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I can’t stop listening to:

Yilian Cañizares, “Maputo.” The Cuban-Swiss violinist Cañizares mixes jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms. She plays the Library of Congress tonight.

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 news: Israel continued to strike targets in Lebanon Thursday. Israel struck Beirut yesterday and maintains that a ceasefire agreement between it, the US, and Iran doesn’t apply to its operations against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. (Reuters) President Trump agreed, calling the Lebanon conflict a “separate skirmish.” (PBS) Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said it would be “unreasonable” to continue a truce while Israel’s attacks in Lebanon persist, among other objections. (AP) Negotiations for a lasting peace are due to begin Saturday.

Strait edge: The Strait of Hormuz is hardly open for business. Only four ships passed through it yesterday—fewer than on Tuesday, before the ceasefire took effect. (FT) Iran has asserted its control over the narrow waterway, and shipping companies appear wary of murky authority and large tolls Iran may impose. (NYT) If anything, Iran “plans to tighten its grip on the world’s most important energy-shipping lane,” through which commercial traffic flowed freely before Trump started this war more than a month ago. (WSJ) The strait remains mined, leaving shippers little choice but to accede to Iran’s conditions for passage. (NYT) “I thought we won the war,” one oil industry consultant groused. (Politico)

Truce and consequences: So what would a lasting peace look like? Trump declared victory yesterday, but so did Iran. Its demands “look difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with U.S. aims.” (NYT) The White House said Iran’s public stance differed from the conditions it conveyed to the US that made a ceasefire possible. Here’s a rundown of what Iran says it wants. (WSJ) The war “has reaffirmed Iran’s regional significance, including its ability to strike its neighbors with missiles and drones — and inflict economic and political pain on its adversaries.” (Politico) Some of Trump’s allies fear he is overstating what the US has gained in the war. (WSJ) On Wall Street yesterday, traders celebrated the cease-fire, and the price of oil plummeted. (WSJ) Don’t expect to celebrate at the gas pump anytime soon, though. (CNN) The Fed may actually increase interest rates. (Axios) Republican insiders fear that war-related economic pain won’t ease in time for the midterm elections later this year. (Politico)

Administration perambulation: The CDC delayed publishing a report that showed the Covid vaccine “cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half.” (Washington Post) Trump is looking for ways to punish NATO allies that didn’t assist in his war with Iran. (WSJ) The Selective Service System will begin to automatically register eligible men for the draft, replacing the former system that required people to register themselves. (The Hill) The Justice Department asked the House Oversight Committee to withdraw its subpoena for now former US Attorney General Pam Bondi, but Republicans on the committee say she still must appear. (Politico) Todd Blanche could run DOJ indefinitely on an acting basis without Senate confirmation thanks to a precedent set in the Biden administration. (Punchbowl News) Other cabinet officials will be able to use the $70 million jet former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem acquired, purportedly to use for deportations. (Washington Post) The feds accused Army vet Courtney Williams with releasing information about Delta Force to a journalist, apparently Seth Harp. (Politico) The Luxembourg firm ArcelorMittal will provide foreign-made steel for Trump’s ballroom. The White House cut tariffs that could apply to exports from the company’s plant in Canada. (NYT)

Hidden Eats, by Ike Allen:

The Days Inn on Annapolis Road in Lanham gets middling online reviews. Some guests write that the hallways smell like cigarettes. But diners looking for halal eats on this busy highway stretch in Prince George’s County have pretty much all glowing things to say about Al Madina. The Pakistani kebab restaurant with an Afghan chef is bafflingly attached to the motel where you might expect a nondescript conference room to be. I stopped by recently for a personal favorite: chapli kebab, a Peshawar-style minced beef “burger.” Al Madina’s version is studded with green chiles and cracked whole coriander seeds, and it comes with a bowl of silken, cardamom-scented chickpea curry. On a weekend morning, try the nehari, a staggeringly rich beef shank stew. Forget powdered eggs and cut-up honeydew—this is a hotel breakfast.

Recently on Washingtonian dot com:

• The feds accused three former employees of the long-troubled Psychiatric Institute of Washington of criminal negligence in the 2020 death of a patient. Learn more: We’ve covered PIW’s travails for months. Here’s a piece we published last year about the facility, and a follow-up from February.

• This November wedding featured details inspired by classic Hollywood glamour.

