent scandals over charitable donations have tended to focus on particular individuals, like Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile who committed suicide in a New York prison in August, and serial rapist Harvey Weinstein.

When criticism has touched on foreign governments, Saudi Arabia, has been the main target. In the wake of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cut ties with a charity chaired by the Saudi crown prince, and New York art museums that they would not use money from the Saudi prince鈥檚 foundation for a programs on Middle Eastern art.

But it can be challenging to figure out what to do with government money. Many governments around the world have some policies that could contradict with the reported aims of their foreign charity. Doctors Without Borders has rejected funding in the past from the European Union over their asylum policy, for example.

Ethicists say that one test of whether to accept potentially controversial charity donations has to do with how close they are to the programmatic work, and concern from open government advocates in D.C. has tended to focus on donations to think tanks rather than donations to hospitals or disaster relief.

Schuman argues that it makes a difference whether the aid comes from a pluralistic democracy鈥攚here power is more diffuse and there may be some distance between the aid agency and the national leadership鈥攙ersus a monarchy or oligarchy with almost 鈥渘o difference between the country and its rulers.鈥�

鈥淚 guess you have to do a moral calculus: how many people burned to death is worth a new burn unit,鈥� said Schuman, who argued that it would be better to live in a system where hospitals and universities are funded by the public system, not wealthy donors or foreign governments. 鈥淗ow much can you buy expiation for their sins?鈥�

The post Why has the United Arab Emirates donated $180 million to a local D.C. hospital? first appeared on 最新蜜桃影像.

It鈥檚 a ritual that happens every couple of weeks as the city conducts sweeps of homeless encampments throughout the city, and with particular frequency in the three underpasses on K,L,M streets in NoMa.听

The sweeps 鈥� known by the city as by the bureaucratic name of 鈥渆ncampment protocol engagement 鈥� are based on a law banning camping in the city.听

In practice, however, people move their stuff for a couple of hours and then move back, sometimes complaining of lost possessions. The sweeps have received increased scrutiny in recent months as both homeless advocates, community residents, and business groups question their effectiveness.听

When the encampment clearings take place, the homeless move their belongings just a few feet away from the underpass, now occupying another area that residents use as bike lanes.听

Even though the city has conducted at least 98 such sweeps in 2019, the number of tents in the encampments in NoMa have doubled between summer 2018 and 2019, according to Aaron Howe, a PhD student at American University who is conducting an ethnography of the encampments.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a waste of time,鈥� said Michele Hydier, an on and off encampment resident. She said that the city could still clean the streets, but allow people to move their tents to one side. 鈥�The people that live in the tents should be responsible to clean up the trash,鈥� she said.听

The city is currently fighting a class action from two women who say that the city improperly disposed of their belongings during an encampment sweep.

Ann Marie Staudenmaier, a staff attorney with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, described the encampment clearings as 鈥渃ounterproductive.鈥� She said that people often skip work or doctors appointments to move their tents, and that having the same people who are doing outreach show up alongside the cleanup crew can undermine trust. 鈥淭he stress of having to deal with this every couple weeks really wears on people.鈥�

Individuals experiencing homelessness are drawn to NoMa in part because of the nearby access to public bathrooms and city services. Individuals who are homeless have increasingly moved into tents in recent years, a fact which can improve their safety but which also makes homelessness more visible and can make them a target for sweeps.

Right now, no one seems happy with the encampment clearings. Even as homeless advocates argue that they are an unnecessary and humiliating ritual, some business groups and local residents also think they are a waste of time 鈥� but for different reasons. They would like to see the city adopt more aggressive solutions to clearing the space for pedestrians.

Earlier this summer, the NoMa Business Improvement District set off a firestorm when it published a controversial letter demanding city action on the encampments, which it described as a public safety hazard for pedestrians in the area. In its letter, the business group called for the creation of pedestrian zones in the underpasses. Under this proposal the city would immediately clear any tent or structure in the zone, rather than providing notice and waiting two weeks.

鈥淚 do think there is a consensus that the current situation is not working,鈥� Drew Courtney, an advisory commissioner for the NoMa neighborhood, said.

Courtney said that he was receiving an increasing number of complaints from city residents about encampments and that there are legitimate concerns from people who have experienced harassment. Others complain that there鈥檚 an overwhelming smell and too much trash laying around that makes the neighborhood look unappealing. He has heard a range of proposals from increased police presence to expansion of shelter services. But he cautioned that it was unlikely that there would be a 鈥渟ilver bullet鈥� solution.

