Good morning. Sunny and very, very cold today. Wind will make the air feel much more frigid than the nominal high of 29. Cold and calmer overnight, with a low near 16. You can find me on Bluesky, I’m @abeaujon.87 on Signal, 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: Supertaste, “Simmer.” The Brooklyn dance-pop band plays 9:30 Wednesday with Magic City Hippies.   Take Washingtonian Today with you! I’ve made a playlist on Spotify and on Apple Music of last year’s music recommendations. I’ll make one for 2026 soon. Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out: Well, it’s been one year of the second Trump administration. I’ll leave the think pieces to others and just say that it’s been a privilege and a pleasure to write this roundup for you. (Here’s the January 20, 2025 edition.) I spoke with my coworker Sylvie McNamara about my what it’s been like to assemble Washingtonian Today every weekday morning. I’m grateful for you all every day and proud we made it this far. Let’s get to it. Island time: President Trump posted repeatedly about his hopes to acquire Greenland overnight, writing, “There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” That seems to be what European leaders fear, too after the President spent the weekend threatening a trade war as he “wields the leverage that comes from American power to force Europeans to cater to his whims.” (NYT) As Trump heads to Davos, where he’ll press plans for a “Board of Peace” for Gaza that he’ll head and hopes world leaders will pay $1 billion to join, the US’s allies are searching for an off-ramp. (CNN) One actually exists already—the US could simply reopen its 16 bases on Greenland to achieve his aims about national security, but Trump said that owning the island “is what I feel is psychologically needed for success.” (NYT) Meanwhile, the President’s hope for a very special ceremony honoring his “board” at Davos have further freaked out Europeans. (Daily Beast) Trump invited noted peacemaker Vladimir Putin to join his board. (Acyn/X) Insert line break. Try to breathe. Trump told Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre over the weekend that the sudden escalation of his plans to acquire Greenland were prompted by the fact that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, which Norway’s government does not administer. (Nick Schifrin/X) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the idea that Trump was motivated by getting skunked at the Nobels—which, to be clear, is what Trump said—is a “complete canard.” (Washington Post) Take a quack at reading the texts. (NYT) Administration officials “have tried to reassure European allies that there are currently no military plans to take over Greenland”—”currently” being the operative word here. (WSJ) Three American cardinals, including Washington’s archbishop, Robert McElroy, urged Trump to back away from the edge. (America) The ICE storm: Top DOJ official Harmeet Dhillon told Don Lemon he was “on notice,” whatever that means, after the former CNN anchor filmed anti-ICE protesters who interrupted a church service in Minnesota Sunday. (NOTUS) Lemon said it was “notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering.” (NBC News) A federal judge in DC said a DHS policy that requires a week’s notice before members of Congress will be allowed to visit ICE facilities doesn’t violate a previous court order. (AP) Meanwhile, the horrors keep coming. ICE said a third person died at its makeshift facility in the Texas desert. (NBC News) Its agents busted down the door of an elderly US citizen in Minnesota and forced him, half-naked, out into the snow. (The Handbasket) William Vermie, an Army veteran, says ICE “detained him for about eight hours” earlier this month after he watched a protest in Minneapolis. (KARE) ICE agents are skulking around hospitals in Minnesota, unnerving patients and staffers. (NYT) Minneapolis high school student journalist  Lila Dominguez talks about documenting ICE raids on her community. (The Guardian) Over and over again, polls show that Americans oppose the administration’s tactics and violence in Minnesota, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good. (Washington Post) Administration perambulation: One thing Trump only grudgingly posted about over the weekend: Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday. (NYT) DOJ may loosen some gun regulations. (Washington Post) Fed Chair Jerome Powell plans to attend tomorrow’s Supreme Court hearing about Trump’s efforts to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. (AP) The mess surrounding Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer keeps getting messier: investigators are reportedly looking into reports that Chavez-DeRemer had an “inappropriate” relationship with a staffer, flouted travel rules, kept a “stash” of alcohol in the office, and took subordinates to a strip club. (New York Post) Lobbyists and department staffers say Chavez-DeRemer is a figurehead: Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling has been running the department “since Day 1,” one lobbyist says, and Chavez-DeRemer has had “minimal involvement in substantive matters.” (Washington Post) Performing artists say Trump’s travel bans have made touring the US almost impossible for people from countries he has targeted. (NYT) The President has installed four allies to the Commission of Fine Arts, which will determine the fate of the ballroom he already tore down the East Wing of the White House to build. (Washington Post) Recently on Washingtonian dot com: • Our food critics have spoken: Albi is the best restaurant in Washington. The Navy Yard restaurant—Michael Rafidi’s “artful love letter to Palestinian cooking,” as Ann Limpert writes—holds down the top spot of our 100 Very Best Restaurants list for a second year in a row. If anything, Limpert writes, Albi’s food and presentation “have improved even from last year.” Our entire list will go online today, and the print magazine will be on stands this week. • Right on cue, DC’s Winter Restaurant Week kicked off yesterday. Here’s our procrastinator’s guide to where you should shoot for reservations. • National Gallery of Art curator Alison Luchs has gone viral with a video in which she makes hilarious use of Gen Z slang. • Take a look inside Halcyon House, the Georgetown manse Commanders owner Josh Harris just bought for $28 million—the most expensive residential real estate sale ever in DC. • This couple eloped via Metro. And this August wedding had a Great Gatsby theme with a black-and-gold color scheme. Local news links: • Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in over the weekend. Read her speech. Spanberger signed ten executive orders regarding affordability, housing, immigration enforcement, and other issues. (WTOP) The leaders of U.Va’s board, fresh off hastily installing a new president, resigned as Spanberger took office. (Washington Post) Democratic leaders in the commonwealth’s legislature moved to put a referendum about redistricting before voters as soon as this spring. (Axios Richmond) A vote about reproductive rights is heading to the ballot in November. (Virginia Mercury) • A large reproduction of Trump’s bawdy note to deceased, disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein, which Trump claims he didn’t write, appeared on the National Mall yesterday. (Washington Post) • Sorry if you bought a place with a view in Old Town: a “mini-Sphere” is planned for National Harbor. (Washington Post) • The administration will keep National Guard troops on DC’s streets through 2026. (AP) • Federal prosecutors in DC won’t file charges against agents who shot into cars in DC because they didn’t hit anyone. (Washington Post) • Doni Crawford will replace Kenyan McDuffie on the DC Council after a vote today. (Washington Post) • The Washington National Opera will perform at Lisner and a TBD venue after leaving the Kennedy Center. (Washington Post) • Police in DC shot a man who reportedly argued about the entrance fee to Aqua, threatened staff, and, police say, drove in reverse toward an officer. (NBC4 Washington) • Sunday’s Professional Women’s Hockey League game in DC, when the New York Sirens bested the Montreal Victoire, set an attendance record. (The Athletic) • Croatia’s national team chose Alexandria as home base during this summer’s World Cup. (ALXnow) • Ruby Corado has appealed her prison sentence. (WUSA9) • Alexandria Democrats will vote yet again today, in a firehouse primary to nominate someone to pursue the House of Delegates seat of Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who is running to replace Adam Ebbin in the state Senate. (ALXnow) • More than 20 e-bikes and scooters were found in the icy waters near the Kennedy Center. (NBC4 Washington)The post The DC Area Has Made It Through One Year of Trump, the Greenland Thing Somehow Gets Worse, and a Sphere Threatens to Rise Over National Harbor first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less