Form oakland, california, superintendent antoine wilson. He started work here two weeks ago. Hes on a mission to visit all 100plus schools within a year and to get up to speed on the billiondollar School System and its 48,000 students. The learning curve for me is around just getting to know the city, getting to know what is important to the city. I am a quick lerner, though. Reporter wilson already reaching out to the Washington Teachers Union knowing conflicts are natural. The wtu says it was given little input on his appointment. Those communications have been cordial. They have been i think productive. And i think we are relying on the importance of teaching, were relying on the importance of supporting teachers. Reporter wilson follows Reform Efforts of Michelle Reid and kaya henderson. One spoke does showing middle schools are improving across the city, better than their reputations. A tall, imposing person, hes anxious for his wife and young ch oakland. In our interviewea highly publi job who gets up at 3 00 a. M. I pray and meditate. I also have to get my workout in. I am an introvert. So it doesnt mean what i dont love interacting with people, i do. Reporter wilson also said he identifies with broken families that can undermine a students education. His mother raised him. My father wasnt there. So my mother did a tremendous job in being a mother and a father. Reporter wilson was approved unanimously by the d. C. Council. He has a twoyear contract. In the district, tom sherwood, news 4. Its happened at homes, churches, schools. The past few months, theres been a spike in hateinspired crimes in Montgomery County. Chris gordon went to a county Council Meeting this week where lawmakers took a closer look at this troubling trend. Reporter a sign at a supporters nation, whites in burtonsville spray painted with the words trump, racist, and a swastika. Montgomery county Council Figures showing last year there were 94 reported bias incidents, an increase of more than 42 over 2015. Right after the election there was a i think a real sense among some folks that there were winners and losers and that was expressed in terms of people acting out. Reporter so far in 2017, there have been fewer hate symbols. But fear is growing. The fear of deportation. Theres a lot of anxiety right now among students who are wondering, do i go to school . If i come home, are my parents going to be there . Theres a lot of that happening. Its important for everyone to be reminded that schools are safe places. They are places where we do not students. Reporter councilmembers say they need to develop a plan to deal with deportations if they happen here. One councilmember says a Legal Defense fund is needed. We can raise a lot of private money because there are a lot of people of conscience who do not want for families to be separated and communities to be divided and people to live in fear. Reporter others say Montgomery County may have to consider providing foster care for children whose parents are taken away from them. Chris gordon, news 4. The National Zoos older panda cub baobao is preparing for a nonstop flight to china. Shes leaving on the 21st. Kristen white took a trip to the zoo and spoke to visitors who are sad to see her go. Reporter sammy cronin brought his panda to say goodbye. His brother will isnt happy about her leaving reporter theres a bit of heartbreak at the national zoo. She has been a beautiful addition here. She has made us laugh, she has made us cry. She will make us cry more. Reporter baobao has grown up before our eyes. From that stick of butter to her 1st birthday, and the 2nd, and the 3rd. Soon baobao will be 4. That means its time to go. We know shes going to go to china and hopefully have little baobaoss or whatever you want to call them, little babies. And fulfill her destiny in becoming a mom and adding to the population of the pandas. Reporter its hard. Theyre like family. Shes a spitfire. And funny. Just like her dad. Reporter from her enclosure to a 16hour direct flight. Ill travel with her on the 16hour flight from dulles to chongdu then drive up to the base where shes going to stay for a 30day quarantine. For a couple of days ill stay with her to hand her off to my panda hatstbaobao. Im going to miss her. Rep athe national zoo, kristin wright, news 4. I think she speaks for a lot of us. When we come back, one of the oldest churches in the country gives thanks in repentance to the people who helped build it over 200 years ago. New concerns about mobile loungers at dulles airport. The iteam looks into their troubling Safety Record and what the airport is doing about it. Z29kuz zstz y29kuy ysty since it opened in december its primarily hosted music and comedy shows. Now booked its first boxing matches. The first bout is going to be on march 11th, a doubleheader featuring Capital Heights native gary russell jr. In a featherweight title bout. Fights will be held inside the casino theater. One of thees northern virginia. Falls Church Episcopal church honored the slaves who built it back in 1769. Now everybody who