Local news links:

• Hair-touching Metro creep Bryan Betancur got arrested again yesterday. Cops in the District say the pardoned January 6 rioter stalked local journalist Amanda Moore. Last month, they say, he followed her to a Polymarket pop-up bar, where he “performed a Nazi/Hitler salute and tried to have staff remove Moore by claiming she was Antifa.” (DC News Now)

• A Virginia State Trooper is in the hospital after being struck by a car while pursuing a man cops say struck a truck on the Beltway, ran out of his car to the Eisenhower Avenue Metro Station, hopped a turnstile, and boarded a train to L’Enfant Plaza, where he was arrested. (WTOP)

• Police in Charles County charged a man with setting his motorcycle ablaze. (DC News Now)

• Cops in Prince William County charged a fourth person in the deadly shooting last month on a Dumfries basketball court. (WTOP)

• Police in DC impounded an Audi with Maryland tags whose driver, they said, had accumulated more than a quarter-million dollars’ worth of tickets. (DC News Now)

• Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill that “establishes a legal right for individuals to obtain and use contraception.” (WUSA9)

• The region’s residential real-estate market has cooled this spring thanks to all that snow and cold and the recent war. (Washington Post)

• Kevin Durant is among the new owners of the former Six Flags site near Upper Marlboro, which could become a “destination with entertainment and upscale dining and possibly a sports-related activity.” (NBC4 Washington)

Thursday’s event picks:

• This month’s National Gallery Nights event offers an “immersive evening where the visual soul of America meets the rhythms of American music.”

• Learn about the history of the Takoma Park Folk Festival at Takoma Park Neighborhood Library.

• Jacquelynne Fontaine-Isaac sings Broadway tunes at Miracle Theatre.

See more picks from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.

The post Iran Has the Strait Edge, CDC Sits on Covid Vax Study, and Hair-Touching Pardoned J6 Rioter Arrested for Stalking Local Journalist first appeared on Washingtonian.

A grand jury indictment charged 37-year-old Nelson Kuma, a former PIW tech, 45-year-old Richard Hounnou, a former PIW tech, and 68-year-old Norma Munoz-Bent, a registered nurse, with one count each of criminal negligence. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. All three have pleaded not guilty, according to Pirro.

“When medical professionals are paid to save lives, and instead, they stand and watch a life disappear,” Pirro said at a press conference Wednesday, “that is not mere negligence, that is criminal behavior.”

The US Attorney’s Office alleges that on April 26, 2020, the three former PIW staffers found a 58-year-old patient—a man identified only as “G.W.”—unresponsive in his room, but failed to provide potentially lifesaving measures for at least 21 minutes.

During the press conference, Pirro said that the incident was captured on video. According to her, a PIW tech entered the room around 12:38 PM and found the patient with no clothes on and apparently struggling to breathe, but took no actions for four minutes. When a second PIW tech entered the room, he fist-bumped the first PIW tech, and the two had an animated conversation for seven minutes. “It’s as though the patient on the floor who was suffering from labored breathing is not even there,” Pirro said.

Eventually, Munoz-Bent, the nurse, entered the room. “She too, stares at the patient,” Pirro said. “She puts her hands on her hips. She doesn’t touch the patient.”

By the time the PIW staffers administered chest compressions, some 21 minutes after the first tech arrived in the room, G.W. couldn’t be saved, Pirro said. “He was left to die, and they violated the most basic standard of medical care,” she said. “They abandoned even basic entry-level medical competence. They stood over him without offering help.”

Attorneys for Kuma and Hounnou declined to comment. An attorney for Munoz-Bent did not return messages seeking comment.

During her remarks, Pirro credited LaVan Griffith, the director of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Office of the Inspector General for the District of Columbia, for his assistance in bringing the case to her attention.

Pirro also recognized the work of Disability Rights DC, the watchdog group that issued a report detailing the circumstances surrounding G.W.’s death in June 2021.

In a statement to Washingtonian, Andrea Procaccino, a senior staff attorney for Disability Rights DC, said that the organization “released two additional public reports since our June 2021 report—Do No Harm (July 2022) and Unsafe and Unprotected (July 2024). The reports detail DRDC’s investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect at PIW. Our recommendations address systemic failures and include enhanced staff training and more staff support from the PIW administration, as well as increased District government oversight. We remain concerned about patient safety and adequate psychiatric treatment at PIW and continue to monitor the facility.  At our recommendation, the hospital has engaged an expert in trauma informed care and patient safety to work with and train the staff.”

