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2 DC fires force more than a dozen from their homes, 2 firefighters injured

Two fires in the District broke out just minutes apart early Wednesday morning, forcing more than a dozen people from their homes. The first call to D.C. Fire and EMS came just before 2 a.m. — a basement fire on Kansas Avenue in the Petworth neighborhood in Northwest. Two firefighters were sent to a hospital with minor injuries. Nine people were displaced, according to the fire department. Less than 20 minutes later, fire crews were called to a row home on Kentucky Avenue in Southeast D.C. That fire left seven people and two cats without a home. No injuries were reported in the fire on Kentucky Avenue.

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Civil rights groups make urgent plea for voting rights in DC, ahead of midterm elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voting rights, the work of the Civil Rights Movement and racial justice took center stage on the National Mall Friday, with protesters gathering ahead of midterm elections and following a wave of changes to voting laws and redistricting that some have condemned as detrimental to Black Americans. Hundreds of people rallied on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the 2026 “Defend the Vote” March on Washington, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, echoing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 march. The event follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark April decision in Louisiana v. Callais that reinterpreted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing Southern states to redraw their congressional maps in a way that erodes equal representation in Black communities. “We’ve been doing these marches for years, but this is probably the most important because this is the first year we are marching that the voting rights bill has been nullified by the Supreme Court,” Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, said in an interview with The Associated Press. Civil rights leaders and major Democratic political figures rallied attendees before rallygoers marched past national monuments, including the late King's memorial.
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