right now on "news4 this week," heart-breaking tragedy. five children killed in a h.terrible car cr family members still trying to comprehend their loss. c l in the feds. the new plan to curb the district's outbreak of violent crimes. and the history of black face. in the wake of the virginia oovernor's crisis, we take a closer look inthy it is such a painful symbol of racism. >> announcer: welcome to "news4 this hello, everyone, i'm leon harris. we're going to begin with a family in mourning this week after a horrific crash in bowie. five children, all of them related, killed in the suv they were riding in when it swerved f the road. darcy spencer spoke with family members who are dealing with ann eakable loss. >> reporter: these are the faces of the five children who died t

wh suv they were riding in ran off the road, crashed through the wood line and spun out in a snowy field. police say they were all thrown from the suv. >> it' just heart breaking. i just don't even t know wh say. it's overwhelming. >> reporter: the snow has melted revealing a art-breaking debris field. car parts scattered as far as you can see. even a car seat. family members of the victims me here to see firsthand whereiv their young les came to such a tragicd. james lost his granddaughter. he says it's a reminder for families to stay close. >> that's the message i get out of all ofthis. that's the only sense i can make out of it. here tod and gone tomorrow. >> reporter: police say dominique taylor was behindhe wheel when the suv crashed. she survived. taylor is the mother of the little girls who died. paris was london was 8. their dad set up a go fund me campaign to help with costs.al

grief counselors were at the elementary in bowie where theyh attended . >> they were talking to the students. teachers had lots of hugs and support if necessary. >> reporr: relatives say 6-year-old raquel, 14-year-old zion and a 15-year-old were siblings an curveousins with pa and london. >> she was a happy baby. she was 6 years r:d. >> repor stephanie lloyd showed a video of her granddaughter raquel and scribed her as sweet and full of life. >> she was the happiest baby you ever wanting to meet. i'm not saying any more than that. >> reporter: now they're making plans for five funerals and a fu tre withoutse smiling faces. darcy spencer, news4. it is the district's latest effort to stop the scourge of gun violence across e city. the fbi and federal prosecutors will take a bigger role in investigating violent shootings and murders.

hundreds of local n cases wil be tried in federal court. but news4's mark segraves reports that move could create some problems for the courts. >> reporter: crime scenes lik this are becoming all too familiar across the district. the u.s. attorney for the district of columbia stood with the mayor and chief announcing the feds will be taking a bigger part in fighting violent crime in d.c. t> particularly the rec increase in homicides, which is, quite frankly, completely unacceptable. >> reporter: the new planin cludes prosecuting some gun charges, known as felon in possession cases, in federal court rather than d.c. superior court.et tag cases where convicted felons back out on the streets are caught using a illegal gun. in addition, federal agencies like the fbi would nowelp with investigating guncrimes. while there would be more resources to investigate these cases, shifting them to federal courts puts a heavy burden on the public defender's office. the are only about ten attorneys and three

investigators handling federal e ys mpared to 62 attor and 24 investigators assigned to the local court case the american zsizzl civil liber ion calls it slap in the face to d.c. residents. d.c. council chair phil mendellson thinks it's a bad idea. the top prosecutor declined to say whether she feels safe lking the streets of d.c. >> i think that it's, again, very hard to generalize, but i think what we all need to do and what i would ask the community to join with us in doing is to collaborate with law enforcement and with the mayotis administ to make this city as safe as possible. >> reporter: in the district, mark segraves, news4. all week we've been following the controversy surrounding virginia politicians wearing black face in their past. ,re in washingthe national museum of african-american

history and culture has an exhibit explaining the origins of black face. news4's derrick ward spoke with visitors at that mtheum about hurt that imagery still causes. as reporter: it's hard to believe but there time jen images like this were acceptable, or mayt tolerated by a large portion of american society, mostly white c ams. among the earliest, jim crow, a regular character and creation of an actor named thomas s.rtmouth rice in the 1830 >> you know that comes from the knock jim. cr >> reporter: it wasn't a flattering image but it resonate so sai the director of african studies the american university. >> it was the consistent and during stereotype of african-american people, particularly as it relates to cultural and artistic behavior. >> reporter: ironically the elents involved, the mask, the

movements have origins in african story telling. therriwere even n-americans that sd 82 the >>ements that were used against them. told my class it's not black and white, oh, my god, it was derogatory, it was bad. yes. >> reporter: but they made those who sought toock their culture agents to preserve their culture. >> when africans came to the stage, they brought with them sandantsng, they brought forms that would have been lost. >> reporter: still the negative connotations are so prevalent that without context, they genete controvers one place where you can find images like that these days are places like this, the museum. not where they're praised or put up on pedestals, but where they can be studied. >> that's truly unacceptable today. >> it's not okay on any level. >> reporter: derrick ward, news4. when we come back, big renovations also mean big closures at one of the national mall's most popular museums.

