Good morning. Sunny with a high near 88 today. A low around 66 overnight. The Caps host Montreal tonight at Capital One Arena, and D.C. United host Red Bull New York at Audi Field.
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I can’t stop listening to
Sugar, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.” Postpunk icon and former Washington City Paper advice columnist Bob Mould’s popular ’90s band has reunited; they’ll play the Anthem tonight with J. Robbins.
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
Guil-foiled
Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as the US’s ambassador to Greece yesterday. (Axios) The former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. attempted to enlist Matthew Boyle to help save her job and tried to convince the White House that texts that showed her asking a donor for $100,000 to pay her AmEx bill were AI generated, but that didn’t pan out, either. (Perhaps her team forgot to call AI “superintelligence?”) (WSJ) Inside the White House, Guilfoyle was seen as a “flamboyant party girl with questionable judgment.” President Trump distanced himself from Guilfoyle, saying she “I guess, dated my son a long time ago.” (NYT) Eric Deters, the donor who shared Guilfoyle’s extremely focused fundraising texts with the Wall Street Journal, said he would sue Guilfoyle and her lawyers for what he characterized as efforts to portray him as a blackmailer. (Hill)
An attorney, generally?
Guilfoyle’s defenestration was announced during a weird briefing by new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, who “often read directly from a script,” called only on representatives of conservative outlets, then abruptly vamoosed. (AP) But it was Zacharia’s résumé, not her rough first day at the lectern, that got the most attention yesterday. Zacharia frequently refers to herself as a lawyer, but “there is no evidence that Zacharia ever passed a bar exam or has been admitted to practice law in any state.” (Popular Information) When reporters asked Trump about where Zacharia had passed the bar as he stood near a helicopter, he turned the question to her. She seemed to reply “When I moved to China.” (Washington Post) But! China reportedly “does not allow noncitizens to join the bar association or even sit for the Chinese bar exam.” (Mediaite)
Trailing indicators
Trump spent part of Tuesday on the campaign trail. He pardoned two Alaskan men onstage during a rally in Wasilla, telling them they were now “as clean as a newborn baby’s ass.” (Washington Sun) He also announced an energy deal between Alaska and Taiwan, though Taiwan said nothing had been signed yet. (Bloomberg) Trump, who hopes to project optimism about the energy crisis caused by the war on Iran he launched in February, also announced plans to find oil in Greenland. (CBS News) The trouble is that fuel prices, particularly the cost of diesel, are high now, look to rise further, and are unlikely to ease any time soon. (NBC News)
Administration perambulation
Iran is making plans to survive US attacks it expects after the midterms. Officials in Tehran “have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring countries.” (WSJ) A federal judge extended an order that restores access to the White House by Politico, CNN, and MS Now, which Trump abruptly yanked. (Politico) Trump canceled plans to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC, whose attorney pointed out he was the one who sued. (Politico) A campaign against former FEMA official Mary Comans taken up by Elon Musk and Kristi Noem in the administration’s early days amounted to “state sanctioned intimidation,” a federal magistrate judge wrote yesterday while clearing Comans’s name. (Washington Sun) The Supreme Court will hear a case that seeks records from Musk’s DOGE project. (AP) A federal judge in California iced plans to move thousands of USDA employees out of this area. (Government Executive) Federal prosecutors moved to drop a case against Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst accused of “working as an unregistered agent for South Korea in exchange for luxury goods and other gifts.” (Reuters) The Pentagon named public affairs officer Christian Devine as the new publisher of Stars and Stripes, whose previous leadership it recently fired. (Military.com) The Pentagon has so far been unable to find a sailor named Bill Jones, whom Trump says inspired his fixation on naval steam tech. (WSJ) The President, for reasons that remain unclear, posted footage of a British man’s fatal encounter with a tiger in a Yorkshire wildlife park, captioning it, “Don’t ever mess with nature!” (Washington Post)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com
• An anonymous manager at the National Institutes of Health tells us that despite some slowdowns in Congress and the courts, the administration’s intentional damage to biomedical science is ongoing.
• The Duck & the Peach’s pastry chef Rochelle Cooper has an appealing way for you to get more protein—it’s in some ice cream at the Lucky Plum Ice Cream Shoppe.
• At DC’s buzzy new La Merna, you can get a cigarette with your espresso martini. The smoke will run you an extra $3, and you’ll have to enjoy it outside.
• How last weekend’s Commanders fiasco ranks among the franchise’s low points.
• Local artist Hasan Kale works small—like, really small. He paints on pumpkin seeds, nuts, even a grain of rice.
• Here’s how area private schools are approaching AI.
• This wedding featured cakes at every table and a “communal cake cutting.”
Local news links
• A federal judge extended her ban on tree removals at East Potomac Golf Links for at least two more weeks. (Law Dork)
• Republicans in Congress announced plans to investigate Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams. They claim the nonprofits engaged in “politicized jury nullification initiatives” that resulted in embarrassments like the government’s fizzled prosecution of Sandwich Guy. (Washington Sun)
• The Washington Post plans to close its printing facility in Springfield and lay off 118 employees. (WUSA9)
• DC’s new-ish ranked-choice system may wreak havoc on the at-large ballot. (Washington Sun)
• The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science gave the Chesapeake Bay a C+ on its latest report card. Lots of room for improvement, Chesapeake! (Virginia Mercury)
• Police in DC say a group of kids robbed a man of Balenciaga shoes in Chinatown on Monday. Witnesses said they departed the scene via public transit. (DC News Now)
• Cops in Spotsylvania County say a mother-and-daughter pair kicked and bit a sheriff’s office sergeant who attempted to remove them from a Fredericksburg bar and grill. (WUSA9)
• Howard won’t hold a homecoming parade “because of ongoing constructon along Georgia Avenue.” (NBC4 Washington)
• Theatre Week, which began September 24, will extend till October 25. (Broadway World)
Things to Do
• The Middleburg Film Festival begins today.
• The Stafford County Fair kicks off.
See more picks for this week and 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.
