Good morning. Happy New Year! I hope all of our readers enjoyed a lovely holiday season. Partly sunny today, with highs near 44. Winds could be abrasive, a fitting atmosphere for the onset of 2026, with gusts up to 21 mph. Lows tonight around 33. The Capitals will play the Anaheim Ducks at home this evening.
This is arguably the most brutal Monday of the year, so congrats on your attempt to read something this morning. Andrew Beaujon is off this week; he’ll be back on January 12, and I will ring in 2026 with you until then. You can find me on Bluesky, I’m kmcorliss.19 on Signal, and there’s a link to my email address below.
This roundup is available as a morning email newsletter. Sign up here.
A great book on my nightstand:
“Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen” by Jose Antonio Vargas. This book, a vulnerable memoir made up of vignettes about Vargas’s experiences as a Filipino immigrant growing up in the US, was my first read of 2026.
Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out:
The latest on Venezuela: The early political news of 2026 has been very normal and not at all alarming. (Imagine my eye twitching.) You might have heard that the US military bombed Venezuela’s capital city, Caracas, early Saturday morning, seizing authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home. (AP) The death toll of the attack, as of this morning, is 80 people. (NYT) The Justice Department has indicted Maduro on narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy, and weapons charges in New York federal court. Flores and other state officials, including Maduro’s son, also face charges. (NPR) President Trump has announced that the US will “run” Venezuela for now and also sell its oil to other countries, a move that does not seem overwhelmingly legal to experts. (AP)
Here’s a line break: Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to soften the president’s claims yesterday, saying the US won’t be governing the country but rather enforcing an existing oil quarantine to coerce its new leaders into making the Trump administration’s preferred policy changes. (NYT) Rubio also threatened Cuba. (NBC News) Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro, has been sworn in as Venezuela’s acting president. (Reuters) Trump says that if Rodríguez ““doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” (The Atlantic) “[I]f they don’t behave, we will do a second strike,” he told reporters. (Politico) Rodríguez agreed to cooperate with the Trump administration “within the framework of international law.” (Axios) Trump also told The Atlantic that the US needs to seize Greenland “for defense,” which Denmark’s prime minister did not take kindly to. (ABC News) A new user on crypto betting app Polymarket put $30,000 on Maduro’s capture hours before the arrest, netting more than $430,000. Not suspicious at all. (Axios) Maduro and Flores are both expected in court today. (NPR) Here’s a good explainer on how we got here. (BBC)
America reacts: Democrats are largely peeved and denounce the intervention, which was carried out without congressional approval. (Politico) Most congressional Republicans are falling in line, except for some of the usual suspects like Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene. (The Hill) Other prominent “America First” Republicans, including Steve Bannon and Candace Owens, came out against the action. (NYT) Some Venezuelans living in the US took to the streets to celebrate Maduro’s capture. (NBC News) Others stayed inside, afraid of getting swept up in any immigration raids. (NYT) Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, who revoked temporary protected status for Venezuelan immigrants a few months ago, said affected individuals can apply for refugee status instead. But deportations will continue. (Axios) New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he called Trump to voice his opposition regarding the operation, which he condemned as “a violation of federal and international law.” (NYT) Maduro is being held at the same notorious Brooklyn jail as Luigi Mangione. (NYT) A Washington Post poll finds that Americans are fairly divided on the issue, although most agree that the military action should have been approved by Congress. (Washington Post) Well, too bad, because the Washington Post editorial board thinks this was a brilliant move on Trump’s part. (Washington Post) A protest outside the White House yesterday drew hundreds. (WTOP)
Administration perambulation: Eight survivors of disgraced, deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein‘s abuse are calling for Trump to be impeached over his administration’s handling of the files. (The Independent) ICE officers are using mobile facial-recognition technology to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants. (WSJ) Trump pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was involved with the assassination of the state’s House Speaker Melissa Hortman last year. (Washington Post) A new economic analysis finds that the Supreme Court has been voting increasingly to favor the rich’s interests in recent years. (NYT) The Department of Justice’s former top ethics official is suing the agency over his unexplained July firing. (The Guardian) A high-ranking Interior Department employee approved plans for a Nevada lithium mine, which her husband profited off of. (NYT) Stephen Miller danced to Vanilla Ice‘s performance of “Ice Ice Baby” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago holiday party. (WSJ)
The best thing I ate last weekend, by Ann Limpert:
More than a year in, Dōgon—Kwame Onwuachi’s sexy, swank Afro-Caribbean restaurant inside the otherwise staid Salamander hotel—still feels like the place to be. Scoring a table takes some planning, but it’s worth it. My favorite dish, among many hits from a recent dinner, was the branzino, a fish you’ll now seemingly find on every upscale restaurant menu in the city. But not like it’s prepared here—crispy-skinned, butterflied, and set in creamy curry sauce with mussels, herbs, and half a lime. (1330 Maryland Ave., SW.)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Does Gen Z want to bring back communal restaurant tables? Yes—I’m nosy and I want to see what you ordered.
• Already need to get out of town? Washingtonian readers can enjoy these four exclusive travel deals.
• Our fictional dinner guest list for January.
• This couple got married at Maketto last New Year’s Eve, as the movie Cocktail played in the background.
• And this couple got married amid pink toile and alongside a life-size topiary horse.
Local news links:
• Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz has dropped out of hosting a Kennedy Center gala alongside the Washington National Opera, saying there’s “no way I would set foot” in the building now that Trump has slapped his name on it. (NYT)
• If it feels like everyone you know is sick, they probably are: Flu rates are high across the region. (NBC Washington)
• Three men were shot and killed outside a Prince George’s County banquet hall early Saturday. (Washington Post)
• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that the historic records housed at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, which the Trump administration is shuttering, will be preserved digitally or transferred to other libraries. (WTOP)
• Traffic deaths in DC fell about 18 percent in 2025, indicating a return to pre-pandemic fatality levels. (Washington Post)
• A DC police officer was arrested and placed on administrative leave after whipping out a gun during a road rage incident in Anne Arundel County. (WTOP)
• An unofficial tribute to the president has popped up on 14th and T streets. (Washingtonian Problems)
