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When the trendy Super Bowl pick Los Angeles Rams lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 1 in Melbourne, Australia, it was easy to blame jet lag. When they lost to the Denver Broncos in Week 3, maybe that was some bad luck on a controversial call. When they went down to the Buffalo Bills in Week 5, well, the Bills are a dangerous team.
But then, on Sunday, the Rams lost to the Arizona Cardinals (No. 24 in yards gained on offense, No. 25 in yards allowed on defense). It might be time to accept that this Rams team, now 2-4 and tied for last place in the NFC West, is just not very good.
That’s unfortunate because L.A. mortgaged the future for this year’s roster. It traded its 2026 first-round draft pick and three other picks to the Kansas City Chiefs for cornerback Trent McDuffie. And it sent Defensive Rookie of the Year Jared Verse, its ’27 first-round pick and two other picks to the Cleveland Browns for defensive end Myles Garrett.
This is the Rams’ preferred team-building strategy — the selection that netted Verse was the only time they used their own first-round choice since ’17, and they’ve made the playoffs every year but two in that span. But eventually that method stops working in the present, and then there’s not much to look forward to in the future.
In 2020, investigators were alerted to a strange shape on a satellite image of a remote Pacific island: An object they believed could be wreckage from the plane of legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished almost 90 years ago while attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world.
On Monday, an American team that went to investigate said the object was probably a collection of large trees that had mostly washed away.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find that smoking gun,” Steve Schultz of Purdue University said in a video from the Nikumaroro atoll in the island nation of Kiribati.
Over the years, there have been many theories about the fate of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan — from initial conclusions that their plane crashed into the ocean to the possibility they were captured by the Japanese.
Despite the lack of new findings, the team still supports a hypothesis that the pair crash-landed on Nikumaroro, then known as Gardner Island, where human bones — thought by some to have belonged to Earhart — were discovered in 1940.
Good morning. It’s Monday, Oct. 19, and I can’t wait to see the new Elizabeth Holmes documentary, even though it broke columnist Monica Hesse’s brain.
Today’s edition of The 7 briefing leads with the surprising House battlefields emerging ahead of the midterm elections. The political environment appears increasingly favorable for Democrats and grim for Republicans, meaning districts once considered locks for the GOP are suddenly in play.
The 7 also picks up two important world stories that developed over the weekend — President Donald Trump’s increasingly bitter feud with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a night of widespread violence in France following protests on Saturday over the cost of living.
Further down, we take a look at emerging research showing that routine vaccines may protect your heart. And did you get the Sunday scaries last night? We have advice for dealing with nighttime anxiety.
Read today’s edition of The 7 here.
East Potomac Golf Links has undergone plenty of changes since golfers first teed off there more than a century ago. Few, though, have transformed the landscape as quickly as what happened last weekend.
In a matter of hours on Oct. 10, National Park Service crews cut down more than 400 trees across two large swaths of the federally-owned course. By Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes had ordered the cutting to stop through at least Oct. 26, finding that NPS probably violated federal environmental law and warning of damage that could not be undone.
“Destroyed trees cannot be replaced,” she wrote.
In a sharply worded filing on Friday, the government urged Reyes to “end the drama now” and lift her order on the tree cutting, accusing the court of overstepping its authority. NPS also disclosed that the project is larger than previously estimated: About 729 trees are targeted for removal, roughly 300 of which remain standing.
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Satellite images of East Potomac Golf Links from October 8 and October 13 show views before and after the Park Service removed hundreds of trees. Source: Satellite imagery via Planet Labs PBC.
Before removal
After removal
Oct. 8
Oct. 13
Areas where
trees were
removed
Zone A
Zone A
Potomac River
Zone B
Zone B
D.C.
Detail
2,000 FEET
Source: Satellite imagery via Planet Labs PBC
Before removal
After removal
Thursday, Oct. 8
Tuesday, Oct. 13
Zone A
Zone A
Areas where
trees were
removed
Washington Channel
Potomac River
Zone B
Zone B
D.C.
