PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on a tour bus crash that killed 13 people in Southern California (all times local):
3:55 p.m.
The driver of a Southern California tour bus who died along with 12 passengers in a crash with a big rig was targeted in past lawsuits over other freeway wrecks.
Teodulo Vides also owned the USA Holiday bus company, which specialized in trips from Los Angeles to the region’s far-flung casinos. Vides was returning from a casino before dawn Sunday when his bus smashed into the truck outside Palm Springs.
Court records say Vides wasn’t the driver in the other crashes for which he was sued.
In a 2007 case, a USA Holiday bus collided with a Honda Civic, killing the car’s driver and two passengers. Family members sued the driver and Vides, but the case was dismissed.
Investigators will take months before declaring a cause of Sunday’s crash.
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1:55 p.m.
A California Highway Patrol official says there’s no evidence a bus carrying gamblers home from a desert casino braked before slamming into the back of a big rig, killing 13 people.
CHP Border Division Chief Jim Abele emphasized Monday that the cause of crash early Sunday near Palm Springs is still unknown.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators plan to spend five to seven days on scene, looking into factors affecting the driver and the condition of the bus and the highway, among others.
Investigators also plan to review security video that may show what the driver was doing between the time the bus arrived at the casino from 11 to 11:30 p.m. and left at 4 a.m.
Authorities confirmed the bus had no seat belts and said the truck was going about 5 mph amid maintenance work that slowed highway traffic.
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10:50 a.m.
California authorities have identified 11 of the 13 people killed when a bus crashed into the back of a truck on Interstate 10 near Palm Springs during the weekend.
The office of the Riverside County sheriff-coroner named nine women between the ages of 52 and 72, a 62-year-old man, and the bus owner-driver, 59-year-old Teodulo Vides of Los Angeles.
Of the passengers named so far, all were from Los Angeles except for a woman who was from Palmdale, California.
The remaining unidentified passengers are a man and a woman.
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10:40 a.m.
Several people are hospitalized, four of them in critical condition, a day after a bus crash in Southern California killed 13 people.
Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs said Monday that it’s treating the four critically injured, one person in serious condition and another in good condition. Another patient was transferred to Los Angeles.
The region’s only trauma center received 14 injured victims after a tour bus slammed into the back of semi-truck Sunday on Interstate 10.
Eisenhower Medical Center spokeswoman Lee Rice says the Rancho Mirage hospital is treating two people in good condition. The hospital received 12, nine of whom were released and one transferred in good condition.
John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital spokesman Ken Alan says the Indio hospital treated and released five people for minor injuries.
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