The District
Hotel is evacuated after kitchen fire
The Westin Hotel on Thomas Circle NW was temporarily evacuated Saturday evening after a fire broke out in the kitchen and smoke billowed from the top of the building.
The fire appeared to be confined to the kitchen, where it was brought under control in about 20 minutes, said Vito Maggiolo, spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. He said smoke went up through an external duct system. No injuries were reported.
With the fire out, guests began returning to the hotel, the fire department reported.
The attention attracted by the smoke was heightened by the timing of the fire. It came only hours after a huge blaze destroyed an apartment house on Peabody Street NW.
The building once operated as the Vista International Hotel. In a room at the Vista, then-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was arrested on drug charges in 1990 in an FBI sting.
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— Clarence Williams
and Martin Weil
Maryland
Pilot dies in crash of ultralight aircraft
A 71-year-old man was fatally injured on the Eastern Shore Sunday in the crash of the ultralight aircraft he was flying, the state police said.
They said Michael Malick of Federalsburg died at a hospital after the crash at a privately owned residential landing strip in Federalsburg.
Investigators said the aircraft hit a power line, police said. The police identified the aircraft as a Dream Machine 582. Online information describes it as a powered parachute with a motor and wheels.
Police said they think Malick owned the grass airfield where the crash occurred.
— Martin Weil
The Region
Endangered turtles hatch at National Zoo
Two turtles from a critically endangered species hatched this month at the National Zoo in what the zoo called a conservation success years in the making.
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The Bourret’s box turtles emerged from their shells on June 12, the zoo said.
They were said to be healthy and thriving, weighing about 25 grams each. That might sound weighty, but it is less than an ounce. Their mother weighs about 50 times as much, zoo officials said.
According to the zoo, scientists estimate that the turtles’ numbers in the wild have declined about 90 percent since the 1950s to about 2,300. Their native habitat is evergreen forests in Laos and Vietnam.
— Martin Weil
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