A lawyer for PIW, K. Nichole Nesbitt, did not respond to an email seeking comment on the indictments.

The indictments represent the latest black eye for PIW, the for-profit psychiatric hospital in Northwest DC where the majority of Washington’s involuntarily committed psychiatric patients are sent. In 2023, police arrested a PIW employee and charged him with the sexual abuse of a patient who was in his care. Several teenage patients escaped from the facility the following year. That December, a former female patient accused PIW in a lawsuit of failing to prevent her from being raped at the facility. (In legal filings, PIW denied it was responsible for this incident.)

In February of 2025, a group of former PIW patients filed a class action lawsuit against PIW and its corporate parent, Universal Health Services. The lawsuit alleges that UHS “has employed and continues to employ a brazen corporate strategy of involuntarily hospitalizing PIW patients without cause or indication [and] prolonging patients’ hospitalizations unnecessarily and without cause or indication. . . . These illegal actions have been and continue to be driven by a focus on profit at the expense of patient care, safety, and treatment.”

PIW’s lawyer, K. Nichole Nesbitt, has denied these allegations.

In addition, PIW was the subject of two investigative feature stories by Washingtonian, published in September 2025 and February 2026, which exposed new allegations of unsafe conditions, routine violence, and poor care at PIW. “I mean, this place is actually trauma-inducing,” one former health aide told Washingtonian.

Responding to Wednesday’s indictments, DC Council member Christina Henderson issued a statement: “Since becoming chair of the Council’s Committee on Health in 2023, I have prioritized oversight of our in-patient psychiatric facilities and the overall behavioral health ecosystem. The Committee has conducted multiple hearings, done site visits at PIW engaging with the staff, and have also pushed the District’s regulators DC Health and the Department of Behavioral Health to conduct regular oversight visits at PIW. 

“A grand jury indictment is a serious matter, and I, along with my health agency partners will be reviewing the charging documents when they are made available.”

In an interview with Washingtonian earlier this year, Henderson said that the city’s oversight of the PIW is complicated by its dependence on the psychiatric hospital. “I think that this is one of those issues of when you have these monopolistic relationships that make it really difficult to do the oversight,” Henderson said. “PIW is our largest provider [for emergency involuntary commitments],” she added.

The post Three Former Psychiatric Institute of Washington Employees Indicted in Patient’s Death first appeared on Washingtonian.

For their November wedding, the pair wanted things to feel timeless, luxurious, and thoughtful, with an aesthetic designed in black, white, forest green, and gold. Grace’s favorite parts were the brass candlesticks on each table, and the flowers—from her bouquet, which included ivy from her late father’s garden, to the hanging installation above the sweetheart table. Reno’s favorite detail of the day was Grace’s hair—an old-Hollywood-inspired wave—followed by the couple’s custom logo, which was featured on the bars, cocktail napkins, custom wax seal, and more.

Other highlights of the day included the guest comforts (heel caps, bathroom baskets, lawn games, transportation, and more); the fashion (Reno’s double-breasted tuxedo was inspired by the classic styles of the British royal family and Grace chose an old-Hollywood-glam-inspired fit-and-flare gown with custom removable sleeves and a cathedral-length veil); and the food-and-drink menu and service the couple rave about—including late-night snacks passed on the dance floor and dessert shooters instead of cake. See the photos of their big day below.

Wedding Details

The post This November Wedding Featured Styles Inspired by Old Hollywood Glamour first appeared on Washingtonian.

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I can’t stop listening to:

Maurice Louca, “Polaris.” Louca’s 2025 LP “Barĩy (Fera)” is a delight from start to finish. The Egyptian composer plays Rhizome tonight with DC’s TALsounds. 

