Waffles and caviar for breakfast, fish and chips for dinner. The Guardian’s reviewer digests a social week in Washington

The annual White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington is ostensibly about the dinner poking fun at the president . But like the Oscars, or the Met Gala, it’s also about the parties.

But how to decide which parties to attend and which ones to skip? Every day of the White House correspondents’ dinner weekend is now inundated with competing events.

The rules were as follows: two food options were chosen at random at each party, and given a score out of 10 based on taste and execution. The parties reviewed were cocktail parties only; sit-down dinners were not included. Where the primary reviewer could not attend, a secondary reviewer sent notes. The final list was submitted to a three-judge “appeals panel” made up of longtime MSNBC contributors, though the ranking could only be overturned in the event of plain error by the reviewer. The rankings were not overturned.

Events not reviewed: Washington Women in Journalism awards ceremony, White House Foreign Press-Meridien party, WME-Puck party, Washingtonian/embassy of Qatar soiree, Politics and Inclusion dinner, Washington AI Network-TGI Friday lunch, Substack New Media party.

Following Columbia’s lead, students across the US are demanding ceasefire and divestment – and hundreds have been arrested

• Four students on why they’re protesting against war in Gaza: ‘Injustice should not be accepted’

At least 40 pro-Palestine protest camps have arisen across US campuses following Columbia University’s example earlier this month.

While many remain provocative though peaceful, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment by their institutions from companies with ties to Israel, hundreds of students and outside protesters have been arrested, and there have been some fierce clashes with police.

José Andrés, founder of organisation, told mourners gathered at Washington National Cathedral how the loss of his staff ‘should inspire us to do better’

The seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed by Israeli airstrikes represented the “best of humanity” and risked everything “to feed people they did not know and will never meet,” José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the organisation, told mourners on Thursday.

Speaking at Washington National Cathedral to those gathered to honour the aid workers, Andrés said there was no excuse for the killings and renewed calls for an investigation into the deaths.

NPR host Steve Inskeep joins other authors of books on the 16th president at annual Ford’s Theatre symposium

Asked what Abraham Lincoln might have to say to Americans in 2024, an election year in a country as divided as at any time since the civil war Lincoln won, the NPR host Steve Inskeep said the 16th president would advise that a big part of “building a political majority is making alliances with people you believe to be wrong”.

“One of the things that drew me to the topic of Lincoln was the present and the dilemmas and difficulties of democracy right now,” Inskeep said on Saturday, appearing in connection with his book Differ We Must : How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America, at the 27th Annual Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium , at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC.

Stefanie Lambert released on bond after being apprehended by US marshals during Washington court hearing in separate Dominion case

Stefanie Lambert, a lawyer who has crusaded to try to prove Trump’s claims of voter fraud in Michigan, was arrested in federal court and released on bond after refusing to comply with court orders in a separate Michigan case alleging she tampered with voting machines after the 2020 election.

During her arraignment on Tuesday, a judge released her on a $10,000 unsecured bond. Lambert has refused to submit fingerprints in the Michigan case accusing her and two other state Republicans of illegally breaching Michigan voting machines.

Incarcerated people often must drink unhealthy water, a particularly cruel – but not unusual – form of punishment

Russell Rowe spent almost two and a half years in Washington DC’s central detention facility, where rusty water flowed from taps in sinks that were connected to toilets. He remembers dawdling at the nurse’s station when it was time to take his meds, in hopes she’d give him an extra, tiny “portion” cup of water, the cup that often holds or accompanies pills.

“I was just in a state of constant dehydration,” he said. “My whole body felt different. I just didn’t feel well.”

Top sights in Washington include Capitol Hill Books, the Black Cat music venue and a top-rated Filipino restaurant

People love to be rude about Washington DC because it’s full of so many politicians, feds, and consultants who wear fleece vests and don’t take off their work lanyards when they leave the office. I get it. I myself had mixed feelings about my home town when I was growing up there. It didn’t seem as exciting as New York, or as glitzy as Los Angeles. But after a decade away, I came back, because time is circular, and also it turns out DC rocks and I love it! It has great restaurants, resplendent parks and free museums. Sometimes when I’m sad I’ll put on red lipstick and go wander around the National Gallery of Art for an afternoon, staring at gorgeous paintings and sulking in a way that I hope looks beautiful and intriguing to strangers. This city can be short on glamour, so sometimes you have to generate it yourself.

If you’re not feeling sad and dramatic, though, here are some other things we can do together.

Former president responds to Biden’s ‘angry’ address on his social media platform Truth Social

• Key takeaways from Biden’s state of the union address

Rightwing commentators have lambasted the Alabama senator who Republicans chose to deliver the rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address .

Katie Britt delivered the Republican response from what appeared to be her kitchen.

The president needed to appeal to voters as he and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the presidential contest

Joe Biden confirmed a new US mission to deliver aid to Gaza and repeatedly took aim at Donald Trump in his State of the Union address on Thursday, offering a pointed preview of the general election in November.

Biden’s most significant announcement came toward the end of his roughly hour-long speech, when he confirmed that the US military would establish a “temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza” capable of receiving large shipments of water, food and medicine. Biden pledged the mission will not involve deploying American troops on the ground and would facilitate a significant infusion of supplies into Gaza.