Lucky that I got to see Eala twice this weekend. She may pull a Coco and never play DC again if her success trajectory continues. Incredible player.

The Tennis Letter@thetennisletter.bsky.social · 2d ago

Eala d. Jessica Pegula 4-6 6-4 6-0 in Washington ALEX BECOMES THE FIRST FILIPINO PLAYER TO WIN A SINGLES TITLE. Total domination to close out the match… she won the last 8 games. ✅1st career title ✅7th top 10 win of 2026 (2nd this week) 21 years of age, writing history for an entire nation. 🇵🇭❤️

As a pizza-at-home connoisseur there is nothing more maddening than a YouTube video that purports to show you a great Neapolitan technique and then 10 minutes in is a sponsored ad for some ridiculous thousand dollar outdoor pizza oven.

Lost in all of this, I feel like the most import aspect of this entire saga is that the reflecting pool was ~perfectly fine~ already. There was literally only one person who though that any of this construction needed to happen this year, let alone at all.

Charges Dropped Against Ex-Olympian David Hearn Accused of Damaging Reflecting Pool

A former Olympian will not face trial after federal prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false.

nytimes.com

Biked 20 miles round trip across town to the DC Open. Weather was good. Vibes were high. Didn't see a single N*tional G*ard. A reminder that DC is great when it's allowed to be.

I have a pretty good handle on the DC tourist experience and I can say with confidence that: 1) Nobody cares about these horse statues 2) Nobody cares about a Christopher Columbus fountain 3) Nobody cares about ballrooms

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01)@repstansbury.bsky.social · 5d ago

While you were over here trying to figure out how you were going to cover the rent and food—this guy was over there using $5.1 million in taxpayer money YOU paid into the system to cover these statues in 23 karat gold. Yeah, he did that.

Infantino paid basically no price for all kinds of ridiculous shenanigans in the USA this year and probably figured he was invincible.

Fifa World Cup: Uefa to boycott tournament if Gianni Infantino's investment plans go through

Uefa's 55 member associations vote to boycott the World Cup if Fifa proceeds with its plan to sell stakes in its competitions.

bbc.com

Four years ago I honestly believed that people would tolerate inflation as long as wages outpaced it and that unemployment was a much greater threat. This proved to be wildly incorrect. It's interesting to see that many people never learned what I did.

Americans are down on the economy and concerned about costs: Polls

July polls show the depth of Americans’ economic pessimism.

abcnews.com

A decade and a half ago there were a handful of expensive cities and then everyone else. Now there are just expensive cities.

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 6d ago

MIAMI'S COST OF LIVING SURPASSES NYC FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER

I have DC jury duty tomorrow and after googling a simple question I wound up on some sort of court AI chat bot. We are so cooked.

I promise you that "more races" is absolutely not what DC needs right now.

I used to love to walk and bike along the National Mall. This summer though it has become such a miserable place to be. Really really sad.

To put this number into context: we lost the Circulator bus because the ~entire system~ cost 40M dollars per year and that was a price we were told we simply could not afford.

National Guard Signs $292M Housing Contract for Troops in Washington, D.C.

The deal would provide 2,000 “apartment-style lodging units” for service members deployed in the city.

notus.org

I don't have anything to delete because food delivery apps are all parasitic middlemen who exploit restaurants and their human deliverers and I am glad I never once ordered from them.

A couple of weeks post 4th of July and the National Mall is in absolutely atrocious condition again. It's bookended by a botched reflecting pool on one end and a massive construction pit for some car racing infrastructure on the other end.

It's funny to me (though not at all surprising) that the national "Patriot Games" will not even be held in a major city.

The 'Patriot Games' are coming to Geneva

Freedom 250 announced Friday that the "Patriot Games," a new athletic competition for high school students, will be hosted by SPIRE Institute Academy in Geneva from Aug. 9-11.

news5cleveland.com

Perhaps the most amazing part of the story is that the teleprompter guy only made $100k.

Anyone using "prediction" websites and not insider trading is just flushing money down the toilet.

White House teleprompter operator allegedly made more than $90,000 betting on Trump’s speeches

Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president, is in talks to settle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the allegations.

nbcnews.com

I am pretty surprised I didn't get any frantic emails from the affected companies fear mongering about this. Maybe they don't think the District proper is a big enough market to be worth the fight?

NBC4 Washington@nbcwashington.com · 3w ago

The D.C. Council unanimously approved a bill targeting price gouging for resold concert or game tickets.

New Metro maps just dropped.

Gonna be some "Belgium is that good" talk and you don't have to fall for these lies. USMNT fell head first into a trash can here, Belgium just accepted the win that was there to accept. Didn't need to get out of 2nd gear.

🍊 curse

Hard to put into words just how much louder the Anacostia Park fireworks are than the ones they shoot off for the Cherry Blossom Festival / Nats games. This is nuts.

I've been saying all week that "security" is not the same as safety and a lot of people are now learning that in real time.

Remember snowcrete?

100x as many fireworks in a show that is only 2x as long and only 6x as costly as last year. The numbers simply don't add up. Will there ever be a proper audit? Doubtful.

July Fourth fireworks in Washington: What's different for America's 250th?

Dozens of technicians will fire off about 851,000 fireworks on July Fourth, aiming to break a world record in what organizers hope will be the "most memorable display this generation will have ever se...

npr.org

I'm not kidding when I say based on what I saw today on the Mall, plus what everyone's Fair footage is showing, this year's 4th has the potential to be a historic flop.

Rob Pitingolo@robpitingolo.bsky.social · last mo.

Guys I am at the Lincoln Memorial and despite the Washington Post telling us DC is getting a big tourism bump I can't find it.

Guys I am at the Lincoln Memorial and despite the Washington Post telling us DC is getting a big tourism bump I can't find it.

This is way less space available for fireworks viewing than in a typical year. The galaxy brain take is that it's all intentional to consolidate everyone in a small area and create the illusion of a big crowd.

I have no idea how to do politics, but I feel like if you're already shoveling money into a furnace to put this thing on, you could also heavily subsidize the food and drink and spin it off as some anti-inflation policy for the people. Seems too obvious though, right?

You Won’t Believe the Food Prices at Trump’s American State Fair

The food situation at the “Great American State Fair” is a disaster.

newrepublic.com

Does anyone know the stated reason for why the DC fireworks aren't starting until super late at 10:30pm? I assume it's actually for some petty reason like they don't want to compete for TV viewers with the NYC fireworks, or something like that.