Local Legends: Haunted tales from DC, Maryland and Virginia

By WTOP Staff
October 29, 2019 | 12:14 PM

WTOP’s Jason Fraley took time this Halloween season to tell the creepy tales and legends that haunt your backyard. Unlike our typical journalistic pieces of hard news and fact-based evidence, this is an intentionally tongue-in-cheek presentation based on lore, rumor and innuendo.

So pour the cider, dim the lights and scroll down to hear WTOP’s retelling of spooky stories about D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

School bus emergency? Fairfax County students have a plan to handle it

By Heather Gustafson
August 21, 2026 | 10:05 PM

This story is part of WTOP’s 2026 Back to School coverage. The wheels on the bus will soon be going round and round again in Fairfax County, Virginia, and some of its young riders are learning what to do if there’s an emergency on the way to school. The annual Safety Patrol Training Camp, hosted by Fairfax County Public Schools' Office of Transportation Services, combined hands-on exercises with classroom lessons to teach students how to keep calm during emergencies on buses. The training can feel remarkably realistic, with overturned school buses on their side or completely upside down in the middle of the county bus depot. Other buses, right side up, fill with smoke that is water-based but mimics the intensity of a bus overheating.

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