In Brief
Monday, May 23, 2005
THE REGION
Fees on Dulles Toll Road Rise
Commuters will be paying a higher fee today to use the Dulles Toll Road.
Tolls at the highway's main plaza increased yesterday from 50 cents to 75 cents. The toll at the Route 28 ramp is up from 35 cents to 50 cents. And tolls at all other ramps have risen from 25 cents to 50 cents.
It's the first such increase since the Northern Virginia highway opened in 1984. The additional revenue will help pay for Virginia's share of building a Metrorail link between West Falls Church, Tysons Corner, Reston-Herndon, Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County.
An anti-rail group, Notollincrease.com, said it plans to boycott the toll road today and once a week thereafter to protest the toll increase. The group said Metro won't alleviate the congestion in the corridor.
THE DISTRICTMan Charged in NW Road Rage Incident
D.C. police charged a 23-year-old man yesterday in connection with a road rage attack during rush hour Friday.
Hugo L. Campbell, whose last known address was in the 12000 block of Littleton Street in Silver Spring, turned himself in to authorities about 8:30 a.m. yesterday, said Sgt. Joe Gentile, a D.C. police spokesman. Campbell was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, an automobile, Gentile said.
The incident began when a woman was in an accident with the driver of a Honda Accord on 16th Street NW, police said. The woman was driving her 7-year-old son to school. Police said the Honda driver did not stop, so the woman followed the car to a parking lot of an apartment complex at Newton and 16th streets NW.
Police said it appears that the two motorists got out of their cars and began arguing. When the Honda driver got back into his car and tried to drive away, the woman got behind the car or on its trunk to block him. The motorist then backed over the woman, police said.
The woman was not identified because she is considered a witness. Gentile said she was admitted to the hospital in critical condition Friday.
Campbell was to be arraigned today in D.C. Superior Court.
Child Development Hearing TomorrowThe Office of Early Childhood Development will hold a public hearing tomorrow for residents and community leaders who want to comment on the proposed Child Care and Development Fund block grant plan and the city's funding application for the D.C. Early Intervention Program for people with disabilities.
The hearing will be from 4 to 7 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Library, 901 G St. NW. There will be simultaneous interpreter services in sign language and Spanish. Interpreter services for other languages can be provided, but only by prior request.
The block grant program is a major source of funds to help parents pay for child care; the early intervention program provides therapeutic and family support services to infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities. For more information, call 202-727-1839.
MARYLANDOfficer Shoots Man in Robbery Attempt
An off-duty Prince George's County police officer shot a man attempting to rob a convenience store in New Carrollton yesterday, police said.
They gave this account of the incident: The officer, who has been on the Prince George's police force for six years, was inside the store in the 8400 block of Annapolis Road about 4 a.m. to buy something to eat when a man wearing a mask walked in and said he was robbing the store. During a confrontation with the man, the officer shot the man, who was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The officer, whom police did not identify, has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending an investigation.
Officer-involved shootings have attracted much attention in Prince George's in recent years and were the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation in 2000 after police shot 12 people, five fatally, over about a year.
Howard County Student-Actors HonoredTwo Howard County students won awards last night at the annual Baltimore Cappies gala for their performance in a controversial production of the musical "Big River" at Glenelg Country School.
Nick Lehan, who is white, was named featured actor in a musical for his portrayal of the runaway slave, Jim. Classmate Jay Frisby, who is black, won lead actor in a musical honors for his performance as Huckleberry Finn. The show also won the best song award for "Muddy Water."
The production has been embroiled in a battle with the musical's licensing agency, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, over the cross-racial casting. The agency forbade the students from performing "Muddy Water" on a C-SPAN program that aired last week and at the awards gala last night, calling the casting "an inappropriate interpretation of the musical."
Officials of last night's awards show protested the organization's decision last night with a parody entitled "Not Muddy Water," in which the award winners called the ghost of Mark Twin on a cell phone to ask permission to play their roles.
Bill Strauss, co-founder of the Cappies -- Critics and Awards Program for High School Theater -- said he will ask R&H to let the actors perform their song at the Washington area Cappies gala in two weeks.
"No one is going to tell Nick or Jay, or you, what roles you can or cannot play because of your racial or ethnic background," he told the audience last night.
N.Y. Woman Wins Literary AwardClaire Tomkin graduated yesterday from Washington College $53,000 richer and the winner of the nation's largest undergraduate literary prize.
A panel of English professors at the small liberal arts college in Chestertown, Md., awarded the 21-year-old English major from Brooklyn, N.Y., the Sophie Kerr Prize for her short stories.
Previous winners of the annual award have become creative writing professors, editors and published authors. But none has hit it big as a literary superstar.
Tomkin said that she's delighted by the money and the award but that it won't change her plan to work as an elementary or middle school teacher in New York while she pursues her literary career.
QUOTE OF THE DAY"If you think about it, people want to be famous. Whether in a positive or a negative way, they're still famous. It's all about 15 minutes of fame and getting your moment on TV."
-- Sue Langham, a line producer for an MTV reality show that auditioned hundreds of women on Connecticut Avenue yesterday for a girl band. -- B1
Compiled from reports by staff writers Karlyn Barker and Sari Horwitz and the Associated Press.