KLMNO

METRO

FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ RE K B

THE DISTRICT

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser

plans to launch a “strike

force” to bolster Black

homeownership. B2

VIRGINIA

Thomas Jefferson High

can keep admissions

system as suit proceeds,

appeals court rules. B3

OBITUARIES

Arthur Riggs, 82, led a

team that produced the

first synthetic insulin for

52 diabetes patients. B6

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59

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55

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50

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

High today at

approx. 12 a.m.

59

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Precip: 10%

Wind: WNW

10-20 mph

BY ERIN COX

Maryland lawmakers passed

an omnibus climate change bill

on Thursday designed to give the

state some of the most aggressive

environmental goals in the coun-

try — if the bill survives a veto

threat from Republican Gov. Lar-

ry Hogan.

The sprawling legislation ac-

celerates Maryland’s already am-

bitious environmental goals,

seeking to cut emissions by

60 percent of 2006 levels by 2031,

up from the current goal of

40 percent. It also spells out

sweeping changes to get there.

“We are planting a flag. We are

being a leader. We expect to be

copied,” said House Environ-

ment and Transportation Chair-

man Kumar P. Barve (D-Mont-

gomery), one of the chief archi-

tects of the plan that some pro-

ponents wished went even

further to wean the state off

fossil fuels.

If the legislation stands, own-

ers of large commercial and

apartment buildings would be

required to cut their carbon

emissions or face fines. The

state’s fleet and public school

buses would transition to electric

vehicles. Tax breaks would be

handed out for community solar

projects, along with loans to

finance large-scale green energy

projects. The state would pay

millions to organizations work-

ing in communities with neglect-

ed environments on projects

such as planting trees, mitigating

air pollution or insulating low-

income housing. And the legisla-

tion would take new steps to set

the state on a course to be carbon

neutral by 2045.

It also starts taking steps to

eventually bar the use of natural

gas to heat new buildings. The

Environmental Protection Agen-

cy has said fossil fuels heating

homes and businesses account

for about 13 percent of total U.S.

greenhouse gas emissions. The

idea is to rely on carbon-free

sources of electricity instead, and

it requires the state to document

that the electrical grid could

absorb that demand by 2023. A

proposal to immediately imple-

ment a natural gas ban for new

construction was stripped out of

the bill after objections from

energy and construction lobby-

ists, lawmakers said.

Maryland’s Department of the

Environment considers the state,

with its 3,100 miles of coastline

SEE CLIMATE ON B5

Md. set

to aim

high on

climate

AMBITIOUS GOALS

TO FIGHT WARMING

Legislators approve plan,

but a veto threat looms

old. She wants to be a therapist.

But these very D.C. teens on

Monday weren’t posting on

social media or complaining to

their friends. They had gone to a

virtual D.C. Council budget

hearing, sitting before a

government body, to ask for

help.

And I don’t think it’s a

coincidence that nearly all the

students who spoke or

submitted testimony want to do

the work — taking care of others

— that the adults aren’t doing

well today.

“Students are taking the lead

on addressing mental health,”

Alynah King, a student at Wilson

High School, said at the hearing.

“Not the adults.”

SEE DVORAK ON B3

The kids have

been saying it

throughout the

pandemic:

They’re not okay.

“I was going

through a rough

phase with

friends and had

lost a loved one,” said Elizabeth

Abatan, a high school senior in

D.C. who wants to become an

orthopedic surgeon.

“I fell behind in my

schoolwork and started to lose

interest in school,” said Daniela

Mendez Castro, a D.C. 16-year-

old who wants to be a

pediatrician.

“High school students are in a

mental health crisis,” said Julissa

Canales, another D.C. 16-year-

The kids still are not okay,

and they want adults to help

Petula

Dvorak

BY ELLIE SILVERMAN

T

he trucker group calling itself the “Peo-

ple’s Convoy,” which protested vaccine

mandates and aired other right-wing

grievances by driving around the D.C.

region for more than three weeks, left its tempo-

rary base in Western Maryland on T hursday

morning to head across the country to challenge

proposed coronavirus vaccine and health-related

bills in California.

The protest failed to accomplish any of its

stated demands and recently saw a dwindling

number of participants, fractures among support-

ers, pushback from local residents and activists,

and road blockages by D.C. police.

“What do you all think about heading to

California?” co-organizer Mike Landis asked the

crowd at the Hagerstown Speedway on Sunday.

