Good morning. Sunny and warm with a high around 72 today. Clear overnight with a low near 49. The Capitals host Calgary this evening. You can find me on Bluesky, I’m @abeaujon.87 on Signal, and there’s a link to my email address below.
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I can’t stop listening to:
Puma Blue, “Desire.” Smoky lo-fi beauty from this Atlanta-by-way-of-London musician. Puma Blue plays Black Cat Tuesday with Salami Rose and Joe Louis.
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:
War update: Day ten of President Trump‘s war on Iran. A seventh US service member, whose identity the Pentagon has yet to share publicly, died in the conflict Saturday from injuries they received from an Iranian attack on a US base in Saudi Arabia on March 1. (NYT) Iran selected Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s supreme leader, a selection that sends Trump a “strong message of defiance.” (Washington Post) A video “adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed.” (NYT) Trump on Saturday attended the dignified transfer of the remains of six other US service members who were killed in Kuwait by an Iranian drone strike. (AP) One of those soldiers, Robert M. Marzan, had recently bought a house in Spotsylvania County. (WTOP) Trump wore a Trump-branded golf hat during the ceremony; Fox News showed old footage of him instead. (Guardian)
The economy: The price of oil neared $120 a barrel as the Strait of Hormuz’s closure continues to reverberate. (WSJ) The US has so far left alone Kharg Island, a tiny speck off Iran’s coast that’s critical to the country’s oil industry. (FT) Dow futures dropped overnight. (CNBC) Trump called higher gas prices a “small price to pay” for his war. (WSJ) The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the US lost 92,000 jobs in February and revised previous months’ gains, meaning 2025 “was the first year to record five months of labor market contractions since 2010.” (NBC News)
Administration perambulation: A federal judge ruled Saturday that the administration unlawfully installed Kari Lake as the CEO—though her actual title is not clear—of the US Agency for Global Media and voided mass layoffs she instituted at Voice of America. (Washington Post) Body-cam footage of the killing of US citizen Ruben Ray Martinez by federal agents last year “appears to contradict claims by federal officials” about the circumstances of his death. (CBS News) An explosion at the US embassy in Oslo may have been a terrorist act. (Politico) A long-delayed memorial to police who protected the US Capitol when Trump supporters staged a deadly riot there on January 6, 2021, was installed quietly, at 4 AM Saturday. (Washington Post) A federal appeals court said the administration could not withdraw TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the US. (Reuters) The US food industry has begun to counter Health Secretary RFK Jr.‘s attacks and put pressure on GOP lawmakers. (Politico) Elon Musk‘s DOGE project used ChatGPT to decide which programs to cut at the National Endowment for the Humanities. (NYT) Security lines ballooned in New Orleans and Houston over the weekend, a reminder that the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down. (NYT) The administration abruptly fired NTSB member J. Todd Inman. (Air Current) The White House hasn’t said why. (NYT) The Trump Org has filed trademarks that closely tie the President’s name and image with the US’s upcoming 250th anniversary celebrations. (NOTUS) There’s no appetite in Congress to take on Daylight Saving Time, which began Sunday. (NOTUS) Here’s your semi-annual reminder that the US tried permanent DST in the ’70s—and people hated it. (Washingtonian)
The Best Thing I Ate Last Week, by Ann Limpert:
The hottest seat in DC right now? One of the 25 bar chairs at Maru San, the must-visit new Japanese/Peruvian spot from Causa’s Carlos Delgado. The centerpiece of the menu is a lineup of hand rolls: sheaths of shatteringly thin nori filled with warm koshihikari rice and fillings such as sweet raw scallops with a parmesan-butter sauce, Old Bay-scented lump crab, or shrimp spooned with huacatay aioli. You can order them à la carte, but the $37 set of six is the way to go—they arrive one at a time, and each is delicious in its own way. (225 Seventh St., SE.)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• New Montgomery County Council President Natali Fani-González talks about her journey to public office, which began when she arrived in the US undocumented at age 16.
• Barbecue master Rob Sonderman focuses on rotisserie chicken at his new Capitol Hill spot, Little Engine.
• Some choice zingers from US Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana’s surprise best-seller, “How to Test Negative for Stupid and Why Washington Never Will.”
Local news links:
• Jean Davidson, the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, announced Friday that she will step down, citing as part of her motivations Trump’s surprise announcement to close the center for two years amid dwindling audiences after he took over the center and slapped his name on the building. (NYT)
• Utilities in Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties—and, down the line, their customers—may end up covering some of the costs of the Potomac River sewage spill. (Axios D.C.)
• A court threw out Pepco’s proposed rate hike. (WCP)
• Pardoned January 6 rioter Bryan Betancur was released on bail. He filmed himself touching women’s hair on Metro. He has been banned from using the system and is due in court today. (WTOP)
• Sophia Negroponte was sentenced to 35 years in prison over her fatal stabbing of her friend Yousuf Rasmussen in 2020. Negroponte, the daughter of former DNI John Negroponte, was retried after her initial conviction in the case was overturned. (NBC4 Washington)
• An as-yet-unidentified body was found in the Anacostia River near the Bladensburg waterfront on Saturday. (ABC7)
• A police chase in DC Saturday ended with a man being arrested on the roof of a school. (DC News Now)
• Virginia flew flags at half-staff Saturday to honor the Rev. Jesse Jackson. (WRIC)
• Politico founder Robert Allbritton plans to beef up hiring at his NOTUS publication, taking aim at the Washington Post after massive layoffs there. He has filed an application to trademark the name the Washington Sun. (Semafor)
• RIP, “Capitol Riverfront.” Hello, Navy Yard, our old friend. (WBJ)
• Loudoun County veterinarian Erika Friedrich is running health care at this year’s Iditarod. (WTOP)
• Sarah Everhardt of Haymarket will replace Alysa Liu at the ISU Figure Skating World Championships in Prague later this month. (InsideNoVa)
• DC Council member Trayon White tore his hamstring playing basketball. (WUSA9) That’s not his only problem these days. (ABC7)
• A surprise appearance by the red-flanked bluetail in Great Falls Park has drawn birders from around the country. (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.
