The company that operated a bus involved in a deadly crash in Virginia last week has ties to a broader network of travel firms, including one shut down by regulators a decade ago, a CBS News investigation has found.

The company that operated a bus involved in a deadly crash in Virginia last week has ties to a broader network of travel firms, including one shut down by regulators a decade ago due to "excessive" speeding violations, a CBS News investigation has found. Now, federal authorities are also looking into those connections.
The network bears some of the hallmarks of operators who, under scrutiny of federal safety regulators, stay in business by creating new companies under different names, but at the same locations, with the same people and sometimes using the same buses. In the trucking and passenger bus industry, they are commonly called chameleon carriers. The phenomenon has been the subject of a yearlong CBS News investigation that identified at least 10,000 of them across the country.
"It's about hiding who you are," said Rob Carpenter, a safety consultant for the trucking and busing industries. "When a company gets to dispear and come back as a stranger, every bad brake and unqualified driver dispears right along with it until a wreck on the interstate drags it all back into the daylight."
Five people were killed and dozens injured on May 29 when an E&P Travel Inc. bus slammed into traffic stopped at a work zone on I-95 in Stafford County, Virginia.
That crash followed a similar incident in 2024 when nine people were injured when an E&P Travel bus rammed into a vehicle at a construction site in North Carolina.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently probing E&P Travel Inc.'s potential links to more than a dozen current and former bus companies operating in the Northeast, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working with other agencies to investigate the latest crash, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said. "Any company, trainer, or school that contributed to putting an unqualified driver on the road will face intense scrutiny," Duffy said.
An FMCSA spokesperson on Thursday declined to discuss details of the investigation.
In addition to the accidents, E&P Travel itself has been cited three times in two years for "speeding 15 or more miles per hour over the speed limit" and once for a driver who failed an English proficiency test, federal records show.
The driver of the bus in last week's crash, Jing S. Dong of Staten Island, New York, is now facing five felony involuntary manslaughter charges. Despite the company's history of violations, E&P received a "satisfactory" safety rating from the FMCSA in ril.
E&P Travel was incorporated in North Carolina in November 2023, listing its headquarters as a residential artment in Kings Mountain, N.C., and its CEO as Shuo Liu. Efforts to reach Liu at the company's email address and phone number were not immediately successful.
E&P Travel's filings with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in 2023 list its officer as Joyce Gao. Joyce Gao is also listed on a motorcoach association directory as the CEO of a separate bus company, Super Bus Inc.
Ronghai Gao, the president of Super Bus Inc. according to Massachusetts records, told CBS News Thursday that listing is incorrect and that he is the CEO of Super Bus.
Ronghai Gao said Joyce Gao was a bookkeeper at Super Bus until about ril. He declined to say whether he and Joyce Gao are related. "I cannot tell you about it," he said. "This is my personal stuff."
Ronghai Gao also declined to discuss Joyce Gao's parent employment at his company while she was an officer at the then newly-formed E&P Travel. "That's her personal stuff," he said. Gao declined to answer further questions and the call was terminated. Efforts to reach Joyce Gao were not successful.
Super Bus currently has a "Satisfactory" safety rating from the FMCSA, according to federal records, which list 15 violations over the past two years including speeding and other issues.
The names Ronghai Gao and Joyce Gao are tied to multiple current and former busing operations in the Northeast, CBS News found.
One of those companies is Pandora Travel Inc., a Massachusetts-headquartered firm that ran regular bus tours from a storefront in New York City to destinations across the eastern United States. Federal regulators accused the company in a 2014 press release of "continuing serious violations and non-compliance with previously identified federal safety regulations."
Ronghai Gao was identified in FMCSA investigative records as the general manager for Pandora Travel. He's also listed as the point of contact for the company in New York City records listing the address at that same storefront.
"Pandora Travel Inc failed to monitor drivers and take corrective action to deter unsafe driving practices," an FMCSA inspector wrote in regulatory records reviewed by CBS News, despite knowledge of drivers operating in "excess of posted speed limits."
Records show Pandora's drivers had "histories that would show patterns of unsafe driving practices," including one driver with 23 speeding and moving violations.
Citations against Pandora Travel included failing to exercise caution while operating in a heavy snowstorm in January 2014, resulting in a rollover crash on I-80 in New Jersey that injured seven people.
The FMCSA reviewed GPS data and found four drivers were "exceeding the posted speeds by 10mph or greater for 50 days out of 135 days reviewed," according to inspection records.
When FMCSA officials visited the Lawrence, Massachusetts, headquarters of Pandora Travel in 2014 they found an empty desk, a vacuum cleaner, and no staff or business perwork, according to pictures and notes included in the regulatory filings.
Regulators reached a settlement agreement with Pandora Travel in 2014 that allowed it to continue operating under certain conditions.