walked on the hallowed grounds will see this plaque, it acknowledges the hands of slaves who helped build that church. Leaders felt the word apology was not strong enough, instead they chose to engrave the plaque with the word repentance, acknowledging the past, moving toward reconciliation and healing. Be with us now as we pause with gratitude and repentance to honored the enslaved people whose skill and labor built the falls church. The word repentance and the connotations really made a difference. The congregation hopes that spirit of repentance and reconciliation will spread beyond its church and that community. They used to be state of the art, now there are concerns about those mobilebout it. Their story inspired an oscarnominated film. Well introduce you to the only surviving member of the socalled Hidden Figures who helped send a man in our suvs, you feel every mountain weve ever conquered. In our sports cars, you feel every podium weve ever climbed. Eyve come together to create something introducing the glc coupe. Part suv. Part sports car. All mercedesbenz. Tradingin or selling your car, truck or suv . Webuyanycar. Com takes the hassle out of selling in just 3 easy steps. One, get your free online valuation. Two, drive to your local car buying center. And three, walk out with your check in as little as 30 minutes so dont wait. Get your free online valuation now at webuyanycar. Com. Find out how much your car is worth at webuyanycar. Com if youve ever flown in or out of Dulles International youve likely seen them, those mobile lounge shuttles. Theyve been deployed more than 50 years ago to get passengers from ticketing to the plane. But an investigation by the news 4 iteam reveals a number of recent mishaps involving those shuttles and some are questioning whether they need to be safer. Reporter as you hustle for your plane, workers like jared dodson rush your bags there. I think about him probably every minute of every day. Reporter dodson was a baggage handler for Southwest Airlines at Dulles International. If you asked him about his job hed say he loved his reporter his mother said jared had one complaint. It was told to me by a colleague that jared had told her he was afraid of the mobile loungers. Reporter january 2012, jared was pulling his luggage cart just after 6 00 a. M. I think its fair to say he never knew what hit him. Reporter according to an Airport Authority Police Report and video obtained by the iteam, a mobile lounge shuttle struck the second of the four carts. The lounge pushed the card l carts more than 100 feet and jared was ejected. He was rushed to the hospital where he later died. How could this happen . How could somebody not see that . Reporter an airport investigation found the lounge driver was not at fault and he remains an employee. Two days after the accident, police questioned the driver who said, sometimes the smaller vehicles dont see us. In his written statement to police he said, darkness contributed to the accident. An investigation by dodsons employer, southwest, cited the risk of operating mobile loungers in the dark and back. I think those vehicles are unsafe. I think theres antiquated. Reporter the dodson family sued the metropolitan washington Airport Authority for wrongful death. Court records show the case settled for 2 million. The mobile loungers are decades old. Many of them built and first deployed when the airport opened in the early 1960s. Theyre still used and still needed, the airport says, to shuttle passengers to and from International Flights and some areas not served by the airports aerotrack. Longtime director chris brown said safety improvements were made after dodsons desk, including Exterior Lighting on the vehicles. Mobile lounge operators are frankly held to a higher standard than other operators on the air field. Reporter our iteam investigation found mishaps occur at a rate of about two a year. At least 16 crashes or incidents since 2007. Lounges crashing into walls, vehicles, and other lounges. Including two m in april, one loung sideswiped another. In october, a mobile lounge driver backed a vehicle into a construction site. I made it all the way home before i got injured. Reporter Barbara Callahan was a passenger. I flew forward. Like this. And hit a pole that was in front of me. And bruised my forehead. Reporter the 74yearold had just traveled to honduras. I would classify it as a loss of situational awareness. Reporter the airport director says the drive carry new of but lost track of the construction area before backing into it. Should the mobile lounges be any safer . We always are looking to make things safer. I think that they are extremely safe, among the safest vehicles we have operating on the air field today. Reporter the iteam checked out mobile lounges and one of the operators let us see his perspective at night inside the cab. The view is limited on either them. Are the blind spotted eliminated . I dont know that everythings eliminated, but to the extent we can identify blind spots we address them. Reporter the iteam confirmed something