The Washington Post - 30.08.2019

where a steady j ob with decent

benefits is becoming a unicorn.

This Labor Day weekend, after

we’re done p lanning the p icnic

and t he b est route around the

holiday t raffic, let’s take a

moment to see where the

American worker r anks in today’s

economy.

It w as 150 y ears ago this year —

in 1869 — that some Philadelphia

tailors c ame up with radical,

utopian i deas about what i t

should be l ike to work in o ur post-

SEE DVORAK ON B2

greed.

But “ Liza on D emand” is set in

2019 L os A ngeles, i t’s on YouTube

and i t’s the best indictment of t he

stupid, impossible world A merica

has c reated for its working class.

Liza works i n the gig economy

— d riving f or Uber, hiring h erself

out a s a mover or a cookie-maker.

It’s l abeled as “ gig e conomy

comedy,” b ut get past the c ampy

jokes and her Lucille Ball

misadventures and it’s a startling

call to action for a renewed a nd

fierce labor movement in a nation

“You’ll see, it’s

really funny,

Mom,” my tween

told me a s he hit

play on one o f his

favorite n ew

shows, which

sounded like the

desperate tale of a

Depression-era c oal m iner.

It’s a bout a worker w ho has n o

job s ecurity, w ho struggles with

dangerous work conditions a nd i s

trapped on the lower rungs o f an

economy d riven by corporate

KLMNO

METRO

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

VIRGINIA

Alexandria’s chief

prosecutor to offer a pot

diversion program for

misdemeanor cases. B4

THE REGION

Maryland officials deny a

permit for a solar farm that

Georgetown wanted to

build in Charles County. B5

OBITUARIES

Albert V. Bryan Jr. presided

over the Eastern District of

Virginia’s “rocket docket”

70 ° 84 ° 88 ° 82 ° for two decades. B6

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

89

°

Precip: 5%

Wind: SW

6-12 mph

BY KEITH L. ALEXANDER,

LAUREL DEMKOVICH

AND PAUL DUGGAN

A man with a history of mental

illness and homelessness was or-

dered jailed on a first-degree

murder charge Thursday in the

stabbing of a 27-year-old D.C.

woman who police say was at-

tacked for no apparent reason

while walking a dog in the Park

View area of Northwest Washing-

ton.

The victim, Margery Magill, 27,

who was a familiar sight in the

neighborhood as a paid dog walk-

er, was stabbed in the back, neck,

shoulder and stomach by an as-

sailant who confronted her about

8:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 400

block of Irving Street NW, accord-

ing to D.C. police.

Shortly afterward, detectives

followed a blood trail from the

crime scene to an apartment

about a quarter-mile away, in the

500 block of Columbia Road NW,

according to an affidavit filed in

D.C. Superior Court. There, Eliyas

Aregahegne, 24, was watching

television on a couch in his fa-

ther’s residence, his left middle

finger bleeding from a cut, the

affidavit says.

Later, in a homicide interroga-

tion room, Aregahegne “placed

himself on scene and explained

that a dark force was speaking to

him from inside of his head,” a

detective wrote in the affidavit.

“A t one point Defendant stated

that when he went back outside

the voices were speaking to him

and things ‘Got out of hand.’ ”

Aregahegne told the detective,

“I don’t remember stabbing her,”

and, “I don’t think I stabbed her,”

according to the affidavit.

At his initial appearance in

Superior Court on Thursday, Are-

gahegne was ordered jailed pend-

ing the outcome of a Sept. 12

preliminary hearing. Police Chief

Peter Newsham said detectives

have ruled out robbery or sexual

assault as a motive for the killing

and have found no prior connec-

tion between the victim and sus-

pect.

“This was a random, vicious,

unprovoked attack on a woman

who was stabbed multiple times

and who was stabbed so viciously

that her stomach separated from

her aorta,” Magistrate Judge

Rainey R. Brandt said from the

bench Thursday, reviewing

charging documents in the case.

“The weight of the government’s

evidence is strong.”

