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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ RE C

THE DISTRICT

A man accused of opening fire

in a hotel in Northwest is

charged with murdering a

Maryland woman. C5

LOCAL OPINIONS

Planners in the District have a

chance to start rectifying the racist

past of the Friendship Heights

neighborhood. C4

OBITUARIES

Gail “Hal” Halvorsen, 101,

showered children with candy

and kindness as an Air Force

25 ° 37 ° 44 ° 39 ° pilot in the Berlin airlift. C8

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

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

44

°

Precip: 0%

Wind: S

6-12 mph

The event at the Hanover casi-

no was part of the latest effort by

Maryland officials to entice those

who have not yet received a boost-

er dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-

BioNTech vaccines, which have

proved effective in shoring up the

immune system against the coro-

navirus — including new variants

— as protection conferred by ear-

lier doses wanes. About 74 per-

cent of people in Maryland are

vaccinated, but less than half of

that group have been boosted.

To increase those figures, Gov.

Larry Hogan (R) is relying,

among other things, on his con-

BY ANTONIO OLIVO

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin

(R) could see his influence grow

on the state Board of Education

and four other state panels as a

result of a dispute w ith Democrats

over his nomination of a former

Trump Cabinet member to over-

see environmental policy.

House Republicans earlier this

month voted against confirming

11 of D emocratic Gov. Ralph

Northam’s appointments after

Senate Democrats rejected An-

drew Wheeler — a former coal

lobbyist who served as Environ-

mental Protection Agency admin-

istrator under President Donald

Trump — as Youngkin’s pick for

state secretary of natural and his-

toric resources.

The move to block the 11 nomi-

nations — w hich R epublicans said

was in response to Wheeler not

being confirmed — broke a long-

standing tradition in Virginia’s

General Assembly to confirm a

previous governor’s state board

nominations without fanfare, re-

gardless of political party.

Garren Shipley, spokesman for

House Speaker To dd Gilbert (R-

Shenandoah), said in a statement

that the 11 rejected state board

members were selected “to give

Gov. Youngkin the greatest possi-

ble impact on his policy priori-

ties.”

Political a nalysts say the tit-for-

tat maneuver is part of the in-

creasingly partisan environment

enveloping Richmond since

Youngkin took office.

SEE VIRGINIA ON C7

Youngkin

may gain

influence

on panels

GOP WON’T CONFIRM

11 NORTHAM PICKS

Democrats had rejected

Va. governor’s nominee

BY JUSTIN GEORGE

Mired in problems immediate

and long-term, Metro registered

a rare sliver of good news these

past two weeks: The number of

passengers boarding trains rose

to its highest levels since mid-

December.

It was a small but welcome

development for a transit agency

facing a federal safety probe that

has left most of its rail cars out of

service. Seeing few positive de-

velopments on the horizon earli-

er this month, Metro acknowl-

edged future service is unlikely

to mirror its pre-pandemic offer-

ings.

As Washington is increasingly

eyeing in-person work while the

omicron variant fades, the por-

tion of those workers who turn to

Metro will help shape the agency

ahead of a massive budget short-

fall. The looming hole will leave

Metro with two obvious but

unappealing p aths f orward: Find

financial help or cut service.

Elected leaders and business

officials say Metro remains a

draw for private development as

projects near stations move for-

ward and more p eople live in a nd

visit downtown. As a shift

SEE METRO ON C2

Metro’s

paths: Find

money or

cut service

Agency’s prospects rise

as variant fades, but a

financial shortfall looms

immediately.”

There are many ways to tell

Ronald “Rick” Massumi’s story.

We could start at the beginning,

when he was a kid growing up in

McLean. We could cut to the

middle of his life, when he was an

attorney working for the

Securities and Exchange

Commission and doing pro bono

work for music festivals, artists

and local businesses. But starting

at the moment the 68-year-old

realized he was dying feels right

because of what happened after

he received that diagnosis.

The scenes that have played

out in recent weeks in his D.C.

home could make for a

screenplay, albeit a strange one

set against a backdrop of nude

paintings and a giant statue of

Jesus. (Those make up just a

fraction of his diverse art

collection.)