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 news: Iran, the US, and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire last night. The Strait of Hormuz will reopen under the supervision of Iran’s military, with Iran able to charge tolls to ships passing through. Talks for a permanent peace plan will begin Friday in Pakistan, which brokered this deal. (AP) The agreement followed a day when President Trump alarmed the world with a post threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” He then phoned into a rally for Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and posted endorsements in political races as allies and foes tried to discern whether he was bluffing once again. (WSJ) The off-ramp his threat eventually delivered “resolved none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.” Iran’s government and nuclear stockpile remain in place. Iran’s neighbors, battered by weeks of drone and missile attacks, are nervous about the country’s military capabilities. Here at home, gas prices are through the roof. (NYT)

Global warning: Trump’s increasingly apocalyptic language as the conflict he started ground on was “the antithesis of the peacemaking image he spent much of the last year trying to cultivate as he sought a Nobel Peace Prize.” (AP) Pope Leo XIV called yesterday’s threat “truly unacceptable.” (Axios) Tucker Carlson said US officials should tell Trump to figure out the launch codes himself. (WSJ) Trump, amid a potentially civilization-destroying war, took a moment to tell a reporter on the phone that Carlson was a “low IQ person.” (New York Post) More than 70 Democratic lawmakers called for Trump to be removed from office. (NBC News) NAACP President Derrick Johnson called Trump “unfit, unwell, and unhinged.” (The Grio) Trump’s verbal antics during the war have “left deep doubts about his judgment among lawmakers in both parties.” (Punchbowl News)

This isn’t over. The FBI warned law enforcement departments in some states and localities last month that Iran has the capability to attack people and buildings in the US, threats Trump downplayed. (Reuters) The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Tuesday that Iranian hackers are working to infiltrate computer systems at water and electric utilities in the US. (Politico) And Trump reposted a message by Iran’s foreign minister, demonstrating that he’d “already accepted that Iran can impose limits on shipping in the Strait — limits that did not exist before the war began.” (Playbook) Amid clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said he wouldn’t step down. (Washington Post) Administration officials called Hegseth’s wartime messaging “overly optimistic.” (Washington Post) Step back further: Here’s a gripping account of how Trump made his decision to go to war. (NYT)

Administration perambulation: The Department of Justice is investigating Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who in June 2022 testified before a US House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot by Trump fans at the US Capitol. (NYT) A militia Iran backs in Iraq released freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped last week. (AP) Democrats were “elated” by election results Tuesday night that “suggest the base is motivated to turn out for all manner of contests.” (Politico) A federal judge in Louisiana said he wouldn’t block the FDA from allowing mifepristone prescriptions to be fulfilled by mail—but only until an administration-directed study into the medication was complete. (AP) An 18-year-old lost an eye after he was shot by a Department of Homeland Security agent while photographing a “No Kings” rally in Los Angeles, his attorney said. (LAT) The question of how DHS spent money while Kristi Noem ran the agency is not going away. (Washington Post)

Recently on Washingtonian dot com:

• Chevy Chase author Nancy Lemann is somewhat baffled by the national acclaim she’s getting for her new novel, “The Oyster Diaries.”

• Now that spring is here, style influencer Barnette Holston says it’s time for DC’s men in suits to embrace fuller trousers, wider lapels—and brooches.

• Scientists at the University of Maryland have developed “smart underwear” to help create the world’s first large-scale data set of everyday human gas.

Local news links:

• The administration is still trying to deport Kilmar Abrego García, this time to Liberia. (AP)

• Maryland officials say they took down a drug trafficking ring with ties to Mexican cartels. (Washington Post)

• The Prince George’s County Council approved measures designed to limit ICE’s ability to operate in the county. (NBC4 Washington)

• Teen takeovers in the District “have exposed fault lines among D.C.’s politicians.” (Washington Post)

• Michael Estève is Bowie’s new mayor. (WTOP)

• Steve Jamal Smith got almost four years for an Arlington bank robbery last February that briefly netted him $711. (ARLnow)

• The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 sued DC over money it says is due to former Circulator workers. (DC News Now)

• Montgomery County banned the sale of invasive bamboo. (The MoCo Show)

• Ticket prices for the Caps’ Sunday home game are shooting up on speculation it could be Alex Ovechkin‘s last tilt with the team. (Axios D.C.)

• Noah Lyles got married to Junelle Bromfield last weekend. (NBC4 Washington)

Wednesday’s event picks:

• Cardi B plays Capital One Arena.

• Learn to make ravioli at La Cosecha.

• Allen Flusser discusses Ralph Lauren at MLK Jr. Library.

See more picks from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.

The post Apocalypse Postponed, Perhaps Indefinitely; DOJ Investigates Cassidy Hutchinson; and Noah Lyles Got Married first appeared on Washingtonian.