Atop a bathroom mirror in the

apartment, police said, they

found a white T-shirt stained

with suspected blood. The T-shirt

“appeared similar to the one

worn by the suspect” as seen in a

surveillance video from Irving

Street, the affidavit says. It says a

pair of Nike sneakers, also

stained with suspected blood,

SEE STABBING ON B3

BY MICHAEL E. RUANE

They swept the dirt from its path as the old rocket

plane was rolled out of the Smithsonian’s National

Air and Space Museum on Tuesday night.

Beneath the spotlights, it still looked menacing,

with its long, dark silhouette, tiny cockpit windows

and stubby wings. Once the legend of the skies, the

X-15 flew faster than a rifle bullet and lofted i ts pilots

to the edge of space 60 miles up.

And as workers crowded around, it seemed as if it

was being set for another mission. But its wings were

wrapped in padding. Its skin was coated in dust. And

about midnight it was plucked by a crane, lowered

backward onto a truck and driven off into storage.

But for a moment as it hung over Independence

Avenue, with the yellow-and-black NASA logo on its

SEE RETROPOLIS ON B2

BY FENIT NIRAPPIL

The District will not meet the

mayor’s goal of slashing the an-

nual number of new HIV infec-

tions in half by 2020, health offi-

cials said Thursday.

The acknowledgment comes as

a new public health report shows

the city continues to struggle to

end an epidemic affecting nearly

2 percent of the population, one of

the highest rates in the country.

Last year, 360 District resi-

dents received HIV diagnoses,

ju st 13 fewer than in 2017, accord-

ing to the report. It is a slight

improvement from 2017 w hen the

number of new HIV diagnoses

shrank by five.

The city has made significant

progress since the mid-2000s,

when annual HIV diagnoses

topped 1,000.

Nearly 400 people contracted

the virus in 2015, Mayor Muriel E.

Bowser’s (D) first year in office.

She wanted that figure cut in half

by 2020 as part of her strategy to

stop HIV infections.

The District has been trying to

meet this target with a two-

pronged strategy. Officials want

to treat more people who already

have the virus to lower their viral

SEE HIV ON B3

BY REBECCA TAN

Local governments across the

Washington area are expanding

legal defense funds for immi-

grants facing deportation, reviv-

ing a debate that divides advo-

cates, officials and residents in

Maryland’s largest jurisdiction.

As the Trump administration

deepens its crackdown on immi-

grant communities, introducing

a fast-track deportation process

to bypass immigration judges and

raiding work sites across the

country, local governments have

doubled down on efforts to pro-

tect their undocumented resi-

dents.

Prince George’s County, one of

the earliest jurisdictions in the

region to introduce such an ini-

tiative, increased funding for an

immigrant services program

from $200,000 to $300,000 in its

most recent budget. Baltimore

City is shelling out $150,000 for

the next fiscal year, while Fairfax

SEE FUNDS ON B4

Labor Day is a good time to reflect on

state of the ever-growing gig economy

Petula

Dvorak

Man charged in random D.C. fatal stabbing has history of mental illness

Detective: Suspect, 24,

said a ‘dark force’ had

been speaking to him

District

will fall

short on

HIV goal

BOWSER SOUGHT

TO HALVE DIAGNOSES

Progress seen in number

of the virally suppressed

RETROPOLIS

After 43 years, X-15 is on the move

Smithsonian’s legendary rocket

plane heads for storage during

museum’s seven-year renovation

JIM PRESTON/SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

TOP: Staff and contractors lower the X- 15 in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,

where it has hung since the museum opened in 197 6. ABOVE: The X-15 is secured onto a flatbed truck before being driven off to storage.

Legal aid

for detained

immigrants

stirs debate

JACQUELINE LARMA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Amanda Hammock, dressed as Rosie the Riveter in Philadelphia in

June, protests a Supreme Court ruling that government workers

can’t be forced to contribute to labor unions that represent them.

MICHAEL E. RUANE/THE WASHINGTON POST