Michael E. Ruane

Washington, D.C.

Reporter covering local news, Washington institutions and historical topics.

Education: Villanova University, BA and MA in history; Nieman fellow, Harvard University

Michael E. Ruane is a general assignment reporter who also covers Washington institutions and historical topics. He has been a general assignment reporter at the Philadelphia Bulletin, an urban affairs and state feature writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a Pentagon correspondent at Knight Ridder newspapers.
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Latest from Michael E. Ruane

Centuries-old bottles of cherries unearthed at George Washington’s home

In a rare find, two bottles of cherries, buried for about 250 years, have been found at Mount Vernon.

April 22, 2024
Archaeologist Tess Ostoyich carefully exposes two intact mid-18th century bottles in the mansion cellar at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

It’s no Cannes or Venice, but Gettysburg just had a sold out film festival

Stars came out for Gettysburg’s new film festival, which featured films with ties to history

April 12, 2024
From left, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston; filmmaker Ken Burns; and Jake Boritt, director of the Gettysburg Film Festival.

Black sailor killed at Pearl Harbor identified after 80 years

David Walker, who left his Virginia high school to join the Navy, was one of 50 Black mess attendants who died on ships that were attacked.

April 9, 2024
The battleship USS California sinking after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The remains of a 19-year-old African American mess attendant David Walker, who was killed on the California, have recently been identified.

Park Service to remove 158 cherry trees for sea wall project

New cherry trees will be planted around D.C.’s Tidal Basin and West Potomac Park when the project is finished, the Park Service said.

March 13, 2024
Blooming cherry blossoms are illuminated by a camera flash not far from the Tidal Basin on March 20, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

80 years ago, another makeshift harbor sustained the Normandy invasion

Much like President Biden’s plan for a temporary harbor to supply food to starving people in Gaza, the Allies in World War II built the Mulberry harbors after D-Day.

March 8, 2024
U.S. reinforcements wade through the surf as they land at Normandy in the days following the Allies' D-Day invasion of occupied France in June 1944. The Allies built two offshore ports to supply the invading forces.

Many countries lag in returning art looted by Nazis, report finds

Russia, Spain, Denmark, Turkey and other countries are falling short in efforts to return artworks looted by the Nazis, a new report finds.

March 6, 2024
Antoinette T. Bacon, then the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, speaks at a repatriation ceremony for the painting "Winter" on Oct. 15, 2020 in Albany. The painting, discovered in an Upstate New York museum, was part of a cache of art seized by the Nazis from the Mosse family in Berlin in 1933.

Holocaust museum gets trove of intimate stories of loss and survival

The accounts are from a nonprofit that set out to gather and preserve the life stories of elderly Jews, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe.

March 6, 2024
Holocaust survivor Erzsebet Barsony and her son, Ervin Fenyes, in 1943 in Budapest.

National Zoo ‘in discussions’ to bring pandas back to D.C.

National Zoo officials said they were in talks with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to develop a new giant panda program.

February 22, 2024
Giant panda Xiao Qi Ji is seen in his enclosure at the National Zoo on his second birthday Aug. 21, 2022.

British recover bell from U.S. destroyer sunk by U-boat in WWI

A British dive team recovered the bell from the first U.S. destroyer sunk in World War I and will return it to Washington.

February 20, 2024
The bell of the USS Jacob Jones, an American destroyer sunk during World War I. The shipwreck was discovered by a British dive team in 2022.

Rare armor unearthed at site of 17th-century fort in Maryland

Archaeologists find a rare piece of armor at the site of the 17th-century fort at St. Mary’s, the first White settlement in Maryland.

February 18, 2024
An X-ray image of a metal tasset — a piece of 17th-century armor that protected a thigh — unearthed at the archaeological site of the 1634 settlement at St. Mary's, the first European settlement in Maryland.