The nation in brief

Emergency crews work amid the tangle of a 50-vehicle pileup Saturday on Interstate 78 in Fredericksburg, Pa.
Emergency crews work amid the tangle of a 50-vehicle pileup Saturday on Interstate 78 in Fredericksburg, Pa.

Pileup fatal to 3 in snowy Pennsylvania

FREDERICKSBURG, Pa. -- A pileup involving dozens of vehicles on a Pennsylvania interstate Saturday that killed three people and sent dozens to hospitals appears to have been related to a passing snow squall, authorities said.

photo

AP/PennLive.com

Rescuers work at the scene of a fatal pileup of more than 50 vehicles Saturday on Interstate 78 in Fredericksburg, Pa. Authorities said high wind and low visibility from a snow squall likely played a role in the crashes.

Trooper Justin Summa said three fatalities had been confirmed and an unknown number of critically injured patients were flown to hospitals. Forty more were transported by ambulance to other facilities after the crash on Interstate 78 in Fredericksburg.

State police said more than 50 vehicles were involved in the crash, which happened about 9:45 a.m. The pileup left tractor-trailers, box trucks and cars tangled together across three traffic lanes and into the snow-covered median about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Trooper Adam Reed said investigators believe that "passing snow squalls played a role in causing the crash."

Summa said several buses of stranded passengers were taken to a warming shelter at a firehouse.

Police said the interstate would remain closed until at least midnight.

Columbine killer's mom: 'I didn't know'

DENVER -- The mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold says she didn't know anything was wrong with her son before the 1999 attack, and she prayed for his death when she heard he was involved and that the rampage might still be underway.

In an interview that aired on 20/20 late Friday, Sue Klebold told ABC News' Diane Sawyer that before the attack she considered herself a parent who would have known something was wrong.

"I think we like to believe that our love and our understanding is protective, and that 'If anything were wrong with my kids, I would know.' But I didn't know, and it's very hard to live with that," she said.

"I felt that I was a good mom ... that he would, he could talk to me about anything," she continued. "Part of the shock of this was that learning that what I believed and how I lived and how I parented was an invention in my own mind. That it, it was a completely different world that he was living in."

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire at the suburban Denver school on April 20, 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. Another 24 people were injured in the attack.

The interview coincided with the release of Sue Klebold's memoir, A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy.

Utah to sue EPA over post-spill failures

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said Friday that he plans to take legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency after reports that it didn't alert the state to river contamination after a mine-waste spill.

Reyes said it's critical the agency be held responsible for damage from the spill that contaminated rivers in three Western states last year and he will file a notice of claim, the first step toward a lawsuit. He didn't set a deadline for the action.

The announcement comes after Utah regulators said the EPA didn't alert them to water quality tests showing elevated levels of metals like lead and arsenic in the San Juan River months after the August spill.

The data was posted online in October, but wasn't sent to Utah, so regulators weren't aware until they found it months later.

While there isn't a current threat to public health, the state will resume its own tests of the water.

An EPA spokesman said the agency is looking into the state's concerns.

The Aug. 5 mine spill is thought to have dumped more than 880,000 pounds of metals into Colorado's Animas River. The contaminants flowed from there into New Mexico and Utah.

Decision on U.S. voter form draws suit

WICHITA, Kan. -- A coalition of voting-rights groups on Friday sued a federal elections official who decided that residents of Alabama, Kansas and Georgia can no longer register to vote using a national form without providing proof of U.S. citizenship.

The 224-page complaint filed in federal court also named in the suit the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. It was filed by the League of Women Voters, Project Vote, the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP and others.

Their complaint contends the action by executive director Brian Newby will hurt voter-registration drives and deprive eligible people of the right to vote in the presidential primary elections. It seeks a court order immediately blocking the changes to the federal voter-registration form.

"Voters should not have to face an obstacle course to participate and vote," Elisabeth MacNamara, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States said in a news release.

Newby did not return an after-hours phone message left Friday at his office. Commission spokesman Bryan Whitener Friday declined to comment on the suit because the commission had not yet seen it.

A Section on 02/14/2016

Upcoming Events