That’s why Hall is working on something called the Human Flatus Atlas, an attempt to create the first large-scale data set of everyday human gas. The project involves a “smart underwear” device that Hall has been developing since 2020. A first-of-its-kind contraption designed to reveal what your farts say about your gut health, the device is a small sensor that the user places in their underwear to record whatever passes through it. The resulting data goes to an accompanying iPhone app and then is uploaded to servers so that users—and researchers—can track gaseous trends. Apparently, people are quite curious about their gut health: More than 7,300 have signed up to participate so far.

The demand has surprised even Hall, who initially expected only dozens of volunteers. The wave of responses has prompted the team to greatly expand production of the smart-underwear devices. The goal is to capture a broad cross-­section of participants across age, diet, and lifestyle. Participants are asked to wear the device—which the team describes as “comfortable”—for at least three days. Hall has been using one himself for more than a month.

Beyond the team’s 2025 study, researchers are planning collaborations with universities across the country to expand the data and refine the technology. Hall says there’s plenty more to study, such as the ways that some foods and diets are connected to flatulence. “Right now, a major impediment for switching from a low-fiber diet to a high-fiber diet is the crazy gas symptoms you get,” he explains. “We’re trying to find a way to make that switch easier. Imagine a future where you could eat healthy without experiencing excess intestinal gas.”

Eventually, Hall hopes the device could move beyond the lab and into the wellness market. “Hundreds of people have emailed asking to be part of the study, so there’s definitely some demand in the reduction-of-gas space,” he says. “We would love for it to be a mass-produced product.”

This article appears in the April 2026 issue of Washingtonian.

The post Why Maryland Scientists Are Studying Farts first appeared on Washingtonian.

The post Menswear Is Having a Moment. Here’s How to Update Your Wardrobe. first appeared on Washingtonian.

Presented by Events DC, experience the high-energy spectacle featuring giant balloons, show-stopping floats, marching bands, and can’t-miss performances!

Here are just a few reasons to immerse yourself in the experience:

• Whimsical helium balloons and dazzling floats will take over the route, with debut appearances from The Lorax, Daniel Tiger, and others, paired with iconic Festival favorites.

• A star-studded lineup of live performances will bring the energy, featuring Club Nouveau, David Archuleta, Gabby Samone, Betty Maxwell, Sarah Potenza, Anastacia McCleskey, The Spinners, Anita Ward, and more.

• Top marching bands from across the country will fill every block with rhythm, movement, and unmistakable Parade-day energy.

• Unforgettable street performances and surprises (lots of them) will unfold throughout the route, delighting you with moments you’ll want to brag about.

Purchase Grandstand tickets for seating near the Archives or the Ellipse, or you can stand along the route and watch for FREE between 9th and 15th Streets on Constitution Avenue.

How to Get to the Parade
Book convenient and affordable parking in advance through SpotHero, the nation’s leading parking reservations app. To reserve your parking spot for the National Cherry Blossom Parade, visit the National Cherry Blossom Parade SpotHero Parking Page.

Lime is the micromobility partner of the Festival. Attendees can skip traffic by finding a Lime vehicle throughout the DC area and ride using the Lime app.

The closest Metro stations include Archives-Navy Memorial, Federal Triangle, Metro Center, Smithsonian, and L’Enfant Plaza. Plan your trip online.

Good to Know
There will be street closures around the Parade route for both the Parade and Sakura Matsuri – Japanese Street Festival. Please add extra travel time in case of unexpected delays and/or closures.

Merchandise tents are located at 9th, 12th and 15th Streets at Constitution to purchase your 2026 Festival collectibles.

Food and beverage options are limited near the Parade area, so you may wish to pack snacks and drinks.

If You Can’t Join In Person
Watch the livestream on the Festival’s YouTube channel. You can also watch the broadcast on 7 News on Saturday, April 19 at 11:30 AM or Sunday, April 20 at 6:00 PM on WJLA 24/7.

Visit NationalCherryBlossomFestival.org for more information.

The post It’s Time for Spring’s Most Iconic Parade Celebration first appeared on Washingtonian.

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I can’t stop listening to:

Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, “Ease On Down the Road.” “The Wiz” opens at the National Theatre tonight.

