Alexandria’s jobless rate was stable year over year in new data but remains elevated compared to levels recorded before the Trump administration’s federal government downsizing began.
A total of 96,600 city residents were counted as employed in the civilian workforce in July, with 3,150 seeking jobs, according to figures reported Sept. 2 by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
Alexandria has seen a drop in citywide employment since the start of the second Trump administration.
Total employment reported in the city by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the first quarter of 2026 was 79,000, down 2.6% from the first quarter of 2025. Updated figures were reported Aug. 28.
An Alexandria man pleaded guilty Wednesday (Aug. 26) to transmission of national defense information to a foreign government.
Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, an IT specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Insider Threat Division, was arrested on May 29, 2025, after making a dead drop at a prearranged location. The Federal Bureau of Investigation started its investigation into Laatsch in March 2025, after he sent an email decrying the Trump administration and offering to give classified information to a “friendly foreign government,” according to court records.
The number of Alexandria residents among the ranks of the unemployed stayed above 3,000 for the 11th consecutive month in March, according to new state data.
The 3,333 Alexandrians reported as seeking work in March was up 14.8% from 2,902 a year before, according to figures reported May 19 by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
Following two local “No Kings” protests against the Trump administration in 2025, a third will be held in late March.
Indivisible Do Something Alexandria will host the No Kings 3 protest on Saturday, March 28, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. along northbound Richmond Highway from Powhatan Park to the Potomac Yard Shopping Center. The Alexandria event will be part of the third round of nationwide “No Kings” rallies.
Alexandria City School Board member Kelly Carmichael Booz visited Minnesota last week as part of a project to inform educators on how to respond to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
Booz, who is from Minneapolis, visited the Twin Cities from Feb. 9-13, in the wake of the fatal ICE shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good and the widely reported drawdown of ICE agents there. Her project, a report for the American Federation of Teachers, aims to offer “resources and trainings” for school districts and unions on what to do when ICE enters their communities, she told ALXnow.
Around 250 to 300 students walked out of both campuses of Alexandria City High School today (Friday) to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The student-led walkout lasted from around 2:15 to 2:45 p.m., according to ACPS. The event happened less than a month after hundreds of people gathered at Four Mile Run Park Plaza to protest ICE, after an officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
President Donald Trump signed a roughly $1.2 trillion government funding bill Tuesday that ends the partial federal shutdown that began over the weekend and sets the stage for an intense debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding.
The president moved quickly to sign the bill after the House approved it with a 217-214 vote.
Cesar Madison Tapia, a D.C. middle school teacher with viral political videos on TikTok, is running for Alexandria City Council.
Madison Tapia announced his candidacy on Friday on Instagram, and he had planned to discuss it during the Alexandria Democratic Committee’s now-canceled meeting tonight (Monday). The 26-year-old candidate teaches social studies at MacFarland Middle School in D.C. and has made hundreds of TikToks discussing politics and criticizing the Trump administration.
The ranks of the unemployed in the city grew more than 46% year-over-year in new state jobs figures.
A total of 3,723 Alexandria residents were recorded as unemployed in November according to figures reported yesterday (Wednesday) by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s Alexandria home yesterday (Wednesday) as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of taking home classified information, the Justice Department said.
Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal government, had a phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch seized in the search of her Alexandria home, the Post reported. Natanson has reported extensively on the federal workforce and recently published a piece describing how she gained hundreds of new sources — leading one colleague to call her “the federal government whisperer.”
