Mount Rainier will be featured in an upcoming episode of WETA’s “If You Lived Here.”

The locally produced public TV show features hosts Christine Louise and John Begeny touring homes for sale in a particular city or neighborhood in the greater D.C. area, along the lines of an HGTV home-buying show.

The half-hour long episode on Mount Rainier is slated to air on Monday, March 20, at 9 p.m., with repeats on Tuesday. It will then be available to stream online or on the PBS app.

The episode will feature a number of local residents and locations, including Realtor Silvana Dias, former mayors Bryan Kneeler and Malinda Miles, current mayor Celina Benitez, Brooke Kidd of Joe’s Movement Emporium, Michelle Darden-Lee of Gateway Media Arts Lab, Michael Janis of Washington Glass School and Margaret Boozer of Red Dirt Studio.

The show, now in its third season, featured Hyattsville in a first-season episode that you can watch online.

Other episodes this season have focused on Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, Bethesda, Navy Yard and Mount Vernon, among other neighborhoods.

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The Purple Line won’t go into service until at least mid-2027.

The long-awaited light rail line faces another construction-related delay, this time due to unexpected complications moving utility lines.

The additional seven months come on top of other delays that put the project four and a half years behind schedule. The 16-mile transit line was originally supposed to open last year.

The project’s backers had hoped that a new contractor, the end of the pandemic and the resolution of lawsuits from Chevy Chase residents would mean a fresh start.

State officials told the Washington Post, which first obtained the report that included the new delay, that they are looking for other ways to speed up construction.

“Building a complex transportation project through a 16-mile corridor of vibrant and active communities is never going to be an easy task,” spokesman David Abrams said.

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Academy Award-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis received congratulations from everyone, everywhere on Sunday, but one message stood out: From a former star quarterback at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville and University of Maryland alum.

The friendship between Curtis and Tim Strachan began in 1993, after his spinal cord was injured while swimming at Bethany Beach.

At the time, Curtis was filming “True Lies” with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the District, where Strachan’s brother, beau, was working as a grip.

After the Washington Post ran a lengthy story about Strachan’s injury and his rehabilitation, Curtis walked up to Beau and said she wanted to visit him. She ended up visiting Strachan several times and even exchanging phone numbers and emails.

“One day back then a friend of mine came by the hospital room to see me and was most surprised to see Jamie Lee there,” Strachan recalled recently. “Jamie Lee decided that I needed a VCR in my room and had brought it in and was mounting it herself. She was just such a normal person.”

Curtis and Strachan have continued to correspond over the years and he visited with her in person at a book-signing in Bethesda in 2018. After Curtis won the Oscar Sunday, he texted her congratulations:

“I have never had the chance to congratulate an Oscar winner directly, so here it is. Well deserved!”

On Tuesday, Curtis responded, using Strachan’s old football nickname in a Facebook post:

“I love you T! You are the exemplar of life on life’s terms, and you sit up and show up with LOVE and SUPPORT and DEDICATION to FAMILY.”

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The cleanup of the Anacostia River watershed has led to a rebound in local wildlife, including river otters spotted at Heurich Park in Hyattsville.

The Anacostia Watershed Society has been using automatic wildlife cameras to track the return of beavers and river otters along with the usual deer, raccoons and foxes.

River otters are a good indicator of the success of the years-long effort to restore the river, which includes everything from holding Earth Day cleanups to reducing runoff from the roofs of local schools to helping mussels grow in marshy areas.

“Otters tend to eat mostly fish and crayfish, and if the river is too polluted, then they just cannot survive,” the nonprofit’s Jorge Bogantes recently said. “So the fact that we’ve been seeing more recently, especially in the tidal river, is a great sign.”

River otters tend to be active at night and during sunset and sunrise, so you may not see them personally, but you can see evidence of them around, including flattened spots where they hang out, slides into the river and webbed paw prints.

Dogs are also attracted to areas where otters have left their scent and love to roll in it.

River otters have also been spotted by Anacostia Watershed Society cameras at Dueling Creek in Colmar Manor.

You can see images from the nonprofit’s wildlife cameras here.

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A new soup and sandwich shop opened Monday in downtown Hyattsville.

Located at 5105 Baltimore Ave., near Franklins, Between the Bread Cafe has eight signature sandwiches, including an “over-the-top” Reuben that’s their specialty, a stacked club sandwich, tuna salad and a ham and cheese panini.

For vegetarians, there’s a roasted vegetable sandwich with sautéed mushrooms, peppers, carrots and onions.

The full-service deli also has a number of salads and sides including coleslaw, southern potato salad, tossed cranberry and kale and a pasta salad option. Soups include a Maryland crab soup and potato broccoli.

They are serving artisan bread sourced from different vendors difference sources, and every third Thursday of the month a hand-carved oven-roasted turkey is available .

If you are looking for something sweeter, they offer a wide selection of deserts including classic chocolate chip cookies, deep dish Southern sweet potato pie, as well as peach cobbler cake. As for coffee, they they’ll be serving a variety of coffee from around the world including Cafe du Monde.

Between the Bread is the first location for John and Toni Pinkney, who have worked in catering and other areas of the food industry for more than a decade.

They told the Hyattsville Wire that they decided to open the shop when April Richardson, who runs D.C. Sweet Potato Cake, asked if they wanted to take over the spot when she moved her location.

John Pinkney, a lifelong Prince George’s resident, said he bought his first car at the Lustine Center in 1963.

Between the Bread is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturdays. A grand opening will be held in April.

And if you stop by tomorrow, John Pinkney said they’ll be offering a pound cake and coffee sampling.

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A multigenerational recreational center is planned for the former site of the Beth Torah synagogue in Hyattsville.

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission plans to use a wooded lot next to the synagogue building at 6710 Adelphi Rd. and other neighboring properties totaling 5.3 acres to build the rec center.

The rest of the synagogue property is slated for a 321-unit apartment building with shops on the ground floor.

Built in 1985, the current rec center at 6600 Adelphi Rd. is about 13,000 square feet. It will be torn down to make way for an 86,000-square-foot facility with a gym, fitness center, indoor track and multipurpose rooms.

The MNCPPC chose the site for a rec center because it’s close to the library, the Hyattsville Crossing Metro station and the University Town Center development.

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The results are in for the sixth annual Hyattsville Wire Best of Route 1 reader poll.

Some old favorites kept their claims. For the sixth year in a row, readers named Hyattsville hangout Franklins as the best restaurant, singling it out for best curbside pickup and outdoor seating as well, two pandemic-era additions.

Others that won for the sixth year in a row: Vigilante as the best place to get coffee, OpenBarre as the best fitness studio, ECO City Farms as the best community-supported agriculture, and Kathleen Hellington at Banana’s as the best hair stylist.

Readers also named Cocineros as the best place to get delivery, Pizzeria Paradiso as the best pizzeria, Northwest Chinese as the best Asian restaurant, Taqueria Habanero as the best Latin American restaurant, Busboys and Poets as the best brunch, Federalist Pig as the best food truck and Streetcar 82 Brewing Co. as the best brewery.

To read the entire list of 2022 Best of Route 1 winners, click here.

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