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 news: Iran fired missiles at Saudi Arabia this morning and “urged youths to form human chains around power plants and its president said 14 million people had answered calls to volunteer to fight” Tuesday as President Trump‘s latest deadline approaches tonight at 8 PM. (AP) Trump yesterday reiterated threats to destroy civilian infrastructure in Iran unless it reopens the Strait of Hormuz—he said last week, “What happens in the strait we’re not going to have anything to do with” but here we are—saying, “The entire country can be taken out in one night.” He also claimed the US had already won the war. (Washington Post)  The country’s ambassador in Islamabad described Pakistan’s recent efforts to end the war had been “positive and productive.” (Reuters) But negotiators describe a lot of daylight between US and Iranian positions and aren’t optimistic. (WSJ) Iran’s ten-point proposal offers a reopened strait in exchange for an end to strikes on it and on Hezbollah in Lebanon. (NYT) Trump said it was “not good enough.” (NYT)

So, uh, could he nuke Iran? “The chances at this moment are, at least, non-zero.” (Doomsday Scenario) Asked yesterday whether the war he started more than a month ago was coming to a close or ramping up, he said, “I can’t tell you.” (Politico) He said ‘that he’s “not at all’ concerned about committing war crimes.” (AP) Perhaps all these stances amount to negotiating positions to Trump, but both the US and Israel say power plants and bridges are legitimate targets. (WSJ) The Pentagon has expanded its list of potential targets to include plants that provide power to military as well as to civilians, a “workaround” to the whole war-crimes thing. (Politico) Trump said he believes God is on the US’s side on this one. (Washington Post) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likened the rescue of a US airman shot down in Iran to Jesus’ resurrection. (NYT) Oh, and Trump threatened to jail people at an unspecified news outlet unless they said who leaked information about the plane being shot down. (NBC News)

Meanwhile, in DC: Presuming the world doesn’t have much bigger problems tomorrow morning, there’s still the question in Official Washington of when the Department of Homeland Security shutdown will end. Republicans in the House and Senate blame one another for the fiasco, lots of people are mad at Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune, and it doesn’t look as if anything will get solved soon. (Punchbowl News) Trump’s new budget proposed *cutting* more than 9,000 TSA workers in his recent budget proposal, which isn’t directly related to this imbroglio, and he’s floated the idea of smaller airports using private security. (Reuters) In other floating ideas, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested that the US might pull customs enforcement from international airports in so-called sanctuary cities. (NOTUS) Remember ICE’s claims that it shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis in January because he and his cousin attacked a federal agent with a snow shovel, or perhaps a broomstick? Video of the incident shows a shovel on the ground throughout. (CNN)

Administration perambulation: Vice President JD Vance will visit Hungary today to try to boost the electoral prospects of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. (Politico) The Department of Education said it has ended agreements that would protect trans kids in five school districts. (AP) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will testify about his relationship with the deceased, disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein next month. (Politico) Some Republicans in Congress hope to convince the administration to reverse cuts to rural and tribal public-media outlets. (NOTUS) Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said only about a fifth to a quarter of US farmers will be affected by a sharp rise in fertilizer prices due to the war—fertilizer is a major cargo through the strait—and that the US will do what it can to help them. (Washington Examiner) Trump entertained a tableful of kids at a White House Easter event yesterday with claims about former President Biden. (HuffPost) Melania Trump wore Ralph Lauren yesterday, which “suggested an attempt at a patriotic gesture.” (NYT)

How to kill time at the airport, by Daniella Byck:

Long TSA lines have been in the news lately, and with spring break for DC Public Schools on the horizon, many of you may have these queues on the brain. Ever your intrepid scout, I took a flight last week, arriving extra early in fear of crowds at security. The checkpoint wait times did turn out to be accurate, so I found myself with a lot of time to kill at National Airport. It was a nice opportunity to return to our airport guide, which features the lowdown on restaurants, lounges, and travel hacks for DCA, Dulles, and BWI. The extra time was a good opportunity to scope out some newer-to-me spots: I snagged a magazine from the airport’s Eastern Market outpost, scoped out the breezy and busy Capital One Landing, and then landed at Cuban cafe Colada Shop, which opened earlier this year, for some pre-flight yuca frita.

Recently on Washingtonian dot com:

• The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington announced finalists for this year’s RAMMY Awards. Restaurants serving cuisines from Africa and the African diaspora in the Caribbean are prominent on the list, and there’s a write-in-only award for the new “Content Creator of the Year” category.

• Iraq vet Cory Brown‘s online cooking show “Eat Your Feelings” offers honest discussions about grief, loneliness, and stress.

