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Washington has purchased nearly a third of the initial one billion doses of AstraZeneca’s experimental coronavirus vaccine. The U.S. Department of Health has agreed to provide up to US$1.2 billion to fast-track AstraZeneca’s vaccine development while securing 300 million doses for the entire US reports MDLinx. The vaccine is being developed from a laboratory at Oxford University. “This contract with AstraZeneca is a major milestone in Operation Warp Speed’s work toward a safe, effective, widely available vaccine by 2021,” U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar said. AstraZeneca is collaborating with Microsoft, to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) ‘Factory for Health’. One...

Toll lane plans for parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 are set to move forward next week, including plans for improvements to the American Legion Bridge. Maryland’s Board of Public Works — Gov. Larry Hogan, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot — is set to formally designate the planned toll lanes as a public-private partnership on May 8 and to support plans for separate phases of construction. Once the public-private partnership designation is approved, the state expects to quickly issue a request for qualifications from private companies so that a short list of the private firms or...

Gaithersburg MD— A black woman declared her disdain for "white people" before pummeling two white passengers onboard a moving Ride On bus, Gaithersburg Police say. Kimberly Jordan, 24, of Silver Spring, is charged with racial harassment, obstructing and second-degree assault due to her alleged offensive and physically painful antics. It was 9 p.m. on a Monday. The Ride On bus was operating a route near the intersection of Frederick Avenue and Travis Avenue, just north of the Lakeforest Mall. Jordan allegedly began to stare at two white passengers and then murmured, "I hate white people." A short while later, Jordan,...

Washington Post employee Itai Ozderman, 35, was arrested after his Gaithersburg, MD home was raided by Montgomery County Police on February 22nd at around 6 a.m, according to court documents. Ozderman is charged with impersonating an ICE officer on several occasions throughout Falls Church, VA. When the warrant was served on Feb. 22 at Ozderman's home in the 100 block of Elmira Lane, court documents say 10 weapons, including handguns, assault rifles, and a shotgun, were recovered. Sources tell ABC7's Kevin Lewis that Ozderman impersonated an ICE officer throughout Falls Church, Va. on more than one occasion. According to sources,...

U.S. Rep. John K. Delaney said Thursday that toll lanes might be needed to ease traffic and congestion on Interstate 270, a corridor vital to the future of Montgomery and Frederick counties. Leaders in the region must make sure the highway operates as efficiently as possible, Delaney (D-Dist. 6) of Potomac told legislators and business leaders from the two counties Thursday in Frederick at a meeting on the I-270 corridor. Del. Michael Hough (D) of Brunswick, an incoming state senator from District 4, said Virginia has done a good job of combining ideas such as high-occupancy toll lanes and private...

Welmoed Sisson’s drive between her northern Montgomery County home and her business clients across the Maryland suburbs often includes a trip on the Intercounty Connector, a toll highway with so little traffic that Sisson can’t recall ever tapping her brakes. Almost 19 miles of pavement with no one in her way. Ever. Not even at rush hour. “It’s not an empty wasteland,” said Sisson, 54, who owns a home inspection business with her husband. “But it’s certainly nowhere near the volume of the free roads in the area. . . . It’s nice, but then again, you’re paying for that...

LAUREL, Md. - Since the Intercounty Connector opened, nearly 7,000 speeding tickets have been issued, according to documents obtained by WTOP. While most tickets are clearly violations, some raise questions for drivers. Police issued nearly 200 tickets to drivers going less than 65 mph in a 55 mph zone. On Oct. 6, 2011, a driver was ticketed for going 59 mph. "That's crazy. I've never heard of that before and I don't understand it," says Sergio Gutierrez of Laurel. He says it's confusing, especially with the recent story of Maryland State Police ticketing a woman for driving 62 mph in...

Men use fire extinguisher in Gaithersburg restaurant robbery Police investigating Thursday evening incident by Elizabeth Waibel Staff Writer Montgomery County police are investigating an armed robbery at a Gaithersburg restaurant Thursday evening. Shortly after 8 p.m., police responded to a call about a robbery at El Meson restaurant at 615 S. Frederick Ave. in Gaithersburg. Witnesses said two men opened the front door of the restaurant and discharged a fire extinguisher inside the restaurant, according to a news release from the Montgomery County Police Department.

WASHINGTON - Interstate 270 is considered one of the most choked roads in the Washington region, but solutions for the gridlock are few and far between. Figures from the Maryland Department of Transportation show about 114,000 cars use I-270 daily, and that number is expected to jump to 200,000 in the next 10 to 15 years. "Everyone who is familiar with 270 knows it is jammed up in the morning rush hour and evening rush hour," says Gus Bauman, who studies transportation and funding and who chaired a Maryland Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding. One proposal to ease congestion...

