Good morning. Cloudy today with a high around 54 and rain showers likely after 2 PM. A low near 46 overnight, with fog and more rain likely. 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 newslett er. Sign up here. I can’t stop listening to: Damon Modarres, “Leave.” Some nice local RB from Modarres, who plays Pie Shop tonight with Jackson Laird and the Overlook. 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. Tell *us* where to go: Typically, we’re the ones giving readers travel recommendations. But this year, we’re asking you to share your opinions, too. Nominate your favorite place to stay in our travel survey, and you could win a $100 gift card—and your picks may end up in our May issue. Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out: War news: The Pentagon identified four of the six soldiers killed in an Iranian drone attack Sunday. (Task and Purpose) Initial reports about the three US F-15s shot down over Kuwait Sunday say the pilot of a Kuwaiti F/A-18 was to blame. (WSJ) Oil prices “soared to levels not seen in more than a year” and gas prices in the US rose. (AP) President Trump said the US would offer tankers “political risk insurance and guarantees” and Navy escorts through the Strait of Hormuz. (Axios) We’re all trying to find the guy who did this: The US urged Americans to leave the Middle East because of the war Trump started with Iran, then told people who called a State Department hotline that no help was available. The department began to organize some help after furor grew; Trump told a reporter that people were stranded “because it happened all very quickly.” (NOTUS) The White House did organize a private jet for some MAGA influencers. (Daily Mail) Clerical era? Who will run Iran whenever this thing ends? “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” Trump said yesterday. “Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” Okayyy… (NYT) Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of recently slain Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is likely to be the choice of Iran’s senior clerics, known as the Assembly of Experts. (NYT) The CIA is working with Kurdish forces and hoping to spark an uprising. But that’s complicated. (CNN) Message in a battle: Among shifting explanations for the war from the administration, “Trump allies are warning the window for the White House to make its case to the president’s most loyal supporters is closing.” (Politico) Trump said yesterday that the US could fight “forever,” which doesn’t exactly suggest a compressed timeline. (Axios) In Congress, Democrats called a briefing last night “bullshit.” (Axios) Publicly, Republicans in the House support the war. Granted anonymity to speak frankly, they seem less sure. (Politico) Reversal reversed: The Department of Justice completed something of a legal 360 yesterday when it asked a federal appeals court in DC to allow it to defend Trump’s executive orders against law firms after it told the court it wouldn’t do so. (NYT) The three-judge panel will decide what happens next. (Politico) Administration perambulation: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced skeptical questions from some Senate Republicans as well as from Democrats in a hearing yesterday. Noem claimed she hadn’t blamed Stephen Miller for her labeling of Alex Pretti and Renee Good as “domestic terrorists,” and US Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana pointed out her statements were on the record. (Politico) Here’s the exchange. (C-SPAN) DHS’s inspector general said Noem and department leaders had “systematically obstructed” his work. (WSJ) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will appear before a House Oversight Committee to talk about his relationship with the deceased, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. (Axios) The Justice Department says it’s still evaluating more than 40,000 files from investigations into Epstein for public release. (WSJ) DOJ also rescinded a Biden-era policy restricting no-knock entries. (MS Now) Every member of Trump’s “Board of Peace” has been accused of human rights violations. (Intercept) Recently on Washingtonian dot com: • There are lots of celebrity look-alike contests around town this weekend—Washingtonians will choose doppelgängers for the fellows from “Heated Rivalry,” JFK Jr., and…the Lorax. • Sylvie McNamara argues that March is actually worse than February. Why? Because February offers you no hope whatsoever, while March delights in treachery. • Not all the spots on our 100 Very Best Restaurants are expensive: Here are a bunch of affordable places our critics love. Local news links: • Bryan Betancur, one of the January 6 rioters Trump pardoned, was arrested after he “livestreamed himself secretly touching random women’s hair while riding Metro.” (WTOP) Related: A bill that would require Virginia schools to teach what actually happened on January 6, 2021, has cleared the General Assembly and heads to the desk of Governor Abigail Spanberger, who has not yet said whether she supports it. (Virginia Mercury) • Police identified Jared Llamado, a Foreign Service officer, as the assailant in a road rage incident on the Beltway Sunday. (Fox News) Llamado stabbed four women, one of whom died, and his dog, which also died, before he was fatally shot by a state trooper. (Washington Post) • Jorge Rueda Landeros got 25 years for the 2010 murder of AU prof Sue Ann Marcum. (ABC7) • Peak bloom is likely to occur later than last year—probably April 3-7, the Capital Weather Gang predicts—after all that cold weather. (Washington Post) • Customs officials in Baltimore said they found two Jeeps stolen in DC in a container bound for Africa. (WUSA9) • There’s a whole lot of Arlington in this story. (Arlington Magazine) • Former hockey players at DC’s Woodrow Wilson High School—since renamed Jackson-Reed—remember their one-time assistant coach Kash Patel as a “very intense coach for how bad we were.” (Politico) Wednesday’s event pick: • Take the midnight train going anywhere (as long as it leaves from Gallery Place-Chinatown) tonight after Journey plays Capital One Arena. See more picks from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.The post US Struggles to Help Americans Stranded by Trump’s War, January 6 Rioter Arrested for Touching Womens’ Hair on Metro, Peak Bloom May Be Later This Year first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less