Reporter James Cullum has spent nearly 20 years covering Northern Virginia. He began working with ALXnow in 2020, and has covered every story under the sun for the publication, from investigative stories to features and photo galleries. His work includes coverage of national and international situations, as well as from the White House, Capitol, Pentagon, Supreme Court and State Department. He's covered protests and riots throughout the U.S. (including the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol), in addition to earthquake-ridden Haiti, Western Sahara in North Africa and war-torn South Sudan. He has photographed presidents and other world leaders, celebrities and famous musicians, and excels under pressure.
A 15-year-old Northeast D.C. boy was arrested Friday and charged with felony murder while armed in last year’s shooting death of Nasrat Ahmad Yar, a former interpreter with U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, who fled the Taliban in 2021 with his wife and four children and moved to Alexandria.
Yar was working as a Lyft Driver in D.C. on July 3, 2023, when he was shot and killed just at around midnight in the 400 block of 11th Street NE. Video footage near the scene showed four young people running through an alley after the shooting. One of them said, “You killed him,” and another responded, “He was reaching bro.”
