Good morning. It’ll be sunny again today with a high around 84. A low near 61 overnight.
Sports this weekend: The Nationals host San Francisco tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. D.C. United visits Philadelphia on Saturday. The DC Defenders host the St. Louis Battlehawks at Audi Field on Saturday. Loudoun United FC visits Hartford Athletic on Saturday. Old Glory DC visits Anthem RC in Charlotte Saturday.
You can find me on Bluesky, I’m @abeaujon.87 on Signal, and there’s a link to my email address below. This roundup is available as a morning email newsletter. Sign up here.
I can’t stop listening to:
Dave, “The Boy Who Played the Harp.” The British rapper Dave has made a career out of cleverly exploring his vulnerability; this song from his recent album of the same name ponders powerlessness amid the sweep of history. Dave plays the Anthem Saturday.
Take Washingtonian Today with you! I keep ridiculously long playlists on Apple Music and on Spotify of this year’s music recommendations. Here are 2025’s songs (Apple, Spotify), too.
Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out:
War news: Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ten-day ceasefire yesterday. The US had pressured the countries to strike a truce, a key condition of Iran’s in peace talks between Iran and the US. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group Israel had targeted in Lebanon, was not a party to the deal. (Washington Post) President Trump said the war was “going along swimmingly” and promised, as he has done for weeks, that it would end soon. (CNBC) The Iran-Lebanon agreement signals that the President “may be more amenable to at least some of Tehran’s demands than his public stance would suggest.” (Politico) Trump claimed Iran had agreed to give up its “nuclear dust,” referring to enriched uranium. (Washington Post)
Strait talk: The US continues to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had effectively closed during the war. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened again to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran if the countries aren’t able to agree on a peace deal. (NYT) Hegseth also attacked the press, likening journalists to “Pharisees” for asking questions about the war. (NBC News) US officials have told European countries that purchased weapons from the US that their shipments may be delayed as the war “continues to draw on weapons stocks.” (Reuters) International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said yesterday that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so (of) jet fuel left.” (AP)
ICEd: Todd Lyons will resign at the end of next month as ICE’s acting director. Lyons “oversaw the agency during tumultuous immigration crackdowns.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin praised Lyons’ tenure but did not say why he’s leaving. (NBC News) Prosecutors in Minneapolis charged ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with brandishing a gun at people “as he attempted to pass them in an unmarked vehicle on the shoulder of a highway” in February. (NYT) Morgan told police “he feared for his safety.” (AP) Aliya Rahman, whom ICE agents dragged from her car during an arrest in January, filed a complaint against DHS, “the first step necessary for bringing a lawsuit against the federal government.” (HuffPost) During ICE’s hiring spree under Trump, “applicants with questionable histories were either not fully vetted before they were brought on or were hired in spite of their past.” (AP) ICE agents arrested Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, an 85-year-old French woman who moved to Alabama to marry an old flame who later died. A judge said the man’s son, a state trooper, “used his position as a government employee to have Ms. Ross-Mahé arrested.” (NYT)
Appetite for construction: A federal judge allowed work to continue on a military facility below Trump’s planned ballroom on the White House grounds but said Congress must approve aboveground construction first. (NYT) US District Judge Richard Leon did not agree with the administration that the ballroom was necessary for national security. (Washington Post) Meanwhile, the Commission of Fine Arts, a body stocked with Trump supporters, approved his plan to build a “massive, gold-adorned triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery.” (Politico)
Administration perambulation: Trump plans to nominate Cameron Hamilton to lead FEMA. Hamilton had been the agency’s acting leader in the early days of the administration, but former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem fired him last year “after he testified to Congress that he did not agree with her direction for the agency.” (Washington Post) Trump will nominate Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC. “The White House was seeking a nominee who would minimize controversy,” according to “people familiar with the matter.” (WSJ) Unlike, say, vaccine skeptic Health Secretary RFK Jr., who clashed with Democratic lawmakers during hearings yesterday. (AP) DNI Tulsi Gabbard told Trump in February that “she had reservations about reauthorizing a key spy authority without incorporating reforms to protect Americans’ privacy.” (Politico) The House managed to pass a two-week extension of of Section 702 of FISA overnight after some Republicans joined Democrats to vote down a compromise floated by Speaker Mike Johnson. (Punchbowl News) The Senate still needs to approve the temporary measure. (NYT) The administration will create an online portal for businesses to apply for refunds from tariffs the Supreme Court said were illegal. The process does not appear simple. (CBS News) DOJ is investigating former US Representative Eric Swalwell of California over the sexual assault allegations that appear to have ended his political career. (NOTUS) The British government said Peter Mandelson became the UK’s ambassador to the US despite failing being vetted for the position. Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s office said he didn’t know the foreign office had overruled that finding when he appointed Mandelson, who was later fired after he appeared in the US government’s Jeffrey Epstein files. (NYT)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• In the market? Here’s our list of good-looking open houses this weekend.
• These were the most expensive residential real estate transactions in the area last month.
• It’s spring market time! Here are nine great places to shop.
Local news links:
Horrible news: Police in Fairfax County say former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife, Cerina Wanzer Fairfax, early Thursday, then killed himself. The couple’s teenage children were home at the time of the shooting. The couple were in the midst of a contentious divorce, and court documents say Justin Fairfax had been drinking heavily for the past few years. (Washington Post) A judge had ordered Justin Fairfax to move out of their house by the end of this month and had granted custody to Cerina Fairfax. (NBC4 Washington) Leaders in the commonwealth, including Governor Abigail Spanberger and former Governor Ralph Northam, expressed horror and offered prayers for the couple’s children. (Virginia Mercury) Cerina Fairfax was a dentist who was “widely recognized for her contributions to the profession and her community.” (WUSA9)
Local media news: NPR announced it will receive gifts of $80 million from Connie Ballmer and $33 million from an anonymous donor, the network’s largest gifts since Joan Kroc donated $200 million in 2003. The gifts will not replace federal funding slashed by Trump, CEO Katherine Maher said. (NPR) NOTUS will change its name to the Star, a nod to the newspaper the Washington Star once owned by NOTUS funder Robert Allbritton‘s father, Joe Allbritton. The Star plans to cover local news and sports in the wake of the Washington Post’s dramatic layoffs this year. (NYT)
• Jack Evans has dropped his challenge to DC Council President Phil Mendelson. (Tom Sherwood/X)
• DC Mayor Muriel Bowser “declared a 15-day public emergency Thursday to reinstate and extend the District’s limited juvenile curfew.” (NBC4 Washington)
• A five-year-old boy died after falling into the Anacostia River yesterday evening. (NBC4 Washington)
• One man is dead and another is hospitalized after someone attacked them with a pipe outside the Addison Road Metro station yesterday morning. (NBC4 Washington)
• The US Secret Service arrested a pedestrian they said leapt over a bollard near the US Treasury building yesterday. The Secret Service says the person resisted arrest and caused an agent to suffer a laceration. (DC News Now)
• An affiliate of California private equity group KHP Capital Properties has a contract to acquire the Hotel Harrington in downtown DC. (WBJ)
Weekend event picks:
Friday: Juliana Huxtable DJs at Transmission.
Saturday: “¡Puro Ritmo!,” a new exhibition about salsa music, opens at the National Museum of American History.
Sunday: Celebrate Emancipation Day at Franklin Park.
See lots more picks for the weekend from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
