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Repairs to the Washington Monument, damaged during an earthquake last summer, will begin as early as this summer thanks to a $7.5 million donation from a Maryland philanthropist. The National Park Service announced the donation by billionaire David Rubenstein at a news conference Thursday morning in front of the closed monument. Rubenstein's gift matches federal funding approved by Congress in December. The monument suffered heavy damage inside and outside the structure during last August's magnitude-5.8 earthquake. It suffered cracks of up to 1 inch wide in some marble blocks, missing mortar and other structural issues. The Park Service says now that it has the funding needed to repair the monument, it will award a contract to begin repairs by August. The work is expected to take at least 10 months. "Millions of people have seen the dramatic video of chunks of mortar and limestone raining down on visitors in the monument as the quake rocked the East Coast last August," National...