The issue of encampments has increasingly come to dominate public meetings and forums in the rapidly gentrifying NoMa neighborhood.听

NoMa resident, Ayesha Hossain, said that it鈥檚 hard to see the homeless having to deal with another obstacle but need a place to go to where they can lay their heads.听

鈥淵ou know it’s tough to say whether I think that the clearings are a good or bad thing because these people don’t have anywhere to go. But at the same time, they can’t keep taking up the sidewalks, it’s just not a place for them to be,鈥� Hossain said.听

The city may be contemplating changes.

The Advisory Neighborhood Commission invited Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, Wayne Turnage, to participate in a public meeting. Courtney said, however, that Turnage declined, saying that the city was in the process of reviewing protocols. The office of the deputy mayor did not respond to 最新蜜桃影像鈥檚 request for comment before publication.

Meanwhile, Mayor Muriel Bowser, spoke about homeless encampments an Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Foggy Bottom last week. She described the current clearing process as ineffective, according to from the event.

Many experts would welcome a change in the way that the city goes about clearing encampments but were wary that pressure for immediate solutions would lead to more aggressive efforts to move homeless people out of public spaces.听听

鈥淎ll around the country business improvement districts try to clean up public space, which usually means privatizing it in some way so only some people can use it,鈥� said Hilary Silver, a professor of sociology at George Washington University.

Homeless advocates argue that the city needs to expand and improve shelter services and housing options.

While the overall number of homeless people has decreased in D.C., the number of homeless single adults has increased slightly over the past year, according to the city鈥檚 .

Kate Coventry, an analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, said that the core issue was one of 鈥渋mproving shelters and increasing housing.鈥� She argued that when people decide to stay on the street, they are often making a rational choice. Some people cannot bring their pets or belongings with them, and couples without children cannot stay together in most public shelters Washington D.C., she said.

Although D.C. has a law requiring it to have a shelter bed for everyone who needs one when the temperature drops below freezing, in practice, Coventry said that the city has not done enough to increase permanent housing.听

D.C. is not the only city struggling with encampments. President Donald Trump against homeless encampments in California last month, sparking concerns that political pressure could lead to a crackdown on vulnerable individuals. Several cities in the West Coast, where a larger proportion of the homeless population is unsheltered, have set up . In many cities throughout the United States, police ticket or charge homeless people for sleeping outside.听

Staudenmaier said she was worried about increasing pressure in both the national and local context.

鈥淭rump is railing against homelessness, and at the same time so many people who aren鈥檛 from DC, they don鈥檛 get that a lot of folks are multigenerational DC residents who鈥檝e been forced out of their homes.鈥�

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All appearances suggest that the battle over one of the last big swaths of undeveloped land in northern D.C. is over.

But Kirby Vining, the treasurer for Friends of McMillan Park, is not ready to give up. Friends of McMillan Park, a group opposed to current development plans at the site, filed a last-ditch challenge against the demolition order in September, alleging that the city has not yet met the requirements for demolition, for example proving that they have the resources to complete the project. The suit is currently at the D.C. Superior Court.

It appears to be a Hail Mary after opponents to the project lost major battles over zoning and historic preservation. The legal battle and public discussions over McMillan have spanned more than half a decade and totaled more than at the zoning commission and hundreds of public meetings. The city estimated the delays cost it more than 99 million in lost tax revenue and increased construction costs.

The for the development includes a medical office building, 146 townhouses, 500 apartments, a grocery store and a community center. McMillan Vision Partners, the coalition of developers in charge of the site, says on its website that more than 40 percent of the site will be open for park space. By breaking down the figures, the Wash calculated 20 percent of the residential units are affordable housing.

In July, the city and developers cleared the second of two major hurdles when the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld the D.C. zoning commission鈥檚 approval of the project. In April 2018, the Mayor鈥檚 Agent for Historic Preservation the mixed use development of the site, arguing that the benefits of the development outweighed the loss of sand filtration cells on the site.

Vining points to the piles of dirt. 鈥淭hey say it鈥檚 not demolition, but they wouldn鈥檛 do this at Mount Vernon,鈥� he says.

Gilles Stucker, the Associate Director for Real Estate for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, said vehicles at the site were doing preliminary testing on how to ensure that construction protected historic resources.

The developers did not respond to a request for comment about the suit in the D.C. Superior Court. Stucker said that he could not comment on pending litigation.

Vining, a former foreign service officer, has fought over the fate of the McMillan site, which sits less than a block from his home, since the 1980s. Vining said that he鈥檚 fronted some $250,000 of his own money into fighting the most recent development plan, some of which may be paid back through donations.

鈥淪ignificant open park space, some development on a portion but nothing over five stories,鈥� Vining said, sketching out his ideal use for the space. He said he and Friends of McMillan Park want an open bidding process and more creative proposals for the site, which, before World War II served as the first in the city.

