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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9 , 2014
Big GOP donors choose to wait
Plane crash in Md. leaves 6 dead Officials say mother tried desperately to save two children from fire AND
BY D AN M ORSE A SHLEY H ALSEY
WARY OF A BRUISING PRIMARY FIGHT
III
Money push may keep the 2016 field unsettled
At a few minutes before 11 a.m., the day was well underway for a young mother, her infant son and his toddler brother when a twinengine jet, on its final approach to a regional airport in Gaithersburg, crashed into their home. The plane caromed into two homes before its wing tumbled into 19733 Drop Forge Lane, erupting into a fireball. The pilot, two passengers, the mother and her children were killed. As people rushed from their houses, Marie Gemmell, 36, had been in a desperate fight to save 3-year-old Cole and 6-week-old Devon. She rushed them into a windowless bathroom on the second floor. “It appears the mother was trying to protect her children. It appears she was covering them to try to protect them,” said Montgomery fire spokesman Pete Piringer. “She tried to save these kids,” Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said of the mother of three, who friends said was on maternity leave from her job at a bank. “She had nowhere to go,” he added. “She couldn’t get out of the bathroom. One kid was between her legs, and the other was in her arms.”
BY M ATEA G OLD AND T OM H AMBURGER
CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Zarine Khan, right, and Shafi Khan are the parents of Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, shown below in an undated passport photo. Khan and two teenage siblings, all U.S.-born, were arrested trying to fly to Turkey en route to Syria.
‘we were stunned. More like frozen. we were just frozen.’ BY
IN CHICAGO
Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, rose before dawn on Oct. 4 to pray with his father and 16-year-old brother at their neighborhood mosque in a Chicago suburb. When they returned home just before 6 a.m., the father went back to bed and the Khan teens secretly launched a plan they had been hatching for months: to abandon their family and country and travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. While his parents slept, Khan gathered three newly issued U.S. passports and $2,600 worth of airline tickets to Turkey that he had gotten for himself, his brother and their 17-year-old sister. The three teens slipped out of the house, called a taxi and rode to O’Hare International Airport.
CRASH CONTINUED ON A10
Protesters’ challenge: Turn anger into results BY
S ANDHYA S OMASHEKHAR
Across the country, people outraged over the police killings of unarmed black men have flowed into the streets using many of the same tactics and chanting many of the same slogans, holding up their hands in a gesture of surrender and staging “die-ins.” From Oakland to New York, they have even donned the same T-shirts. But for all the similarities, the burgeoning social movement that began four months ago in Ferguson, Mo., remains a fractured and disparate effort, with no large national organization coordinating or guiding its trajectory. And while experts warn that a diffuse movement may ultimately fail, many of the protesters say they like it this way. And so it was a homegrown effort that led a clutch of protesters in the District to block major thoroughfares around the White House and Dupont Circle during rush hour Monday. It was local clergy members in Philadelphia who drew about 200 protesters to a “die-in” outside Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, where they lay prone as people streamed out of the Eagles football game. And local activists in California led the marches that ended in violence in PROTESTS CONTINUED ON A6
K EVIN S ULLIVAN
Chicago case shows how Islamic State militants use social media to recruit youths in U.S.
Khan was due at work at 6:30 a.m. at a local home-supply store, so he knew his parents wouldn’t miss him when they woke up. The two younger siblings bunched up comforters under their sheets to make it look like they were asleep in their beds. Their plan was to fly to Istanbul, then drive into Syria to live in the Islamic homeland, or caliphate, established by the Islamic State, the militant group that has massacred civilians in Iraq and Syria and beheaded Western journalists and aid workers. The Khan teens, U.S.-born children of Indian immigrants, each left letters for their parents explaining their motives. “An Islamic State has been established and it is thus obligatory upon every able-bodied male and female to migrate there,” Khan wrote. “Muslims have been crushed under
Efforts by potential Republican presidential candidates to win over wealthy donors have set off a series of contests for their support that could stall the GOP race for months. In Florida, allies of former governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio are tussling over many of the same donors. In Texas, bundlers are feeling pulled by Bush, Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Ted Cruz. Perry and Cruz are also competing for the backing of wealthy evangelical Christians, as areIndianaGov.MikePence,Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Despite the appeals, which have stepped up in recent weeks, many top donors have committed to being noncommittal, wary of fueling the kind of costly and politically damaging battle that dominated the 2012 primaries. Senior party fundraisers believe that most campaigns will not be able to fully set up their fundraising operations until at least the spring. A telling sign of the mood can be seen in the attitude of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, one of the GOP’s biggest donors, who has expressed reluctance about engaging in the early primary fight. Instead, he and MONEY CONTINUED ON A7
$1 billion GOP strategists are predicting that the 2016 nominee for president will need at least $75 million to get through the first three primaries and $1 billion by Election Day.