• The Riggsby will reopen this spring in Dupont Circle.

• Georgetown cat cafe Crumbs & Whiskers has reopened after it closed abruptly in February.

Local news links:

• ICE agents have arrested nearly 20,000 people in the DC area during Trump’s second term. (Washington Post) Loudoun County has released more than 100 people to ICE custody from its jail this year. (LoudounNow) Newly released video gives a view of what happened at a traffic stop last October when a federal agent fired on a car in DC that had been pulled over for allegedly having an illegal tint job. (WUSA9)

• Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill that seeks to lower electricity costs for consumers. (ABC7)

• A jury in Prince William County found two men guilty in a murder-for-hire plot that authorities say the victim’s husband orchestrated from jail. (WUSA9)

• Police in Laurel say Robert Eakins trafficked a woman out of his house for months and hid in a crawlspace before being arrested. (NBC4 Washington)

• Cops in DC say a person riding a dirt bike hit two people in a bike lane on 14th Street, Northwest, on Saturday. The suspect is at large. (WUSA9)

• Marian Van Landingham, who founded the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, died Saturday. She was 88. (ALXnow)

• It’s just about time for the black bears to emerge. (WTOP)

Tuesday’s event picks:

• Jim Collins discusses his new book, “What to Make of a Life,” with Kelly Corrigan at Sixth and I.

• It’s a “queer line dancing night” at DC9.

See more picks from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.

* An earlier version of this newsletter incorrectly stated that ICE agents had arrested nearly 200,000 people in the DC area during Trump’s second term. We apologize for the error.

The post Not Exactly the Infrastructure Week We Were Expecting; ICE Has Arrested Almost 20,000 People in the DC Area Since Trump Returned; and the Black Bears Are Waking Up first appeared on Washingtonian.

Now “The Doom” has lifted. Lemann’s new novel, The Oyster Diaries, comes out today, along with reissues of two of her older works, Lives of the Saints and The Ritz of the Bayou. Recently, she and I sat at a long wood table in her kitchen and discussed her career renaissance. She wore slippers and a beige cardigan and chewed piece after piece of Nicorette gum while seeming a little baffled by it all. “I can’t believe it’s turning out this way,” she said, “that I’m not totally out in the cold anymore.” At age 70, she’s lately been the subject of fawning coverage in outlets like the New York Times and The Cut. 

Lemann grew up in New Orleans, where her family has been rooted for generations. She was 22 when she wrote her first novel, Lives of the Saints, a slender volume about her hometown’s dazzling coterie of “wastrel youth.” Other novels followed, plus a 1987 work of nonfiction, The Ritz of the Bayou, about the bribery, fraud, and racketeering trials of former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards. (That book began as an assignment for Vanity Fair, but the magazine balked because the draft was so atmospheric and uninterested in basic facts.) Lemann’s work was critically acclaimed—her mentor, Walker Percy, was among its champions—but her prose is eccentric and stylized and wasn’t terribly commercial. In 2003, she moved to Maryland with her husband, the biotech entrepreneur Mark Clein. It was around that time that publishers lost interest in her work. 

Lemann is lukewarm on Washington. Compared to the vertiginous splendor of New Orleans, DC strikes her as a notch too even-keeled. At one point during our interview, she grabbed a notebook by her armchair and offered to read me a list of places that she likes around town, which included the Billy Goat Trail, the restaurant La Ferme, the cafe by the National Cathedral, and the Malaysian embassy, which was the childhood home of Gore Vidal. She’d compiled that list for her recent profile in the Times, in case she needed to bring the reporter somewhere. But she says that she actually doesn’t get out very much, that her life here is mostly internal. She described visiting the writer Shelby Foote in Memphis: “He was sitting in his study and the curtain was billowing by the window and he said, ‘I hardly know there’s a world out there.’ And that’s kind of what it’s like for me. I just live in my head.” 

The narrator of The Oyster Diaries is similar to Lemann. She’s an incandescently neurotic woman who lives in Washington and has two adult daughters and loves opera and reads Kierkegaard and often visits her hometown of New Orleans, where she volunteers as a court monitor and cares for her ailing dad. Plot is not the point; the book is propelled by its narration, by inhabiting the consciousness of someone who is acutely alive to various things in the world (a storm blows up the coast “like a disturbed personality”; everyone in Washington “acts like federal tax bureaucrats, just by osmosis”). She’s fixated on the contours of her own mind, ruminating absurdly on her temperament. At one point, she calls herself “a demented cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Lord Byron.” She says, “The main issue yesterday was my unanswered prayers to help my personality. Ditto today.” 

