MARYLAND BRIEFING

SILVER SPRING

Man Charged With Threatening, Raping Woman

A man charged with raping a Silver Spring woman after threatening her with a machete was being held without bond yesterday.

Montgomery County police said Melvin A. Hernandez assaulted the 35-year-old victim near the 8700 block of Gilbert Place on Tuesday morning as she was walking home from work.

Hernandez, 26, of Silver Spring, "admitted assaulting the victim with a machete and forcing her to a wooded area where he forced her to have sex," Detective James Drewry wrote in a charging document.

-- Ernesto Londoño

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

Foundation Bars Sudan-Related Investment

The University System of Maryland Foundation has directed fund managers not to invest in companies they have identified as complicit in genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The foundation, a nonprofit corporation for donations to the system's 13 institutions, manages more than $700 million, none of it invested in the listed companies.

At universities across the country, students and other activists have pushed divestment of holdings in companies doing business in Sudan, where a conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people.