6 child-welfare workers to be fired in deaths
WASHINGTON — At least six child-welfare employees will be fired for improperly handling concerns about a woman’s care for her four daughters, who were later found dead in their home, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said Monday.
The decomposing bodies of the girls — ages 5 to 16 — were found Wednesday when deputy U.S. marshals served an eviction notice at the apartment. Their mother has been charged with murder.
A social worker at the school where the oldest girl was a student, Kathy Lopes, tried twice in April to raise concerns about the family. The social worker described visiting the house, but not being let in by the mother, Banita Jacks. Lopes reported seeing two or three younger children who also were not in school.
“It appears the mother is suffering from some mental illness and is holding all the children hostage,” Lopes said.
Jacks told investigators the children were possessed by demons and died in their sleep.
The six employees being fired work for the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency.
Patients waiting longer for ER care, study finds
WASHINGTON — Patients are waiting longer for care in the nation’s emergency rooms, a potentially deadly result of the shrinking number of emergency departments and rising demand for emergency services, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School.
Half of all emergency-room patients waited 30 minutes or more before being examined by a doctor in 2004, a 36 percent increase from a median wait time of 22 minutes in 1997, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs.
2 jets bump at airport; no one hurt
SAN FRANCISCO — Two passenger jets backed into each other while being pushed by “tugs” at San Francisco International Airport, but no one was injured, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday.
The collision between a United Airlines 757 and a SkyWest commuter jet happened Sunday evening. One air-traffic controller was directing both airplanes. The SkyWest plane was carrying 60 passengers bound for Boise, Idaho, and the United plane had none.
![Newspaper advertisement offering reward for the return of an escaped man to his oppressors, Princess Anne, Maryland, April 1, 1861. Text reads: “0 Reward. Ranaway from the subscriber on Tuesday Morning, 26th Ultimo [last month], My negro boy calling himself Severn Black. The said negro is about 5 feet six inches in height, chesnut color, has a scar on his upperlip, downcast countenance when spoken to, blink-eyed, showing a great deal of white, long bushy hair, is about twenty years old, had on when he lefta [sic] blue fustian Jacket, pantaloons of a greyish color, blue striped shirt, a Black slouch hat and shoes nearly worn out. The above reward will be paid by me for the apprehension and delivery of the said negro in the county jail at Princess Anne, Somerset County, Maryland. April 1, 1861. Richard E. Snelling. Somerset Herald Print, Princess Anne, Md.’ The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 obliged citizens and lawmen of free zones to return escaped men to those whom they fled. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)](/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/GettyImages-53262583-16x9-1.jpg?w=620 "GettyImages-53262583-16x9-1")