When asked whether this dream has any chance now, Vining jumps into the intricacies of the latest suit. But he also admits that he has stopped going to farmers鈥� markets to petition support or aggressively soliciting new donations. 鈥淚t鈥檚 up to the Court now,鈥� he says, and he鈥檚 reluctant to ask people to pitch in when the end fate is so unsure.

Stucker, says for the city鈥檚 part, that the project is 鈥渃loser than ever.鈥�

The demolition order and impending development at McMillan may mark the end of an era in D.C. development disputes.

The city voted to make changes to its comprehensive plan to prevent similar litigation.

Activists or neighbors frequently sue over developments on the grounds that they don鈥檛 align with the city鈥檚 comprehensive plan, a blueprint for future development. This was a central contention in the litigation over McMillan and one of the reasons that the appeals court sent the project back to the zoning commission in 2016.

Some 5,000 housing units are tied up in litigation because they are part of planned unit developments, according to Cheryl Court, the policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a nonprofit that advocates for transportation and affordable housing in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. The organization was part of a group that intervened in favor of the new amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Court says that the to the comprehensive plan don鈥檛 make it harder to appeal but add 鈥渃larity鈥� to the review process. She argues that developers have stopped applying for planned unit developments, which must go through the zoning commission and public hearings. 鈥淚t鈥檚 cut the public out of the process,鈥� Court said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e lost affordable housing.鈥�

Vining, for his part, says that the previous plan allowed for adequate flexibility and community input.

The post One last lawsuit over McMillan, even as development appears inevitable first appeared on 最新蜜桃影像.

Technicians, receptionists, physical therapists, and pharmacists have been spending hours organizing their colleagues over the past two months. Workers want better raises in a city where costs are rapidly rising and they want to protect their pension. Other issues do not affect the workers directly but would mean that new hires get a worse deal, something that current employees said they weren’t willing to bargain for.

Kaiser Permanente and a coalition of unions representing 80,000 workers nationwide announced last week that they had reached a tentative agreement with the hope of avoiding a strike. But the vote to ratify the contract, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed as the parties address a few last-minute disagreements.

Grace Reckers, an organizer with OPEIU-Local 2, the union that represents 4,800 Kaiser members in the D.C. metro area, said that they were in 鈥渁 bit of a limbo鈥� but hoping to cement the terms of the temporary agreement that they reached last week. Reckers said that they were working on getting more information but she was not able to respond to detailed questions about the discussions before the deadline for this story.

Workers at Capitol Hill Medical Center, a seven-story medical facility next to Union Station, seemed hopeful about the tentative agreement.

鈥淥verall they were giving us what we were asking for,鈥� said Susan Moody, a shop steward and member experience receptionist at the medical center who has worked for Kaiser since she was hired on the spot more than 29 years ago. Moody said that she appreciates the organization and her job but voted for the strike to ensure that incoming staff would have the same benefits as other workers.

The vast majority of Kaiser workers are located on the West Coast where the health plan has more than 9 million members in California alone, compared to a little over 750,000 in the Mid-Atlantic states. But Kaiser is still a significant player in providing health insurance and care in D.C.

Moody said that the strike vote in D.C. showed that Kaiser workers had solidarity throughout the country.

More than 90 percent of the nearly 3,500 Kaiser employees in Washington D.C. who turned out to vote late last month opted for authorizing the strike.

鈥淚 think they didn鈥檛 figure local 2 would have the same level of solidarity,鈥� Moody said. But she said the vote 鈥渟howed we were going to stick together.鈥�

The vote to strike at Kaiser received national attention in recent weeks. It would have been the largest strike in the United States in decades. Democratic candidates for the presidency like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Kamala Harris of California took to Twitter to express their solidarity with Kaiser workers.

Kaiser is one of the largest unionized employers in the country. Over the past two decades it has experienced relative a relatively peaceful relationship with its workforce, supported by a labor-management partnership, which helps settle disputes and gives workers more of a say in the nonprofit鈥檚 decision-making.

The strike vote may show strains in that partnership.

Last year the group of unions representing workers in the labor-management partnership split into two groups. One group, which mostly represents nurses, settled a contract with Kaiser last year and did not join

the strike vote.

At Capitol Hill Medical Center in D.C., nurses are unionized with UFCW Local 400, which was largely silent about the strike.

Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kaiser Permanente released a announcing the tentative agreement on September 25.

If the tentative agreement does not hold, and Kaiser workers go on strike, Capitol Hill Medical Center could see more than 200 employees walk out. Kaiser has said that it will ensure that patients still receive the same level of care.

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