us, we all need it but most of us don't have enough of it. we'll tell you why the key to a behter night's sleep mige

the city of fairfax has a the city announced that it hired aaron scheibel to replace carl who retired last year. he spentec nearly threees working for fairfax county police, most recently as the patrolchief of she will be the first female chief and is scheduled to start later this month. if you're heading to the air and space museum on the national mall, don't expect to see all the exhibits. euseum has closed down nine galleries on the west side of the building as part of a massive renovation project. those exhibits won'te opened to the public until 2022. the sen-year-long renovation is expected to cost $900 million. it also includes upgrades to the museum's entrances and exterior. more galleries are expected to be closed later this year.

we'll keep you wposted. >>n we come back, the secret to a good night's sleep could be right there o your phone. th apps that you should download and the other things that you can do to help you and longer. plus, a local program works to help teens avoid tak g the wrong path in life. just ahead i'll share a success story in this whek's harris' es.

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repair crews throughout the region are taking advantage of the warmer weath we've t. they're going on a pothole palooza. as new 4's megan mcgrath reports, we're seeing more of them, thanks in part to the recent wild temperature swings. >> reporte it's that time of year, and potholes are popping up all around the region. hit one and you could be shelling out big bucks for repairs. >> flattened my tire the other day over southeast. i mean literally ran over the

pothole and the tire blew out. i had to drive on theire to get some help. >> reporter: in the district, they have seen twice the number of pothole repair calls this month than during the same time last year. why? well, you canot blamer nature. >> a lot of it is really because of the weather. we saw hea vumes of rain this year, and tha freeze/thaw cycle reallyoa impacts the r and increases the number of es pothol. >> reporter: crews are out making repairs, but it's a big job. new potholes keep opening up. if y see problem, report it. don't assume that it's already on the radar. >> a lot of them, like they're everywhere. they mess your trucks up. it's verba on the south side, uptown. >> reporter: once they know about a pothole, most of the jurisdictions in our area say that they can typically get it fixed within 72 hours. but again, they need to hear about it. in the district, megan mcgrath, news4.re ou struggling to sleep through the night?

by now you've probably heard that a good night's sleep is crucial for your mood mind and your health, right? but millions of americans are not getting eugh shut-eye. news4's doreen gentzler tells us the solution to your sleep problems could be right in your phone. >> reporter: are you tossing and turning at night? well, you've got a lot company out there. 60 million americans suffer from insaum n insomnia. >> people expect to slide into the sheets like they're sliding into third base and i'm ready to sleep now. >> reporter: dr. katherine sharky say insomnia impacts more women than men. >> the encouraging news for women who are strugglin with insomnia is that there are more treatmen available than ever before. >> reporter: and that includes smartphone psap like sleep better, which tracks everything

from light sleep to deep sleep andow muchime you spend moving aroundsl restlesy trying to go to slee eep time is another popular app. with the tap of a button it analyzes your sleep cycles and creates graphs to help you analyze your behavior and make the right choices. it also features white noise to heou fall asleep faster, and it can double as an alarm clock too. and the pillow app uses advanced science and math to track how your weht, blo pressure, diet and stress level impact your sleep pattern. dr. sharky says the key is to be consistent about your sleep, even onwe ends. >> check and make sure that your sleep time between work days and non-work days are not deviating by too much. if you're asleey on satur and sunday for three hours later than you get up the rest of the week, then those three hours monday morning, your brain is going to say weren't we asleep yesterday? >> reporter: another piece of advice, take notes.

>> you know, they say that you can lose weight if you keep aod diary because you have to write everything down. just keeping a sleepia to see, gee, are you cheating yourself. >> according to the national sleeplt foundation, aneed seven to nine hours of sleep every night. children and teenagers nee even more. we posted a chart that breaks down the recommendations for sleep by age group. you'll find that in our nbc washington app, so go check it out. now, for this week's harris' heroes, we're revisiting a s wry th first shared with you almost a year ago. the credible messengers program has figured out a way to help teensn heading d the wrong path. these teens are paired up with men and women who know that path all too well, and we decided to reintroduce you to one of their success stories. >> i got my high school diploma on april 5th. i got accepted by two colleges. >> reporter: last time we talked was last year. tell me what your life has been like since en >> i've saying little things i