Traveled by Native Americans, presidents, generals, gypsies and families seeking a new life in the west, “The Great Road,” known today as Frederick Road or Route 355, provided a path for both the adventurer and the entrepreneur. As the main route northwest from Georgetown, the last port on the Potomac River, it was heavily traveled from the mid 18th century until it was replaced by Interstate 270 in the 1960s. It began as an Indian trail leading from the Piscataway settlement at the mouth of Rock Creek to the great “Conestoga,” a trail that included footpaths and waterways (what we...

WASHINGTON - A 3.6 magnitude earthquake woke the Washington metro region Friday, rattling homes and startling people. The U.S. Geological Survey says it happened at exactly 5:04:49 a.m. about 3 miles under the earth's surface. ..... "It was centered in the Germantown-Gaithersburg area," Randy Baldwin, a physicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center

When officials in Gaithersburg decided to install security cameras in an effort to stem a burgeoning crime rate, that illustrated the sad, swift decline of the once charming town center to an area of urban decay, some locals said. Dormant streets, a mishmash of empty shops and growing pockets of gang activity now afflict the former agricultural enclave in central Montgomery County. Even with recent pushes to revitalize the city, particularly Olde Towne, many say it has fallen too far behind to compete with increasingly popular walkable communities and already established suburbs in the area. "Everything is old," lamented Ali...

Commencement Justice by: Deborah Lambert, June 18, 2009 Just when you’d given up on the quality of this year’s commencement speakers, right triumphs in unexpected places. Take Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg Maryland, where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was this year’s commencement speaker. It all started when Justice Thomas, a football diehard who’s married to a Nebraskan, ran into one of Quince Orchard’s top jocks, Terrence Stephens, on a return flight from a U. of Nebraska recruiting session. He began a conversation that amazed Stephens and his fellow student Jason Ankrah, because “this guy knew so much...

In the community of Shady Grove Woods, trees are becoming more and more scarce. Residents and other anti-Intercounty Connector activists marched through the neighborhood on Saturday, pointing out the trees that were cut down to make way for the six-lane highway. ‘‘It’s just that we didn’t have a say in it in so many ways and we’re not talking about a two-lane road, we’re talking about a major highway running through here,” resident Sam Chim said of the ICC. ‘‘We have a lot of nice, private woods back here and now we’re going to have a highway running through instead....

A parcel in the County Service Park, a county-owned cluster of industrial facilities just south of Shady Grove Road, will be the site of a new employment center for day laborers, county officials announced Thursday. The center will be located on a half-acre parcel behind a Department of Liquor Control warehouse at 16640 Crabbs Branch Way. According to a statement from County Executive Isiah Leggett (D), the location is more than half a mile from the closest residential area. It is also about 700 yards from the nearest bus stop. The Shady Grove Metro station is a little more than...

Gaithersburg city officials have announced that a property owner is willing to lease space to open a day-laborer center by winter, after rejections this year by more than 30 landlords. But several residents said yesterday that they will sue the city and force a recall of the mayor and the City Council if members approve the plan to help find work for laborers including illegal aliens.

Dozens of day laborers who have gathered for years in a Gaithersburg parking lot must find a new place to seek work beginning today because the lot's owners have asked police to shut down the site. The lot, owned by S&B Partnership, is at 117 North Frederick Ave. between a shopping complex and Grace United Methodist Church. Laborers had been allowed to loiter there daily until 9:30 a.m.

Woman Escorted From Maryland High School. A Maryland substitute teacher was arrested after an alleged anti-Islamic tirade in front of high school students. Carol Joan McVey, 49, was charged with resisting arrest, trespassing, disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. Police said McVey became upset when she heard some students at Gaithersburg High School, who were being assisted by another teacher, practicing a speech and using some Arabic words. The Washington Post said she reacted after overhearing the group utter an Islamic greeting of peace. Charging documents allege McVey shouted, "Islam doesn't mean peace, it means killing everyone for peace" and...

Gaithersburg officials said yesterday that a proposal for a day-laborer center for illegal aliens has been further delayed because landlords, merchants and other residents say it would bring crime and other problems into their neighborhood.

Gaithersburg officials are looking to form a task force to decide how to deal with scrapped plans for opening a day-laborer center in the city. Mayor Sidney Katz and City Council members will hold a work session next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. to discuss the task force's duties, composition and application process. The session will be broadcast on Gaithersburg's public access Channel 13, or Channel 95 in the rest of Montgomery County. Those chosen for the task force will help determine how to deal with day laborers who loiter outside Grace United Methodist Church.