ISLAMIC STATE CONTINUED ON A16
Pelosi tries to reboot The House Democratic leader plots a path for her divided caucus. A4
Their task: Keeping a blizzard of packages away from storms Shipping firms rely on in-house meteorologists BY
MIKE BROWN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
At the FedEx global operations center in Memphis, corporate meteorologists examine the “war board,” which shows the shipping company’s flights and the weather systems that could disrupt them.
IN THE NEWS
RICK BOWMER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cell research Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen donated $100 million to launch an institute to study life’s building blocks. A3 Best places to work? A survey found federal employees’ job satisfaction at the lowest point since such appraisals began 11 years ago. A2
THE WORLD
THE NATION
New Delhi officials banned the car service Uber after one of its drivers was arrested on suspicion of raping a passenger. A8 U.S. allies are expected to send up to 1,500 soldiers to Iraq to complement a growing American force helping Iraqis fight the Islamic State. A8 A failed U.S. mission to free an American held hostage in Yemen suggested that the Pentagon was missing critical details about a second captive, a South African. A9
New rules intended to curb racial profiling by federal law enforcement won’t cover local police departments. A4 U.S. troops were put on alert as officials prepared for violent reactions abroad when a report on CIA interrogations is released. A2 New guidelines were released to help improve education for youths in juvenile detention centers. A6 The Supreme Court declined to hear BP’s challenge to its gulf oilspill settlement and heard arguments over
Amtrak’s authority to regulate itself and, thereby, the private freight rail industry. A3 THE ECONOMY
Amazon threatened to move drone research overseas if it doesn’t soon get U.S. approval to test its fleet. A12 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will cut down payments for some firsttime home buyers. A12 McDonald’s U.S. sales continued to decline as the chain struggles to compete with higherend chains and please pickier eaters. A14 Millennials are doing less job hopping, but the cost of staying put is high. A16
D REW H ARWELL
Deep within a global operations nerve center in Memphis, a team of specially trained operatives scans data from nearly 200 countries, issues urgent “SNOCON” alerts and tracks a fleet of cargo jets via a glowing, wall-size “war board.” Their mission? To make sure no “Frozen” doll is left behind. They are corporate meteorologists, commanded to help keep hectic holiday shipments on time, snow or shine. And America’s shipping giants increasingly see them as a secret weapon, both in the fight against a brutal winter and in what could be the busiest online shopping season in history. UPS and FedEx expect to handle a record-breaking 900 million
THE REGION
Muslim leaders pressed the Montgomery school system on its decision to strike religious holidays’ names from the calendar. B1 Federal officials said more study is needed before they can decide on closing part of I-395 in the District. B1 A 65-year-old Maryland woman was charged with lying to a grand jury in a case probing the 1975 disappearance of two girls. B1 STYLE
Sam Kass, a White House chef who became a fixture in the Obamas’ daily life, is leaving his job. C1
packages this month after the starter pistol of Black Friday — about three for every man, woman and child in America — and there is no room for error, not with billions of dollars of business in the air. The job has become more demanding as online storefronts promise near-instant gratification through perks such as free shipping or same-day delivery, and as package-tracking shoppers have grown more acutely aware of — and annoyed by — how long their Blu-ray has been sitting in Buffalo. “Someone awaiting a package in Bangkok doesn’t care if it WEATHER CONTINUED ON A10
More gifts arriving on time FedEx and UPS improved delivery performance, an analysis finds. A12
INSIDE HEALTH & SCIENCE 1
26.2 miles at 69 Our report on aging well includes the story of an “ancient marathoner.” E1 METRO
‘A rock’ Sixteen-year-old Sareana Kimia is accomplished — and homeless. B1 BUSINESS NEWS........................A12 CLASSIFIEDS...............................D8 COMICS ....................................... C6 LOTTERIES...................................B3 OBITUARIES.................................B6 OPINION PAGES.........................A18 TELEVISION ................................. C3
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