Detail
Hains
Point
2,000 FEET
Source: Satellite imagery via Planet Labs PBC
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According to the filing, crews removed approximately 369 trees from Zone A, which runs from the 17th green to about midway down the 16th fairway on the Blue Course. They took down another 63 trees in Zone B, which stretches from behind the 12th green through the 13th hole and into the first half of the 14th. That puts the government’s current estimate of trees removed at about 432, though NPS cautioned that it plans to verify the number by counting stumps.
Unlike trees NPS removed earlier this year because they were dead, dying, hazardous or invasive, the trees targeted last weekend were healthy and noninvasive, according to NPS officials’ testimony. This week, freshly cut trunks and leafy branches remained piled between the fairways.
NPS said the removals were intended to carry out recommendations in a 2019 cultural landscape report that called for thinning trees to restore the open, links-style character envisioned when the course was designed a century ago. The agency has maintained that the work is separate from President Donald Trump’s planned overhaul of East Potomac.
Reyes was skeptical, concluding that officials raced to undertake the tree work because Trump “demands haste on his redesign,” rather than because of “some newfound zeal” to implement the old report.
Additional Coverage
Arizona is joining Nevada in suing over the federal government’s plan for the dwindling Colorado River, warning that it could lead to devastating water cuts.
Arizona on Friday filed a motion to intervene in Nevada’s lawsuit filed in August. Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, told reporters that the federal plan unfairly penalizes three “Lower Basin” states: California, Nevada and Arizona.
“Like Nevada, Arizona believes the federal government’s new operating framework ignores basic elements of the law of the river and could result in cuts … that would devastate Arizona’s economy,” Buschatzke said.
The Interior Department’s plan — released after states failed to come to an agreement on their own — means that Arizona, California and Nevada will get about 20 percent less water from the river over the next two years.
But Arizona officials said they are most worried about the possibility of deeper cuts. The steepest cuts allowed under the plan could “effectively dry up” the Central Arizona Project, a water system serving much of the state, Buschatzke said.
An Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement that it is “unfortunate to see Arizona playing politics instead of working toward meaningful solutions.”
Faulty lighting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial that left the sculptured silhouette of the slain civil rights leader covered in darkness at night for months has been fixed following a Washington Post inquiry, the National Park Service said in an email Friday morning.
Bill Apter, whose father David Apter helped coordinate publicity for King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, said he first noticed the lighting problems on July 6 when he brought friends to see the memorial on the banks of the Tidal Basin at night.
Apter, who grew up in the District and now lives in Kensington, Maryland, said he asked a park ranger about the lighting and was told to write to the National Park Service. Apter said he emailed twice and never received a reply.
When a Washington Post reporter visited the statue in West Potomac Park on Wednesday evening, King’s lower torso and legs were illuminated by floodlights, but his face and chest were dark. The Post contacted the NPS on Thursday to ask about the lights not working.
“Thank you for raising this issue,” an NPS spokesperson replied on Friday. “The lighting illuminating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial statue has been repaired.”
The hallmarks of a good sports bar might seem obvious — lots of big TVs, a sound system that can cut through conversation, reliable finger foods. But the qualities that separate the truly great from the good go beyond the basics. In early September, we asked Washington Post readers a simple question: What’s the best sports bar in the D.C. area?
Over the following two weeks, we received nominations for dozens of bars, extolling giant screens, friendly bartenders and irresistible chicken wings. The Top 10 bars moved on to the second round, where readers voted for their favorite establishment from the list and told us why it deserved to take the crown.
When polls closed Monday, one sports bar stood above the rest: Franklin Hall, which earned almost a quarter of the more than 700 votes cast. The spacious nine-year-old beer hall, located near the corner of 14th Street and Florida Avenue NW in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood, has a broad base of support: “The vibes are immaculate and the space is exquisite,” one reader wrote. “Incredible atmosphere to watch sports and connect with friends,” said another. The diversity of the crowds also earned praise: “It is, quite frankly, a bar for everyone.”
Over the last few weeks, photographer Louie Palu and I visited each of the Top 10 bars to see what makes them stand out.
Among the highlights:
- Minnesota Vikings fans banging drums
- Many, many pink Jell-O shots
- A New York Jets fan club with the motto “Misery Loves Company”
- The “best wings in the DMV”
See the full Top 10, and read about what locals love about each bar.
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