REGIONAL BRIEFING

Sunday, October 12, 2008

FAIRFAX COUNTY

Reston Man Dies After Car Flips

A Reston man died yesterday when he apparently lost control of his car on Sunrise Valley Drive and crashed in Reston, Fairfax County police said.

Police said James R. Hammer, 31, was headed west in the 11800 block of Sunrise Valley Drive between Roland Clarke Place and Colts Neck Road, about 1:19 a.m., when his 2004 Nissan Maxima left the road near a bend.

The Maxima continued across grass and struck a tree. The collision caused the car to flip and land on its roof, with Hammer trapped inside. Hammer, who was alone in the car, died at the scene, police said.

This was the 17th fatal crash in Fairfax County this year, police said.

-- Christopher Twarowski

NOVEMBER ELECTION

ACLU Opposes T-Shirt Policy

The ACLU of Virginia says voters should be allowed to wear T-shirts and buttons advertising their political viewpoints at polling places on Election Day.

The group wants the State Board of Elections to revise its policy on banning materials classified as electioneering from polling places.

The board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a position statement regarding the policy.

State law forbids handing out or exhibiting campaign materials within 40 feet of a polling place.

ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis said the law isn't aimed at banning what he called "silent, passive" political statements such as shirts and buttons.

Willis said his group has not decided whether to sue if the law is enforced.

-- Associated Press

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Four Wounded In Shootings

Two women and two men were shot and seriously wounded in the District yesterday in two separate incidents, D.C. police said.

The men were shot about 9 p.m. in the 3800 block of 14th Street NW, police said. One suffered wounds that appeared to be life-threatening, they said.

The women, both in their 20s, were shot after getting out of a car about 4 a.m. near 17th and R streets in the Anacostia section of Southeast.

One of the women was listed in critical condition after being hit in the face and upper body, police said.

-- Clarence Williams

MCCAIN CAMPAIGN

GOP Worker Fired For Obama Column

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign has ousted a prominent Virginia GOP figure after he wrote a racially offensive newspaper column mocking a potential Obama administration.

A McCain spokeswoman said Bobby May was dropped this week from his job as McCain's Buchanan County campaign chairman.

May wrote in his column, "The (clarified) platform of Barack Hussein Obama," that if the Democratic senator was elected he would hire rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black and change the national anthem to the "Black National Anthem." The column originally appeared in The Voice, a newspaper.

May has worked on dozens of state Republican campaigns, including those of former gubernatorial candidate and attorney general Jerry Kilgore, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode.

-- Associated Press