Good morning. Sun follows a cloudy, maybe even foggy morning, with a high around 72 today. A low near 52 overnight. The Capitals visit Nashville this evening.
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I can’t stop listening to
The Jewels, “Opportunity.” This afternoon, the District will commemorate the DC doo-wop group, who recorded with Bo Diddley and toured with James Brown, with a street sign in front of their alma mater, Theodore Roosevelt High School. The sign will be unveiled at 13th Street between Upshur and Allison streets, Northwest, at 3:30 PM, Steve Kiviat reports for Washington City Paper, and a program will follow inside the school.
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
Vice President JD Vance wrote a letter to top Iranian official Mohsen Rezaei in hopes of restarting negotiations between Tehran and Washington, as President Trump‘s stalemated war is now in its ninth month. Vance reportedly hopes the effort will “persuade Trump not to give a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks.” (WSJ) The missive “was received well by Iran’s leaders.” (NYT) Without public explanation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, the Pentagon’s chief planner. Sylvia is “at least the fifth general pushed out or fired this year.” (Atlantic) Separately from Vance’s efforts, negotiators from Qatar “are working to convince Iran to allow UN inspectors to visit its bombed nuclear sites in return for some sanctions relief from the U.S.” (Axios)
Midterms mélange
Staffers for Mary Peltola, the former US Representative and Democratic nominee for US Senate in Alaska, worked to recruit Dan J. Sullivan to appear on the state’s four-person ballot alongside incumbent US Senator Dan S. Sullivan. Peltola has denied being behind the effort, but a fired staffer said she was “definitely aware” of it. (NYT) Trump seized upon the report to call for “Legal and Political consequences” for Peltola. (Washington Sun) A new internal Republican poll in Ohio says GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy has lost support following a brutal attack ad against his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. (Axios) Minnesota officials charged conservative activist James O’Keefe and the influencer Cam Higby with breaking voting laws when they dressed in what they called “Muslim garb” and presented themselves as Minnesota voters at polling places during primary elections this past summer. (NBC News) Pete Hoekstra, the US’s ambassador to Canada, warned Canadian business leaders that Trump could blame Canada if Republicans lose elections in Michigan and Maine. (CTV News) The President has turned a private dining space in the White House into something of a personal war room for the midterms. There, loyalists like close aide Natalie Harp and federal housing official Bill Pulte—whom one unnamed official compared to a “court jester”—present him with printouts, memes, and posters. (NYT)
Administration perambulation
Hackers from a group called the Department of Peace “published a searchable database of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees and contractors” yesterday. (Washington Post) The Federal Reserve voted to maintain interest rates despite dissents from two of its governors—one of whom Trump has been attempting to fire—who wanted to raise them. (Washington Sun) A federal judge in California shot down the Justice Department’s attempt to cordon off 20,000 ballots from people it claims may not be US citizens. (NYT) Tech firms, “particularly companies that donated to projects including the White House ballroom,” are freaking out over the prospect of Democrats taking power in Congress. (Politico) Google said it was working to fix incidents where its AI thing dodged questions of who won the 2020 election in which Joe Biden beat Trump. (Business Insider)
Hidden Eats, by Ike Allen
Maybe you’ve visited Flushing, Queens before. If not, you should—it’s just three and a half hours on the Northeast Regional and 30 minutes on the 7 train, and the array of Chinese food available in its subterranean food courts and hole-in-the-wall restaurants is unbelievable. Otherwise, you could just visit the food court at Great Wall Supermarket in Fairfax, which feels like Flushing in miniature. A stir-fry of chiles, pork belly, and pickled bamboo shoots from Gaima Rice Bowl impressed me on a recent visit. Most memorable, though, were some simple, wonderfully juicy boiled pork-and-shrimp dumplings from Dumpling Man, crimped by hand.
Take Hidden Eats with you! Our 🦇 terrifyingly popular map 🎃 will show you which Hidden Eats—the out-of-the-way mom-and-pop eateries Ike highlights in this newsletter and in our print magazine—are nearby.
Recently on Washingtonian dot com
• We’re excited about new books by local authors Antonia Tricarico, John DeFerrari, Sharon Weinberger, and Kim Roberts Meikle.
Local news links
Trump’s DC-area projects
The President’s planned Triumphal Arch near Arlington Cemetery is apparently a military installation once again—Hegseth called it a “generational national defense opportunity” in a legal filing yesterday. Trump last month abruptly introduced the idea of the arch as a sort of redoubt, but subsequent plans the White House released didn’t mention that initiative. (Washington Post) DOJ said East Potomac Park would close on November 15, despite saying earlier that there was no fixed timeline for Trump’s planned renovation of a golf course there. (Washington Sun) The administration of Maryland Governor Wes Moore has pushed back against a separate golf course renovation Trump plans at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. (Politico)
Other local news
• DC Council member Robert White plans to resign on Monday unless he can find a legal fix to an obscure law that could otherwise prevent him from becoming DC’s next nonvoting delegate to Congress. (City Cast DC)
• Likely next DC mayor Janeese Lewis George opposes a bill that would hike the next mayor’s paycheck. Current Mayor Muriel Bowser‘s $250,000 salary “puts her among the 10 most well-remunerated mayors in the U.S.” (Washington Sun)
• Alexandria has given its Flock cameras the heave-ho; they’ll stop operating by Friday and come down before the end of the year. (Alexandria Brief)
• The feds have charged more than a dozen people, including several DC residents, with being part of a large conspiracy designed to traffic methamphetamine and a substance that can be converted into “a potent date-rape drug” on the East Coast. (Fox 5)
• An Alexandria man told police who knocked on his door that he’d killed Joshua Cochran, with whom he’d had drinks over the weekend. Police say they subsequently found Cochran’s body in a closet in John Stremple III‘s apartment “with serious blunt force trauma to his head.” (ALXnow)
• Cops in Fairfax say four men burglarized houses after fires, taking a guitar, a gun safe, and even a Porsche Macan. (WUSA9)
• A US Park Police officer wore a shirt that made light of the department’s recently relaxed car chase policy. The family of Nolberto Meza, who died in June when cops chasing another person crashed into him on DC’s Taft Bridge, said they were “disgusted” by the display, which the Park Police claimed had been “immediately addressed.” (NBC4 Washington)
• DC businessman Mark Ein is in advanced discussions with DC officials about taking over operations at the Rock Creek Tennis Center. (Washington Post)
• RIP Kitty Porterfield, whose Scholarship Fund of Alexandria has helped thousands of kids in the small city attend college. (Zebra)
Things to Do
• Learn about plant-based poisons and enjoy some drinks and snacks (note: these are, of course, discrete activities) at the spooky October edition of the US Botanic Garden’s monthly “USBG After Dark” event.
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.