The material that became The Oyster Diaries was compiled in the midst of the “The Doom.” “I was always writing,” Lemann told me, “because it’s a compulsion, and that’s how I cope with the world.” This habit has left her with reams of backlogged work, which she now hopes to repurpose into new books. She said she might also like to cover the White House the way she did with the corruption trials in The Ritz of the Bayou, where it’s “all about the vibes and the atmosphere.” I asked if her agent was floating that idea. She shook her head, grabbed her notebook, and said to herself—with the strange, looping rhythms of one of her characters—“Okay, so float the idea. Maybe I should write that down. Float the idea to the agent. Can we write that down?”

Lemann acknowledges that the recent enthusiasm for her work comes largely from decades of pent-up rapture over Lives of the Saints, which has amassed a flock of ardent devotees since its 1985 release. But she hopes that the new book will resonate, too. “You don’t want to just rest on your laurels,” she told me, “even though it’s a natural progression to have youthful brio and then slowly decay until you’re just not as good anymore.” When I asked if Lemann thinks she’s lost her brio, she replied that she now has the wisdom of age. Lately, she finds herself revisiting the “apocalyptic thoughts” she had as a child—the kinds that propel ambitious work, like, “Why are we here?” and, “Who planned this?” and, “Where am I going?” Being older, she said, is “bittersweet, because the show is ending,” but she actually finds herself happier now. She’s less consumed by her neuroses, disaffections, and fears, and more alive to everyday wonders, like the stand of flowering trees in her yard. 

In The Oyster Diaries, the narrator reflects that the “whole point of everything” is to “notice things more.” There’s a moment where she’s sitting in a courtyard and hears a burst of Bach from a piano. She weeps, thanking God for “reminding me of who I am—a person transfixed by beauty.”

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Since 2008, when his cavalry regiment returned to the US, more than 20 of the soldiers have died, most apparently by suicide. That includes Brown’s closest Army friend, Kevin Zachary, who lost his life to suicide in 2019. “When you look back and start piecing things together, he had a lot of medical bills, he was having trouble with the bank and housing, his job and the relationships that he had,” Brown says. “All these things had hit him, and he wasn’t talking to us about them, or at least he wasn’t telling anybody all of it.”

Zachary’s death was devastating for Brown, who had been hit by an IED in Iraq, suffered a traumatic brain injury, and struggled with his own reentry. He got divorced, had trouble finding the motivation to work, and dealt with suicidal thoughts himself. “I thought I would be more adjusted, but life has a way of showing you that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Brown, who grew up in Alabama and today lives in Nokesville, Virginia.

Before shipping off, Brown had attended graduate school in political management at George Washington University, and when he got back, after a rough period in Alabama, he moved to the Washington area and worked as a campaign consultant and pollster. But after his friend’s death, he searched for opportunities to help struggling veterans talk more openly about—and seek help for—their mental health.

That’s why last year Brown debuted Eat Your Feelings, an online cooking show that incorporates honest discussions about grief, loneliness, and stress. Brown hosts the show with Sam Nathews, a beverage lobbyist who grew up in the next town over from Brown’s in Alabama—though the two never met until they were on a panel together in DC a decade ago.

Cooking, it turned out, was the perfect way for the two friends to talk about intense subjects while keeping the conversation lively. “We’ll be laughing one minute, we’ll be crying the next minute, and then setting off the fire alarm the next minute,” Nathews says. Both have been into cooking for years. Brown’s fondest childhood memories are of big country breakfasts his grandmother made, and Nathews’s father owned a barbecue trailer that served a famous jambalaya, which the pair try to recreate in one episode while also talking about the loss of parents and friends.

Though it deals with heavy subject matter, Eat Your Feelings—nine more episodes are coming to YouTube soon—is casual and unscripted. Nathews joshes with Brown and makes off-color jokes, filling up the show’s virtual “swear jar.”

But both have also cried on camera. “The cooking can be fun and the comedy can be funny,” Brown says, “but at the end of the day, it’s got to be about that stuff that nobody wants to talk about.”

This article appears in the March 2026 issue of Washingtonian.

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