Good morning. Sunny with a high around 92 today. A low near 74 overnight. The Mystics visit the Toronto Tempo this evening. RIP Pat Oliphant—the political cartoonist died yesterday at 90.
🍔 Get your tickets now to Best of Washington—Washingtonian’s premier food and drink celebration—which features top local restaurants, unlimited tastings, and an open bar. 🌎 How well do you know the District? Play our new geography game and test your local knowledge. 📫 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:
Lindsey Stirling, “Evil Twin.” Stirling is a violinist whose anthems remind me of Eurovision-style grandeur. She plays Wolf Trap tonight with PVRIS.
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:
The war: Iran struck a US air base in Jordan, and the US military completed five hours’ worth of strikes last night as hopes for peace in the months-long conflict President Trump started in February have been all but snuffed out. (Reuters) Trump notified Congress yesterday that fighting has resumed. (Politico) He also announced that the US would extract 20 percent tolls—yep, the exact type of fees he said were illegal when Iran charged them—from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and that the US blockade of Iranian ports would resume. It’s not clear how these fees will be calculated or collected. (NYT)
Here we go again: The price of oil rocketed upward in response as principals in that field “appear to be aligning around a new reality: The Strait of Hormuz is no longer expected to return to a prewar norm.” (WSJ) Gas prices are rising again. (AAA) Trump appears to be “without a clear path forward, given that neither bombs and missiles nor diplomatic negotiations have yielded a palatable outcome.” (NYT) Meanwhile, in Iran, a “wave of nationalist fervor … is creating a difficult atmosphere for the country’s diplomats.” (WSJ) And the US announced the death of a Navy pilot in a crash early July, which brings the death toll for US troops in the region to 14. More than 400 US service members have been wounded, most with traumatic brain injuries, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said. (AP)
ICE in July: An ICE officer shot and killed a 26-year-old man in Biddeford, Maine, yesterday. The agency claimed the man intended to use his vehicle against the officer, the sort of claim it’s made multiple times this year after deadly interactions. (AP) It’s the second time this month an ICE officer has shot into a vehicle and killed someone. (NYT) ICE didn’t name the man, but a neighbor identified him as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a native of Colombia. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he wasn’t the target of the investigation that led to his death. (Portland Press Herald) Meanwhile, in Houston, witnesses reportedly saw ICE agents fire into the front passenger side window of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo‘s vehicle when they killed him last week. (NYT) The skepticism that’s greeted ICE’s account of this shooting is a result of “certain narratives pushed by senior leaders in the immediate wake of high-profile incidents have crumbled in the face of evidence that came out over time.” (CNN)
Suits you, sir: A federal judge in Florida said Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS “was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process” in a scorching ruling yesterday. (Politico) The judge sanctioned two of Trump’s lawyers. (Law Dork) The ruling could complicate the confirmation hearings for Todd Blanche, the acting US Attorney General Trump has nominated for the permanent job. (AP)
Senate stuff: FBI agents visited Lindsey Graham‘s home after his death. (Hill) South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster named Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to finish the remaining months of his term after Trump endorsed the choice. (NBC News) Graham Nordone “has a sparse public record of her political views.” (Washington Post) Meanwhile, an independent expert says a now-famous “proof of life” photo of US Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appears to be legitimate, but people online are running with out-there theories about it anyway. (Washington Post) One of the skeptics: McConnell’s GOP colleague Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. (Hill) Ruh roh: Are we barreling toward another shutdown? (New York)
Administration perambulation: Trump plans a prime-time speech Thursday that a “senior adviser” described as a “potpourri.” (Axios) Part of the fragrance will come from Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. (Reuters) The President “signed orders to shrink two national monuments in Utah by more than a million acres each.” (Washington Post) Social Security Administration Administrator Frank Bisignano keeps sending his staff chocolate-covered pretzels made by his daughter’s company, Pretzables. The agency says it didn’t pay for them and that an ethics review gave a green light to the snack deliveries. (NOTUS)
Go on a fossil-hunting expedition, by Daniella Byck:
Bring kids to play paleontologist at nearby beaches in Calvert County, Maryland, an hour and a half drive from DC. There are two options for fossil-hunting shores: Calvert Cliffs State Park and Flag Ponds Nature Park. It’s a 1.8-mile trek from the parking lot to the sands of Calvert Cliffs State Park, where sharksteeth and scalloped shells are common finds near the scenic rock face. At Flag Ponds, walk half a mile to the beach for Miocene-era finds. The park also has a quarter-mile boardwalk trail through a bald cypress swamp.
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Danny Hogenkamp‘s phone company Dumb.co grew out of the Month Offline events and now aims to be “the Apple for dumb phones.”
• Our critic reviews Rye Bunny, the buzzy no-reservations spot that replaced Tail Up Goat in Adams Morgan—and which she calls an “analog dream.”
• These are the ten new restaurants our critics are excited about this month.
• The King Arthur Baking Company will soon open a store and baking school in Old Town—its first such location outside Vermont.
• Lily Qi‘s new memoir, “Elected American,” talks about the Maryland lawmaker’s journey to the US—and her quest to become a “cultural bridge” between Democrats and immigrants.
Local news links:
• The DC Council held a hearing on robotaxis. (Axios D.C.)
• Yet another of those satirical statues appeared in town. This one is an “Iran War Participation Trophy” for Trump. (Washington Post)
• A helicopter landed in Northwest DC last night. No one has said why. (Fox 5)
• US Capitol Police arrested a man from Mississippi who stopped to ask for directions outside the Capitol—with a gun in his lap. Officers also found a dog chained up inside the man’s vehicle. (DC News Now)
• The FBI had a wiretap on Virginia lawmaker Louise Lucas earlier this year, court records show. (WUSA9)
• More details have emerged in the matter of a former Alexandria sheriff’s deputy who is accused of trying to smuggle drugs into the city’s jail. (ALXnow)
• A local woman and her family wrestle with the viral fame that befell her when she was photographed amid racist demonstrators on July 4. (NOTUS)
• Trump’s Virginia golf club has a fly problem. (NOTUS)
• A man tried to rob a Beltsville bank by way of a kitten he nabbed from an adoption area in a pet store. He got popped; the kitten, Magnolia, is still looking for a home. (NBC4 Washington)
Tuesday’s event picks:
🇫🇷 Celebrate Bastille Day at Le Diplomate.
🇫🇷 Find out about famous French-Americans on a tour of Lafayette Square.
🇫🇷 Watch France take on Spain this afternoon at the Wharf.
Voyez plus de recommandations 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.
