In brief: Bus driver apologizes for deaths

Salt Lake City – The driver of a tour bus that crashed in Utah and killed three Japanese tourists last year formally apologized to families of the dead Tuesday, saying he deeply regrets his actions.

“I have made a great error, deeply hurt others, and have brought sadness into your lives, by the lack of my thoughts and by the big mistakes I have made,” Yasushi Mikuni wrote in the three-page letter written in Japanese. An English translation of the letter was provided to the Associated Press by his Las Vegas attorney, Garrett Ogata.

The bus carrying 14 Japanese tourists was headed from Nevada to national parks in Utah on Aug. 9, 2010, when it rolled on Interstate 15, about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City. Three died and 11 others were injured.

Utah Highway Patrol investigators said that on the day of the crash, Mikuni, a 26-year-old Japanese citizen living in Las Vegas on a U.S. work and education visa, was driving on little sleep after a long work day the day before. Tests showed he also had marijuana in his system. Investigators said they didn’t believe Mikuni was impaired while driving, but that he was sleep-deprived.

Mother spared prison in son’s death

Marietta, Ga. – A woman who was arrested after her 4-year-old son was struck and killed by a van as they were jaywalking across a busy street was spared a prison sentence Tuesday following an outcry over her arrest.

Raquel Nelson, 30, was convicted by a jury earlier this month of vehicular homicide and other charges for not using a crosswalk and could have gotten three years behind bars – far more than the six months the hit-and-run driver served.

Instead, without explanation, Judge Kathryn Tanksley gave the suburban Atlanta mother a year’s probation, ordered 40 hours of community service, and took the unusual step of offering her a new trial.

Prosecutors’ extremely rare decision to bring charges against the grieving mother had created a furor, with Nelson’s supporters calling the move cruel and heartless.

More than 125,000 people joined an online petition campaign asking for mercy. The Georgia branch of the NAACP called the case against the single black mother a “grave miscarriage of justice.” And the judge said her office had been flooded with letters and emails.