“We’re not done here. But we’ll go to California

and raise awareness on this along the way and

hopefully gain more people like we did on our way

here — and then once we stop this, we will come

back to finish this job.” He did not elaborate on

what finishing the protest meant.

Although about 100 vehicles with the convoy

departed from the speedway, a racetrack about 80

SEE CONVOY ON B2

BY JACLYN PEISER,

PETER HERMANN,

MATT ZAPOTOSKY

AND MICHELLE BOORSTEIN

Five fetuses were removed from
a Southeast Washington home
Wednesday, the same day a federal
indictment was announced
against nine people in the 2020
blockade of an abortion clinic with
chain and rope.
The residence was where Lau-
ren Handy, one of the women in-
dicted, was arrested and had lived
or stayed, according to two law
enforcement officials who spoke
on the condition of anonymity to
freely discuss the case.
Handy and eight others were
indicted on federal civil rights
counts, with prosecutors alleging
that she and others violated the
Freedom of Access to Clinic En-
trances Act.
About 12:30 p.m. Wednesday,
D.C. police were called to the 400
block of Sixth Street SE to investi-
gate a tip “regarding potential bio-
hazard material at the location.”
The items recovered were fe -
tuses aborted “in accordance with
D.C. law,” Ashan Benedict, execu-
tive assistant D.C. police chief,
said at a news conference Thurs-
day.
“There doesn’t seem to be any-
thing criminal in nature about
that except for how they got into
this house,” Benedict said.
Benedict said he couldn’t con-
firm that the home was Handy’s.
D.C. police were not involved in
the investigation, he said.
Authorities have not said how
the fetuses were obtained and how
they came to be in the home.
The discovery came the same
day authorities announced the in-
dictment of the nine people who
prosecutors say had gathered near
the doors of a D.C. reproductive
health clinic in October 2020.
They were waiting for the facili-
ty to open and charged in after a
medical specialist unlocked the
doors, an indictment says. They
began barricading the entrances
with chairs from the waiting
room, according to prosecutors.
“We have people intervening
physically with their bodies to pre-
vent women from entering the
clinic to murder their children,”
Jonathan Darnel, reportedly one
of the intruders, said in a Face-
book Live broadcast documenting
the event, according to court doc-
uments.
The nine have been charged
with conspiracy and violating the
FACE Act, “which prohibits
threats of force, obstruction and
property damage intended to in-
terfere with reproductive health
care services,” according to the
SEE CHARGES ON B4

Authorities

remove

five fetuses

from h ome

Discovery comes on day

9 people are indicted in

abortion clinic blockade

‘People’s Convoy’ exits D.C. area

Failing to accomplish its stated demands, group takes aim at covid mandates in Calif.

PHOTOS BY RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST

TOP: After weeks of protests in the D.C. area, the “People’s Convoy” leaves the Hagerstown

Speedway o n Thursday to cross the country and stage protests against coronavirus-related

mandates in California. A BOVE: William Owens, an author and evangelist known as America’s

Poet, speaks to m embers of the convoy before t he group leaves the speedway for the West Coast.

BY LIZZIE JOHNSON

Former Walt Whitman High
School rowing coach Kirk Shipley
has not yet accepted a plea deal in
the sexual abuse case against
him, prosecutors told a D.C.
judge Thursday.
Shipley, 47, was charged in
August with abusing two former
rowers at the Bethesda high
school where he coached and
taught social studies.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Caro-
line Burrell laid out the terms of
the plea deal in a March 14 letter
to D.C. Superior Court Judge
Maribeth Raffinan:
If Shipley agrees to plead
guilty to first-degree sexual abuse
of a secondary education student
and possession of a sexual per-
formance by a minor, prosecu-
tors would not pursue the re-

maining charges of sex abuse

against him. Convictions for

those two felonies would require

Shipley to register as a sex offend-

er for the rest of his life.

If Shipley accepts the offer, the

letter said, he “must not oppose”

the reading of impact statements

from the community and one of

the former rowers at his sentenc-

ing. At that time, it would be up

to the judge to decide whether

Shipley would serve jail time —

and if so, for how long.

Prosecutors and Shipley’s de-

fense attorneys have been in plea

deal negotiations for months.

Burrell reported Thursday that

Shipley’s attorney had made a

counteroffer, which was rejected.

His lawyer did not respond to

calls for comment.

The brief hearing marked

SEE SHIPLEY ON B4

Former rowing c oach delays decision on plea deal

LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY

Kirk Shipley is accused of sexually abusing two former rowers at

Walt Whitman High School, where he coached and taught.