Massumi never married or had

SEE VARGAS ON C7

“Greetings from a

dead man!”

Of all the ways

Rick Massumi

could have told

Bill Duggan that

he had terminal

cancer, he chose to

type those words

in a text.

“Surprise diagnosis for me,”

Massumi wrote on Nov. 14. “I

have advanced metastatic cancer,

with no chance of survival and

very little time left.”

Duggan, who owns the D.C. bar

Madam’s Organ, laughs now at

the wryness and lack of lament in

those texts. But at the time,

Duggan responded in the only

appropriate way to the

realization that he was about to

lose a friend — with a lot of curse

words.

“You looked so good when I

saw you,” he wrote in between

expletives. “Lets get together

Theresa

Vargas

They were strangers until

a dying man provided a bond

BY PETER JAMISON

Larry Gaines removed his gray

sweatshirt, rolled up his sleeve

and whispered above the other-

worldly burble of chiming slot

machines that drifted in from the

casino floor.

“Make it quick,” he said. “I don’t

like needles.”

Gaines stared impassively as a

health-care worker pumped a

booster dose of Moderna’s coro-

navirus vaccine into his arm. The

65-year-old Baltimore resident

had put off getting his third shot,

but when he heard that a clinic

would be operating at Maryland’s

Live! Casino and Hotel, he figured

there were worse ways to spend a

Saturday afternoon.

“I say, ‘ You know what? I got an

excuse to go to the casino,’ ”

Gaines said as he sat in a window-

less lounge that smelled of rub-

bing alcohol, waiting the obliga-

tory 15 minutes after his injection

in case of side effects. “A nd so far

I’m up $80.”

stituents’ interest in games of

chance. The state is already run-

ning a lottery that will eventually

give out $2 million to those who

get boosters. And this weekend

vaccine clinics opened at Live!

and the Ocean Downs Casino out-

side Ocean City. By the end of

February, six casinos across the

state are scheduled to offer boost-

er doses.

A steady trickle of people

showed up for their jabs at Live!

on Saturday. In a business whose

success is founded on the human

brain’s notorious inability to ac-

curately calculate risk — and in

the midst of a two-year-old pan-

demic that has revealed that in-

ability in the extreme — these

were the Marylanders deciding to

make the safe bet. There weren’t

too many of them.

“I had to come down this way

anyway, so I thought I’d stop in

here and see how the line was,”

said Thelma Thompson, who

lives in Pasadena, Md., sipping

SEE CASINO ON C5

In Md. casinos, booster shots and jackpots

The District will not report

coronavirus cases and deaths

Saturday through Monday,

Maryland will not report them

Sunday or Monday, and Virginia will

not report them Saturday or

Sunday. Therefore, virus case totals

for the region will next be printed

Wednesday through Saturday.

BY JULIE ZAUZMER WEIL

When The Washington Post

published the first list of mem-

bers of Congress who were e n-

slavers last month, the article

included a call to action: Help us

complete the database.

Ruette Watson was among doz-

ens of readers who responded

with searing evidence of enslave-

ment. The outpouring included

wills handwritten in the 19th

century; birth certificates of ba-

bies born into slavery on con-

gressmen’s plantations; newspa-

per ads placed by senators or

representatives seeking the re-

turn of Black people who fled

captivity; letters and book ex-

cerpts and journal articles. And

in the case of Watson, an oral

history project focused on Black

women that included a 1977 inter-

view with her remarkable grand-

mother, Esther Mae Prentiss

Scott.

Thanks to Watson and scores

of other amateur and profession-

al researchers — who emailed

from as far away as China and

France and ranged from high

school students to presidential

historians — The Post’s tally of

enslavers who once served in

Congress has grown from 1,715 to

1,795.

SEE ENSLAVERS ON C6

Post readers help

identify enslavers

in Congress

Asked to help, they sent searing evidence about

dozens more lawmakers who enslaved people

FAMILY PHOTO HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

Jefferson Prentiss Sr., above left, is seen in a photograph from about 1919. He was born into slavery, like his father. They had

the Prentiss name from Seargent Smith Prentiss, above right. A Mississippi enslaver, he served in Congress from 1838 to 1839.