Reporter’s Notebook: Witnessing the Longest Day on Capitol Hill

(Washington D.C.) — From a window in my home in Arlington County, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C., I can see the three major landmarks of the American capital — the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol.

Of the three, the Capitol is the gentlest-looking. At night, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument are illuminated starkly from the outside by spotlights. The Capitol, on the other hand, glows more softly from within as orange lights show through windows in the giant dome.