Lanham Teenager Dies in Crash
A Lanham youth was killed yesterday when the stolen car he was driving crashed into a parked truck, Prince George's County police said.
Police said Kevin Parros Jr., 15, of the 6500 block of Westview Lane stole a car in Lanham and crashed it near Palamar Drive and Woodstream Terrace, also in Lanham, about 9:30 a.m.
Cpl. Kim Brown, a police spokeswoman, said investigators determined that speed and slippery conditions contributed to the crash.
THE DISTRICT
Vouchers to Go to Public School Students
The president and chief executive of the Washington Scholarship Fund, the organization that runs the D.C. school voucher program, said the fund expects that new vouchers awarded this year will go only to students who otherwise would have attended public school.
Fund President Sally Sachar made the statement in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that was released by Feinstein's office this week. The senator, a key supporter of the legislation establishing the federally funded private-school scholarships, had complained that more than 200 of last year's 1,000 voucher recipients already were attending private schools.
Sachar has said that her organization did not have enough time last spring to recruit voucher applicants from public schools. "We are seeing a great amount of interest from public school families" this year, Sachar said yesterday. "We will not move to private-school applicants."
Sachar said the deadline for voucher applicants is March 11 for junior and senior high students and March 22 for elementary school applicants.
Williams Hires Communications Director
A former Washington Times reporter who covers the capital for the New York Post has been hired to serve as communications director to D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams.
Williams (D) announced the hiring yesterday of Vincent S. Morris, who will replace Tony Bullock this month.
Morris, 37, covered local politics for the Times when Williams was the city's chief financial officer. He moved to the New York Post in June 1998, shortly before Williams was elected mayor. Since then, he has written about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks; covered the 2000 presidential campaign; and spent two months covering the war in Iraq.
Morris will be paid $121,000 annually. He said the mayor has not told him whether his services will be needed beyond next year, when Williams's second term is due to expire.
THE REGION
FTA Approves Tysons-Dulles Metro Plans
The plan for the extension of Metrorail through Tysons Corner and Dulles International Airport reached another milestone yesterday when the Federal Transit Administration approved its project planning documents.
The state is looking to the Federal Transit Administration to pay for half of the $4 billion project, and yesterday's approval is a step toward winning that funding.
"It's a pretty strong recognition that this is the right project to move forward," said Karen J. Rae, director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It could have been something was missed. It's a big building, lots of nooks and crannies."
-- Wendy Jastremski, community involvement coordinator
for the EPA's Superfund program, about mercury found yesterday
at Cardozo Senior High School in Northwest. -- A1
Compiled from reports by staff writers V. Dion Haynes, Lori Montgomery, Martin Weil, Amit R. Paley, Jamie Stockwell, Cameron W. Barr, Clarence Williams, Spencer S. Hsu and Peter Whoriskey and the Associated Press.
