Good morning. Sunny and humid with a high around 95. Thunderstorm chances this evening, with a low near 76 overnight.
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I can’t stop listening to:
Lip Critic, “Legs in a Snare.” These Brooklyn electro-punks play a sold-out show at Songbyrd tonight with Jade Weapon and Consumer Culture.
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 said over the weekend that it would keep the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed until the US met demands that include reparations, the end of sanctions, and ending its blockade of Iranian ports. (Reuters) President Trump said the US was “low-keying it” with Iran, “semi-negotiating” on the theory that economic pressure would loosen its grip on the strait—though a massive, months-long military effort has not done so thus far. (Axios) Oil prices rose as the deadlock continued. (NYT) The Department of Defense is “pressing the U.S. defense industry to accelerate production of weapons to help replenish its diminished stockpile of munitions.” (AP)
The analyses: Iran believes that “denying Mr. Trump the ability to claim victory over the strait is the most efficient lever to persuade him” to return to the terms of the vaguely worded ceasefire agreement the countries struck in June. (NYT) Trump has begun to mull declaring victory should the strait reopen—the status quo before he launched this war in February—and has told senior aides he’s “willing to walk away without a nuclear deal.” (WSJ) Iran is gambling that it can wrest a victory from the US before its economy further degrades. (AP)
That other troublesome waterway: Trump continued over the weekend to prosecute his theory that vandalism, not a botched renovation, was behind his Reflecting Pool fiasco, posting photos he claimed showed perfidy. (Hill) The imbroglio has imperiled the smooth sailing US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro previously enjoyed with the President. (Washington Post) It’s also dogging other local projects of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. (Axios D.C.)
Administration perambulation: Trump named White House staff secretary Will Scharf as his new counsel. (NYT) The Senate narrowly confirmed Todd Blanche as US attorney general early Saturday. He’ll be sworn in this afternoon. (AP) An appeals court upheld a block on construction of Trump’s planned White House ballroom. He portrayed it as a military facility and vowed to take the case to the US Supreme Court. (NBC News) The President is said to be “growing increasingly frustrated” with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has veered off-message regarding immigration and considered canceling Trump’s mammoth July 4 fireworks display in DC due to lightning. (WSJ) “Straits of Hairmousse”: Trump’s suddenly lustrous locks are prompting memes and jokes. (WSJ) Beth, the Hoover vacuum cleaner beloved by US Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, has died. She was around 49. (NYT)
The Best Thing I Ate Last Week, by Ann Limpert:
Reveler’s Hour, the wine-centric dining room in Adams Morgan, is in full summer mode right now. There are easy-drinking blueberry-and-rum cocktails and openers that sound kind of conventional—heirloom-tomato panzanella, burrata with grilled peaches—but wind up being memorable. The competition was tough, but my favorite dish of the night was a plate of tender ravioli stuffed with Brazilian canastra cheese and showered with buttery corn and slivers of shishito pepper. Good news: all of those dishes are on the place’s Restaurant Week menu—a $55 steal if you ask me.
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Soupergirl founder Sara Polon will debut an autobiographical one-woman show next month. “I Regret Nothing” will tell the story of her business and “a relationship that exploded in a way I never could have fathomed.”
• Priya Fielding-Singh directs policy and programs at George Washington University’s Global Food Institute. We asked her about the administration’s strict new guidelines about sugar.
• Dupont Circle’s new La Merna serves Chicago-style tavern pizza, whose cracker-thin crust and square slices are a long way from the deep dish pizza many of us associate with Windy City pies.
• A foam replica of Stonehenge, a whimsical garden, a museum of Civil War medicine—some weird and wonderful day trips for your late-summer planning.
• AJ Dybantsa, Mariann Edgar Budde, and Eduardo Peñalver are among our guests at this month’s imaginary dinner party.
Local news links:
• GOP lawmakers are targeting DC’s motorcycle helmet law—an attempt to eventually force their revocation nationwide. (Washington Post)
• Howard University will offer buyouts to certain employees as it pursues “long-term financial stability and academic priorities.” (ABC 7)
• A Metro Bus driver in Silver Spring was assaulted after he reminded a man he couldn’t drink alcohol on the bus and had to pay a fare. (NBC4 Washington) Drivers say the fare announcements put them at risk of being assaulted. (Washington Post)
• Virginia’s Shenandoah County must remove the Confederate names it restored to schools in 2024, a federal judge ruled Friday. (AP)
• A man was killed Saturday when gunfire broke out at an outdoor party in Fauquier County. (ABC 7)
• A man who surreptitiously recorded patrons in the bathroom of a Del Ray coffeeshop got six months. (ALXnow)
• Parts of the northbound George Washington Parkway will close between rush hours this month for tree pruning. (NBC4 Washington)
• Guinness World Records certified that Trump’s July 4 fireworks display was the largest in history. (Washington Post)
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.