shouldave been saying. >> jamal is the first person in his family to go tco ege. he's come a long way since being locked up ten months ago. >> tell me how you wound up in that program to begin with. >> trouble. robbing, trying to be cool. >> jamal credits his attitude change to a large support system, starting with his mentor in the credible messengers program. >> he said, jamal, look, you've got t stop. i believe in you. he said, but the minute you stop believing inyourself, i'm done. >> i was once jamal. you know what i mean? that's why i said that's what kind of made it work for . i believe in the young man the very first time i met him. and i made it my busess to show him that hey, look, you can believe in yourself. >> and in a nutshell that really is what credible messengers is all about. >> that's what it's all about. >> a credible mesnger is someone once on the wrong side of the law using their experience to put troubled youth back on the right side of the

law. jamal credits the instructor markita jones too. g >> he said i'mng to go to college and i said, okay, you can do it. i helped him with the financial aid processnd he applied to four schools and got accepted to every one of them. >> jamal i studying construction management. >> i can definitely seeing jamal having his own business and managing it pretty darn good. >> hsays the sky is the limit for this young man. >> he's in college. u know what i mean? he's in college. that's a big thing. >> i just have to do better for myself. like i have to feel -- if i want to fo l good, i havedo good. sage fore has a m other kids who aren't making the right choices. >> just don't wait until it's too late. stop waiting unt it's too late and when you're already in trouble. ju something different. >> doing something different certainly saved his life. >> jamal, that young man is going places. if you'd like to learn more about the credible messengers

program, just search harris' heroes in our nbc washington app. they're really dng some goo things out there. all right, now this one is like a plot outf a hollywood movie, but it's oh, so real. just ahead the engineers on the project to sav the planet with a direct hit by an asteroid owh it's like to devise that kind of plan. it hasn't always been easy, has it? ♪ there have been days when you doubted yourself. ♪ and days when you were ready to quit. ♪ but you didn't. ♪ because you had the courage to venture into something powerful. education. if i leave you with just three words of advice:

never...stop...growing. [cheering]

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so you sell for thousands more than the one next door. don't get stuck in the past. sell with a redfin agent. than the one next door. z34hcz z16fz y34hcy y16fy saving the earth and everyone on it from a massive asteroid. that's a scene we've seen play out in movie, ght? but it's a reality for a research team in john hopkins university in laurel. as news4's chris gdon plains, it's nasa's first mission not to explore space, but to defend against it. >> reporter: the movie armageddon kept audiences on the edge of their seats. ale k asteroid threatening to put an end to life on earth. it's up to theero played by

bruce willis to stop it. dr. adams says she's no bruce willis, but she does lead a team at the johns hopkins university applied laboratory in laurel, maryland. their mission is to build spacecraft to test whether they can hit an asteroid in space, throwing it off course enough to miss the earth. >> every now and again when i'm feeling a little fiesty, i say my job was to save the worle most of time i say i work on nasa missions. this time i'm working on a dark missiohat is going to move an asteroid. >> reporter: dart stands for the double asteroid reuirection test. they're building a spacecraft to target the moonevving around this asteroid. it's the size of the washington m monument. >> if it would hit the earth, it would basically create devastation on a regional tale. sot's the catastrophe we're trying to avoid. >> reporter: it's a mission she

says she's been training for sinc she studied astronomy in >>ace camp. 'm confident in the team of people who are working on this, and'm very fortunate that this team is going to help us make thission work. >> reporter: the applied physics lab has been launching spacecraft since1959. ey are now designing and building the one that will be ed in the d.a.r.t. mission with launch scheduled for june of2021. reporting from laurel, chris gordon, news4. that'sll for "news4 this week." i'm leon harris. we're going to leave you with some scenes from the patriots victory parade after winning i'd like to see one of those ngppen here. thanks for joinis. have a great week. for top-quality floors at rock-bottom prices,

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annothat will show you hows a paidto save big money onld - [narrator] all the way through grad school. today's show is hosted by tv's overhaulin', adrienne janic, and features appearances by former ghostbuster ernie hudson, coach mike ditka, plus, former crew chief and commentator larry mcreynolds. all the stars are gathered to let you know about carshield, the new way you can protect yourself against costly auto repair bills. here's ernie hudson, the star of dozens of tv shows and one of the original ghostbusters. in the movies, surprises are fun but no one likes a surprise of a big auto repair bill. now you can worry less when you have carshield. coach ditka here. it's time to huddle up and get a game plan with carshield so you're not sacked with a big auto repair bill. all right, i'm going to let you in on a little a secret, cars today are high-tech,