The Washington Post - USA (2022-06-09)

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THURSDAY, JUNE 9 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ SU B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Fred Burke’s claim to

Watergate fame: He sold

blank recording tapes to

the Nixon White House. B3

VIRGINIA

Police are gathering data

and weighing charges in

a crash that killed two

Oakton High students. B5

OBITUARIES

Irish travel writer Dervla

Murphy began her career

with a solo bicycle journey

74 ° 82 ° 82 ° 77 ° across Europe to India. B6

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

High today at

approx. 2 p.m.

84

°

Precip: 40%

Wind: WNW

10-20 mph

BY DANA HEDGPETH

AND OVETTA WIGGINS

G

abrielle Tayac, a Native Ameri-

can scholar and historian, still

remembers as a girl hearing

from her father the oral history

passed down in his family for over

100 years: how the town of Indian Head

and the highway through it got named.

“We were driving down Indian Head

Highway, and he said, ‘They killed our

people and put their heads on spikes,’ ”

said Tayac, an associate professor at

George Mason University. “My father

said, ‘That’s why Indian Head was called

this.’ ”

For Tayac and others of the two

Piscataway tribes in Southern Maryland,

the name of Indian Head Highway — a

20-mile stretch of road that runs from

Southern Maryland to the edge of the

District — has long conjured horrific

images of a violent time for the Native

Americans who once dominated the

area.

So in this age of social justice and

racial reckoning, it seemed like the right

time to propose changing the name of

the more than 80-year-old route to

Piscataway Highway to honor the Piscat-

away Conoy Tribe and the Piscataway

Indian Nation, which total about 4,500

members and can trace their roots in the

area back centuries.

Tayac supported the effort by a fellow

Piscataway, who got a veteran Maryland

legislator to sponsor a bill that lawmak-

ers passed unanimously and Gov. Larry

Hogan (R) signed into law this spring.

But what seemed an easy win turned

out to be riddled with troubles: The bill

to rename Indian Head Highway did not

have the widespread support of Piscat-

away tribal leaders and members, and

many supporters are now realizing that

the wording of the legislation was faulty

— so faulty that it was not really a win at

all.

“This was meant as a good thing,” said

Lucille Walker, executive director of the

SEE HIGHWAY ON B2

How an e≠ort to rename

a Md. road went sideways

A law was passed to redub Indian Head Highway. It seemed like an easy win, until it didn’t.

Theresa

Vargas

She is away. Her column will resume

when she returns.

BY MICHAEL E. RUANE

AND VANESSA SANCHEZ

The virus that causes the dead-

ly avian flu affecting millions of

wild and domestic birds across

the country has been detected in

mallard ducklings in the Lincoln

Memorial Reflecting Pool on the

Mall, the National Park Service

said Wednesday.

It was the first confirmation of

the “highly pathogenic avian in-

fluenza,” o r HPAI, in Washington,

the Park Service said.

A “die-off” of more than a

dozen ducklings at the reflecting

pool was discovered a few weeks

ago, Park Service spokesman

Mike Litterst said Wednesday.

When the animals underwent

necropsies, two were found to

have been infected with bird flu.

He said it was not yet clear what

killed the others.

The virus is rarely transmitted

to humans. “To date there has

been only one documented hu-

man case of the currently circu-

lating HPAI in the U.S.,” the Park

Service said in a statement.

“We’re not looking at another

covid-type situation,” Litterst

said. “But because humans can

unwittingly facilitate the transfer

between groups of birds, we just

want to get the word out there.”

So far, 39 million birds have

been affected in flocks in 36

states — including 1.7 million in

Maryland, 4 million in Pennsyl-

vania and 1.4 million in Dela-

ware, according to the U.S. Agri-

culture Department. Only 90

have been affected in Virginia.

The current virus is believed to

pose a low risk to the general

public, according to the Centers

for Disease Control and Preven-

tion, although “some people may

have job-related or recreational

exposures to birds that put them

at higher risk of infection.”

But people should avoid han-

dling live or dead birds or com-

ing into contact with their drop-

pings, as the virus can be easily

moved around on shoes, the Park

Service said.

Visitors to the area should

watch out for “waterfowl feces,”

and pets should be kept away

from live or dead birds. People

should report sick or dead birds

SEE DUCKS ON B5

Deadly

virus found

in ducks

on the Mall

First confirmed cases

in District of avian flu

affecting millions of birds

BY JENNA PORTNOY

Jorge Ramallo was in his early

20s and not yet out to his Bolivian

family when he approached his

first doctor’s appointment as an

adult with trepidation, wonder-

ing if the Arlington provider

would judge him for disclosing

his sexual orientation.

A rainbow sticker on the regis-

tration window told him all he

needed to know.

“I went in, I talked to the

doctor, I opened up about myself.

We had a great connection. He

was able to address all my needs

without any judgment. I felt

heard, I felt seen,” he said.

Ramallo, now 36, is lead physi-

cian at a primary care clinic de-

voted to the LGBTQ+ community

in Northern Virginia. The Inova

health-care system officially

launched the clinic on Wednes-

day, inviting people to access

what officials said would be inclu-

sive, culturally competent care.

Organizers christened it the

Pride Clinic and timed its open-

ing for Pride Month, an annual

celebration rooted in the 1969

Stonewall riots, a defining mo-

ment in American history and the

LGBT liberation movement.

