Good morning. Mostly cloudy today with a high around 87. A chance of rain or storms this afternoon. A low near 67 overnight.
Sports this weekend: The Commanders visit Baltimore for our NFL team’s final preseason matchup this evening. The Nationals host the Marlins tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. The Mystics visit the Los Angeles Sparks tonight. D.C. United hosts Los Angeles FC at Audi Field on Saturday. Loudoun United FC visits El Paso Locomotive FC Saturday. The Washington Spirit hosts Bay FC at Audi Field on Sunday.
🌎 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. I’ll be out next week, so Ike Allen will have the conn until Labor Day. This roundup is available as a morning email newsletter. Sign up here.
I can’t stop listening to:
Clarent, “Buenas.” The Puerto Rican artist plays the Howard Theatre Sunday.
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:
Lake news: President Trump carried out his threat to rename Lake Ontario yesterday, directing the Interior Department to update the Geographic Names Information System to refer to the body of water as “Lake America.” (NYT) Canada won’t observe the new name; neither will the state of New York. The Canadian province of Ontario is actually named for the lake, not the other way around. (NOTUS) Trump also “joked” about renaming the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. (Fox News) Democrats in Congress plan long-shot legislation to reverse the change. (Axios) The White House’s map showing “Lake America” also showed Washington, DC, in North Carolina. (Independent)
So, how’s that trade war going? Canada is looking for new trading partners, a task complicated by geography and politics. (Washington Post) Canadian officials suggested that if the US gave up on fighting rules that “require online streaming services to make it easier for users to ‘discover’ shows and movies in French,” talks may restart. But that was before Trump renamed a Great Lake to make a political point. (NYT)
The other war: Today marks six months since Trump launched a war against Iran. There’s no end in sight. (Washington Post) Third-party efforts to reach another peace accord are going nowhere because Trump wants to put economic pressure on Tehran in hopes of achieving “a win somehow,” as one analyst put it. (WSJ) The USS Theodore Roosevelt is headed to the region to relieve the USS George Washington, which is there to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, which we’ve all read a lot about lately. (Hill)
Balloting act: The on-again, off-again block on the US Postal Services new rule about mail ballots is on again—US District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts reimposed a pause, writing that “the regulation is most likely unlawful because the president cannot insert the federal government into elections without the express authorization of Congress.” Expect the administration to go back to the Supreme Court. (NBC News) Here’s a list of ways Trump is trying to change election law in the US. (Axios)
Administration perambulation: NTSB investigators said White House ballroom construction that moved Marine One’s landing zone may have impeded communication with air traffic controllers at National Airport, causing that weird incident earlier this month where controllers didn’t halt commercial traffic near while Trump was in the air. (WSJ) Trump won’t attend a commemoration of the 9/11 attacks in New York because he can’t give a speech. (NYT) A federal judge in California blocked the Pentagon from blacklisting Anthropic from some military contracts. (Reuters) Three journalists who got fired from Stars and Stripes sued the government, saying the Pentagon had violated their First Amendment rights. (NYT) The administration has pressured the National Park Service to “Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer.” (NOTUS)
Reporter’s notebook: The latest Kennedy Center hearing, by Sylvie McNamara
Trump’s plan to put his name back on the Kennedy Center seems to have hit a roadblock. I was in the courtroom yesterday afternoon—alongside Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, and dozens of red-clad Kennedy Center supporters organized by Hands Off the Arts—while an attorney for the Department of Justice explained his theory of why this new sign gambit should be allowed to proceed. The presiding judge seemed skeptical, and he was visibly peeved by the government’s insistence on moving forward with installing the sign after September 8. Based on the hearing, you should not expect to see any new signage soon, or possibly ever. The judge essentially said that either the government could voluntarily pause its plans until he could weigh everyone’s arguments, or he would order them to.
Perhaps the more piquant thing to know is that the lawsuit seems poised to proceed to discovery. That could give the court—and eventually the public—a glimpse of what’s really been going on at the Kennedy Center, particularly in terms of its apparent financial woes. But in general, the hearing wasn’t super newsy. Instead, it was a sobering reminder of how arduous it is to keep this administration in check via lawsuits that grind slowly through the courts. A bunch of attorneys spent the afternoon arguing over largely procedural matters. In the meantime, the Kennedy Center remains effectively closed.
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Our annual Cheap Eats list has arrived. Our critics selected 60 restaurants where you can eat well for around $25 a person.
• September is almost here! Here’s our list of must-see and must-do cultural events next month. And here’s our arts guide for the fall, which includes Olivia Rodrigo, the WNO’s take on “Nixon in China,” and more.
• The former site of Woodmont Grill will reopen as a “very special” Ted’s Bulletin.
• Luxury home transactions in the region last month—and the bold-faced names that made them.
Local news links:
• US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro‘s special grand jury is “focused on supervision and oversight of children in the District.” It’s looking at rates of truancy and graduation at District public schools, among other subjects. (Washington Post)
• DC’s likely next mayor, Janeese Lewis George, said she’ll sign a Day One executive order that rescinds the District’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and “Safe and Beautiful” efforts. (NBC News)
• Trump appointed Mark Paoletta to lead the National Capital Planning Commission. Paoletta “already holds four other jobs in the administration.” (New York Post)
• Alexandria resident Nathan Vilas Laatsch, an IT specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty to offering to give classified information to a foreign government. He was, in fact, communicating with an FBI agent. (ALXnow)
• Dayton Webber, the quadruple amputee professional cornhole player accused of murdering a friend in Maryland this past March, will remain in prison until his trial next February. (Fox 5)
• A teacher at Manassas Park High School was arrested at school early Thursday morning. Police say she was intoxicated. (Fox 5)
• My cherished former coworker Mimi Montgomery writes about how dog owners she met at an Alexandria dog bar helped inspire her terrific new mystery novel, “Murder Bites.” And she got a photo of her pup, Ziggy, into People. No notes, Mimi. (People)
Weekend event picks:
Friday: Summer Restaurant Week continues through Sunday. Take a look at one of our guides and take the plunge!
Saturday: The Washington Chinese Cultural Festival livens up downtown.
Sunday: It’s the last day of National Park Week.
See more picks 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.
