FOOD INSECURITY
– We know that there aren’t enough healthy food options or supermarkets for DC’s wards 7 and 8 communities, but the journey residents have to embark on to find fresh groceries is largely unknown. This WAMU article documents a 71-year-old ward 8 resident’s trek, which includes riding four buses, to find a week’s worth of groceries. (WAMU, 2/12)

Many of these residents need to take multiple bus rides and with long walks if they want healthy, fresh and affordable food. The area is widely known as a food desert, but some of the people who live there call it something else.

“Now we’re calling it what it is — it’s food apartheid. It’s something that’s planned,” said Toni Lawson, a long-time Ward 8 resident. “A desert is natural. It’s manufactured by the planet. This is planned, and it’s obvious.”

– Delivery Robots, Farmshares: DC Looks for Solutions to Serve Food Deserts (Urban Turf, 2/9)

RACIAL EQUITY | Tomorrow will mark the second session of Leadership Greater Washington and WRAG’s Putting Racism on the Table: Expanding the Table for Racial Equity series. Tamara Lucas Copeland, WRAG’s president, presents the video of the kick-off reception with Dr. Bernard Demczuk, retired George Washington University professor, who discusses why we have to understand the racial history of DC and the US in order to address the root causes of the inequities we see today. (Daily, 2/12)

REGION | The Washington Business Journal has released the winners for its 11th Annual Minority Business Leader Awards. Congratulations to our member Marc Battle, vice president of Pepco Holdings Inc! (WBJ, 2/12)

IMMIGRATION | As the number of deportations of immigrants with no criminal record has increased, ICE officials continue to praise the current administration’s support of its enforcement. (WaPo, 2/11)

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT | The first DC Council candidate debate brings affordable housing, and candidates’ experience levels, to the fore (GGWash, 2/9)

PUBLIC HEALTH | The DC Council has proposed the creation of a Maternal Mortality Review Committee to study the cause of the city’s high maternal death rate. (WTOP, 2/11)

The Daily will be back on Wednesday!

Read about the “lost laws” of DC and the legacy of Mary Church Terrell.

– Kendra