In brief: Virginia birthday party bus crash kills celebrating passenger
WASHINGTON – A shuttle bus transporting a group back from a birthday party collided with a car and overturned before dawn Sunday along a highway south of the nation’s capital, leaving one person dead and sending 16 others to the hospital, the Virginia State Police said.
The bus was headed south on Interstate 95 when witnesses reported seeing a speeding white sedan swerve into the bus’s lane. The Virginia State Police initially said the bus swerved to avoid the car and then overturned, but later said the two vehicles collided, causing the bus driver to lose control, drive off the road and overturn.
The driver of the white sedan did not stop but was arrested later Sunday and charged with one felony count of hit-and-run, the Virginia State Police said. State police identified him as 31-year-old Raphael Manuel Barrientos, of Dumfries, Va.
The crash occurred on I-95 in northern Virginia’s Fairfax County and police were called at 3:28 a.m. Sunday, police said.
Geller said the man who died – David Alberto Sanchez, 24, of Woodbridge, Va. – was one of two people flown to a northern Virginia hospital.
R.I. official claims support for House post
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rhode Island’s House majority leader said Sunday he received enough votes in a preliminary tally to replace Gordon Fox in arguably the most powerful position in Rhode Island government, and vowed to unify the chamber if he is elected speaker.
Democrat Nicholas Mattiello said he won the support of 41 legislators in a vote taken during the caucus meeting, three more than is needed to assume the speakership. He said that includes 39 Democrats and two Republicans.
Mattiello, Fox’s top deputy, said he expects those numbers to grow ahead of a formal vote expected to be held Tuesday.
“I’m not the speaker yet,” he said. But if elected, he added, “My biggest concern is uniting and unifying the House.”
The Sunday night caucus comes a day after Fox relinquished his leadership post following raids at his Statehouse office and home as part of a criminal investigation.