Good morning. Did you see all that lightning late last night? One more blazing, muggy day today with highs in the low 90s. More storms are possible overnight before things get cooler and drier over the weekend.
Sports this weekend: Loudoun United FC hosts Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC at Segra Field Friday evening. The Nationals visit the Los Angeles Dodgers Saturday and Sunday. D.C. United visits FC Cincinnati Sunday. The Washington Spirit visits the Portland Thorns Sunday.
🌎 How well do you know the District? Play our new geography game and test your local knowledge. 📫 Ike Allen here, filling in for Andrew. You can find my food coverage on Instagram 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:
Grupo Frontera, “No Se Va.” For my money, still the catchiest song by the wildly popular modern norteño-cumbia band from Texas. They play the EagleBank Arena on the George Mason University campus in Fairfax tonight.
Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out:
The war: JD Vance says the US is investigating the airstrike that hit a wedding party in Iran. (Reuters) The US Central Command says the review will be finalized soon. (Axios) Vance also said he doesn’t know when the Iran War will end, but that it no longer amounts to a war. (Washington Post) An Air Force widow said she was deemed ineligible for benefits after her husband’s death in Operation Epic Fury because Congress had not officially declared war. (NOTUS) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick apologized for saying that no Americans had died in the conflict—18 service members have—and said he was thinking of Venezuela. (Reuters) The beleaguered USS Abraham Lincoln is covered in a shocking amount of rust after 286 days at sea. (CNN) South Korea may deploy military assets to the Strait of Hormuz. (Reuters)
Arc de Trump: The Trump administration says excavation work will begin over the next two weeks on the 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. (NYT) The arch hasn’t received approval from the National Capital Planning Commission yet, but the Supreme Court’s approval of the ballroom project this week set a precedent. (Washington Post)
Administration perambulation: Trump named Adam Telle, the official who oversees the Army Corps of Engineers, to take over as acting Army secretary after Daniel Driscoll’s resignation. (NYT) Trump’s Treasury Department wants to strip tax-exempt status from any school that offers race-based aid programs. (NYT) At a White House briefing, Vance said Tucker Carlson is still his friend, in spite of the commentator’s criticism of Trump and apparent support for Abdul El-Sayed. (The Hill) A group of 50 legal organizations is rallying to free hundreds of children stranded indefinitely in immigration custody. (The Guardian) The ICE officer who shot a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis earlier this year was charged with lying to investigators. (AP) But the federal prosecutor who tried to bring civil rights charges against him was fired. (CBS) An ICE whistleblower says the agency skipped basic vetting in its rush to hire new recruits last summer. (NYT) Billionaire Leon Black sued the House Oversight Committee over its probe of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, arguing it can’t force him to turn over his nondisclosure agreements with women. (WSJ) Republicans are hoping the ailing Sen. Mitch McConnell will return to work on September 14. (CNN) House Republicans, meanwhile, are cutting their pre-election legislative session short. They’ll leave DC by September 17. Candidates are eager to get back to campaigning ahead of the midterms. (Politico) Trump promised to campaign for vulnerable Republicans and urged them to run on his record, despite his flagging popularity. (AP) Trump commuted the sentence of John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, a union leader convicted for bribery and embezzlement. (NBC News)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Northwest Chinese Food, a frequent entry on our 100 Very Best Restaurants list, has reopened inside a cafe called Li Chun.
• WMATA general manager Randy Clarke tells the story of how he met his wife on the “T” in Boston.
• Here are our favorite spots around town for Labor Day brunch.
• Hoping for one last summer road trip over the long weekend? We’ve got ideas.
Local news links:
• Those intense storms last night caused widespread outages and closed Prince George’s County Public Schools. (NBC4)
• Council member Trayon White posted a social media video urging Black Washingtonians to respond to their jury summonses. Now, federal prosecutors are accusing him of tampering with the jury pool ahead of his upcoming bribery trial. (City Cast DC)
• The Maryland Supreme Court allowed Democrats’ redistricting question to appear on ballots in November. (NOTUS)
• A man was killed at Wolf Trap yesterday when a tour bus collapsed on him as he worked underneath it. The show was canceled. (WTOP)
• Apple picking will be scarce around the region this fall because of a devastating overnight frost in April. (Axios)
Weekend event picks:
Friday: Nigerian singer Davido and rapper Lil Baby headline the first day of the Afro Plus Festival, an Afro-Caribbean and hip-hop party that takes over Northwest Stadium all weekend.
Saturday: DC Jazz Fest has been going on all week. On Saturday, see Kes, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Bill Frisell, and Nate Smith, among others, at the Wharf.
Sunday: The DC State Fair celebrates pie, mumbo sauce, and other locally made goods at Anthem Row downtown.
See more picks for the weekend from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