The Falls Church clinic serves

patients 12 and older, accepts

private insurance and Medicaid,

and treats the uninsured, Ramal-

lo said.

“I believe the main barrier for

LGBTQ+ people is access, access

to a space where they can be

themselves without fear, preju-

dice or ridicule, access to a

health-care team that can actual-

SEE PRIDE CLINIC ON B5

Inova opens LGBTQ+

health clinic in N.Va.

Primary care facility

focuses on needs of

underserved community

BY MEAGAN FLYNN

He was about two minutes into

a speech at a Democratic summit

in Western Maryland when his

neck began throbbing. He felt

lightheaded. His ears started

popping like he was on an air-

plane.

So Sen. Chris Van Hollen

(D-Md.) asked himself: Should he

tell the audience he wasn’t f eeling

well and walk off the stage? Or

stick it out? “So I powered

through,” Van Hollen said in his

office Tuesday, his first interview

since he suffered a stroke last

month at the Western Maryland

Democratic Summit.

Van Hollen, who returned to

the Senate to vote Monday, spent

a week in a hospital last month

after the stroke. His doctor,

D imitri Sigounas, an associate

professor of neurosurgery at

George Washington University

School of Medicine, said the

stroke was due to a small venous

bleed in his head. Sigounas de-

scribed Van Hollen’s prognosis as

“excellent.” Van Hollen, 63, said

Tuesday that he was feeling fine,

noting his only lingering side

effect is some recurring neck

pain, for which he is taking Tyle-

nol. He is also on a temporary

blood-pressure medication.

But while he was relieved to

learn that doctors did not identify

any risk of long-term damage, the

caveat was they also couldn’t

identify the underlying cause of

the stroke, leaving Van Hollen

with a lingering unanswered

question.

“That’s the big unknown,” Van

Hollen said. “The good news is,

when they look at the CT scans,

they don’t see any sign of risk for

recurrence. I don’t k now if it’s f air

to say this can happen to anybody

— but that’s the big unknown.

They really don’t know.”

Van Hollen was one of several

high-profile Democratic politi-

cians to have a stroke around the

same time, including North Caro-

lina’s attorney general and John

Fetterman, the lieutenant gover-

nor of Pennsylvania who had a

stroke right before winning the

state’s Democratic nomination

for Senate. It later emerged that

Fetterman’s situation was more

serious than initially revealed

and that he had not been taking a

prescribed heart medication.

Van Hollen and his doctor said

that in his case, the senator did

not have any known risk factors

and there were no doctor’s orders

that he was ignoring.

Van Hollen said that after de-

livering his speech at the Rocky

Gap Casino Resort on May 16 —

rousing the crowd about the im-

pact of the American Rescue

Plan, among other things — he

decided to go sit outside to take a

breather, hoping his symptoms

would subside. But lightheaded-

ness persisted, so after about a

half-hour Van Hollen decided to

go home.

In the car came nausea, and at

SEE VAN HOLLEN ON B4

Back at work, Sen. Van Hollen reflects on s troke

He ‘powered through’

while giving a speech

in Maryland last month

BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST

S en. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) s pent roughly a week in a hospital.

“If you’re not feeling great, get checked out,” he advises.

BY SALVADOR RIZZO

They started hanging out at

the McDonald’s and the Star-

bucks, the doughnut shop and

the diner, after the coronavirus

pandemic froze their daily lives.

Throngs of students from Al-

exandria City High School have

become a lunchtime fixture at

the Bradlee Shopping Center,

located within walking distance

of the school’s two nearby cam-

puses, business managers and

employees said.

The shopping center became

the site of periodic violence, and

when students returned to in-

person instruction in August,

assaults began increasing there

and at the high school, according

to data police provided to The

Washington Post. Then last

month, 18-year-old senior Luis

Mejia Hernandez was stabbed to

death in a parking-lot melee

involving 30 to 50 teenagers,

authorities said.

The stabbing came as city

officials in Alexandria have been

debating what presence police

should have at schools, and busi-

ness owners and the teen’s par-

ents questioned whether the

school or law enforcement

should have done more to pre-

vent the killing.

“The kids leave at whatever

time they want, return at what-

ever time they want, and one as a

parent has no idea,” said Osmin

Mejia, Luis Mejia’s father, adding

that the high school was “a little

out of control now.”

Police calls for service at city

schools had risen sharply after

in-person classes resumed in Au-

gust, and police made 11 arrests

at city high schools from Septem-

ber through December, accord-

ing to the most recent data from

Alexandria City Public Schools.

In 2021, Alexandria police re-

sponded to 15 assaults, five of-

fenses involving possession of

weapons, two aggravated as-

saults and one rape at the high

school campuses or immediately

nearby — most all after students

SEE ALEXANDRIA ON B2

Violence

climbs

at N.Va.

schools

CALLS TO POLICE

RISE IN ALEXANDRIA

Slaying near a campus

troubles community

Maryland lawmakers unanimously passed legislation to change the name of Indian Head Highway to Piscataway Highway.

Gov. Larry Hogan signed the bill into law, but Francis Gray, above, who identifies himself as the tribal chair of the

Piscataway Conoy council, said no one reached out to him or the tribal council leaders until the last minute.