the dodsons alleged, the speedometer is not always well illuminated in the cab at night, it can be difficult to see. The airport says theres a 20mileperhour speed limit and that speeding for the lounges is not a problem and the overall number of accidents is low. How many more years will these mobile lounges remain . The foreseeable future. They serve an essential service. Reporter for passengers, who lost his son and flies frequently out of dulles, the shuttles are a painful reminder of why things sometimes go wrong. Why am i still sitting on these things . Why are they still being used . Reporter the airport says its mobile lounge operators undergo stringent training and the vehicles have been updated to increase safety and increase visibility. Scott mcfarland, news maybe youve seen Hidden Figures, the oscarnominated movie that details how three africanamerican women literally helped nasa put a man on the moon. One of those women are still alive. Katherine johnson was like a human computer, in many ways more reliable. News 4s Barbara Harrison spoke wilt the 98yearold about her amazing journey. This one in the middle. Its supposed to be Katherine Johnson. If you say so. Well, thats what they say. And weve all gone to the movies to see your story. Does that surprise you . It does . Yes. Very much. You dont know that youre an International Sensation . For what reason . Because of what you did. Did i rob a bank . Reporter katherine certainly not the introvert some might imagine a mathematics genius to be. We know that you did some incredible things when you worked at nasa. John glenn could not take a trip without you saying it was okay. Yeah, he was like me, he didnt trust theyd put everything in the computers. Reporter john glenn trusted her telemetry calculations over those from computers, relatively new at the time. He knew her equations, done by hand, had worked for some very highstakes missions. How did she feel about so much weight riding on her arithmetic . No problem. Reporter no problem because math has never stumped Katherine Johnson. Shes a legend now at nasa where a lot has changed since her 33 years there. And she was a major catalyst for that change. Her brilliant mind for math led to Great Strides in the race to get to space and bac it when a lot of people didnt know how to do it. Shame. Shame on them. Reporter she says she was just doing her job. But her part in putting america out front, in the pioneering days of the space race, and for her part in bringing her race from the back of the bus when they rode to work here, both have earned a place in history books and in the movies. She is one of the three women whose story was told in the popular new film Hidden Figures. The other two, Dorothy Vaughn and mary jackson. The three were among the first female africanamericans to work for nasa, where job assignments in the segregated Computers Division at langry Research Center were far beneath the heights they would eventually climb. Through excellence and what they did and their perseverance in achieving equality. The movie glimpse us only a glimpse of Katherine Johnsons life raising three daughters as a single mother. A new husband who she still shares her life with today. At 98 now, Katherine Johnson is a lone survivor of those three who have come to be known as Hidden Figures. Her brain can still pump out those numbers. Whats 7 times 12 . 84. That brain is still working. Im glad something is still working. I bet a lot is still working for you. Youre amazing. What year were you born . 1918. 1918. That makes you how old . Close to 100, im working on that. Katherine johnson says she wishes she could still work. Barbara says she asked her a lot more math questions than just that one we saw, and boy, she was rattling them off with no problem at all. Amazing. When whit resuse and how you can take part. This week we learn when tours will resume at the white house. First Lady Melania Trump says they will start accepting visitors next month. In a statement the first lady says shes committed to restoration and preservation of the white house. Selfguided tours are free to the public, but you need to submit a request to a member of congress at least 21 days in advance your visit. Thats all for news 4 this week. Im chris lawrence. Were going to leave you with pictures of rumor, the german shepherd. He won the Westminster Dog Show and celebrated with a nice juicy steak. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week. The president of the United States expects our allies to keep their word. To fulfill this commitment and for most that means the time has come to do more. A first foreign test for the vice president. Right now on news4 today, the action mike pence wants World Leaders to take and the new promise about russia. Downpour disaster. The devastation in Southern California as torrential rains unleash. We are hours away from the next big challenge from spacex. Were going to tell you about the Daring Mission they hope will bring us one step closer to sending
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