Source: CBS News

Published: June 5, 2026 9:30 PM

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is urging European countries to mirror U.S. travel restrictions implemented in response to Ebola as the U.S. prepares to host the largest-ever World Cup amid growing concerns about the spread of the disease, according to a State Department cable reviewed by NBC News

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is urging European countries to mirror U.S. travel restrictions implemented in response to Ebola as the U.S. prepares to host the largest-ever World Cup amid growing concerns about the spread of the disease, according to a State Department cable reviewed by NBC News.
As global health officials warn the Ebola outbreak is outpacing the international response, the U.S. warned European countries this week that a failure to adopt the administration’s precautions may have consequences, according to the cable issued on Monday. The State Department declined to provide further details on what actions the U.S. might take.
The U.S. is also speaking with countries in the Middle East about their measures to prevent Ebola’s spread, according to a U.S. official.
A State Department spokesperson confirmed that diplomatic officials are in touch with a number of countries around the world to coordinate our proach to protect our citizens, including the millions of visitors, fans, athletes and tourists expected during the FIFA World Cup.
The Trump administration is protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public health, the spokesperson said, adding that we do not comment on private diplomatic conversations.
The Ebola outbreak in central Africa has complicated the already herculean task of preparing for a sprawling global event like the World Cup. Beginning on June 11, teams from 48 countries will be competing across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. FIFA has sold more than 6 million tickets to fans traveling from across the world. The teams and the fans will also be working their way through North America to attend matches in 16 cities — 11 in the U.S. alone — and the competition will last until the final match in New Jersey, outside of New York City.
It’s an enormous challenge, Susan Reichle, a former USAID counselor and former head of the agency’s Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Bureau, told NBC News. It really takes constructive engagement and a lot of planning.
The U.S. official said there are no plans to ban European Union citizens from traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup, while pointing out that European countries have many flight interconnections with the U.S. and if countries experience cases, we will obviously enact measures to protect Americans.
In Monday’s cable, the State Department instructed U.S. diplomats in European citals to speak with foreign officials at the highest propriate level to request information on the precautionary measures taken around Ebola, according to the cable. The department also requested the U.S. diplomats share the countries’ responses to the directive as well as an identified point person for each country who could field follow-up questions from the administration.
The cable listed proposed talking points for diplomats to use in their conversations with European officials, such as: Given the close travel links between Europe and the United States, we request that you adopt similar travel measures as ours to prevent the spread of the disease and ensure we do not have cases affect our countries.
U.S. diplomats were told to ask European countries to specifically implement the same travel restrictions as the U.S. and to warn that failure to adopt similar travel measures may require the United States to adopt unilateral measures, according to the cable.
Under a 30-day order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. has suspended the entry of foreign nationals who were present or transited through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan or Uganda within 21 days of their planned arrival in the U.S. The State Department also paused the issuance of new visas for foreign nationals meeting the same criteria.
Congo qualified for the World Cup, and its team is based in Houston.
In comparison to recent outbreaks, the world is behind in preventing the spread of the severe Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has no known treatment or vaccine. Along with the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization and its shuttering of USAID, global health experts say, cuts to U.S. funding for disease surveillance networks on the ground contributed to the delayed detection and slow contact tracing that hampered the international response.
As of Wednesday, the WHO said there were an estimated 344 confirmed cases of Ebola, including 60 deaths, in Congo and 15 confirmed cases in neighboring Uganda and one death.
The State Department said Friday that it has spent more than $200 million in its response to the outbreak, which has involved contact tracing, border and point-of-entry screening, assisting at dozens of health clinics in affected areas, and community education to combat misinformation about how Ebola spreads.
The Trump administration has also undertaken a series of efforts to prevent the disease from reaching U.S. shores including erecting a quarantine center for exposed Americans in Kenya, an enhanced health screening center at four American airports for travelers coming from the affected countries and a series of travel restrictions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that Americans who test positive for Ebola would be brought to the nearest treatment facility either in Europe or the U.S.

Source: NBC News

Published: June 6, 2026 12:43 AM

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