Archive for the 'Featured' Category

61 people killed in trains crash in east India (AP)

CALCUTTA, India – A speeding express train plowed into a stationary passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing 61 people in a crash so powerful it thrust the roof of one car onto an overpass. Officials said they could not rule out sabotage.

Residents crawled over the twisted wreckage trying desperately to free survivors before rescue workers arrived with heavy equipment to cut through the metal.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to the site, raised the possibility the crash could have been another case of sabotage, two months after Maoist rebels were blamed for a derailment that killed 145 people.

49 people killed as trains collide in east India (AP)

CALCUTTA, India – A speeding express train collided with a passenger train at a station in eastern India early Monday, mangling the carriages and killing at least 49 people, railway police said.

The crash happened about 2 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express slammed into the stationary Bananchal Express as it left the platform at Sainthia station, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Calcutta.

The collision destroyed two passenger cars and a luggage car, turning them into a tangle of twisted metal. The passenger cars were reserved for those on the cheapest tickets and such carriages are usually packed to capacity.

Official: Seep found near BP’s blown out oil well (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – A federal official said Sunday that scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane seen near BP’s busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that’s been capped off for three days.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not yet been made.

BP: Well cap may bottle oil until permanent plug (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – BP hopes to keep using its giant stopper to block oil from reaching the Gulf of Mexico until they plug the blown out well permanently, the company said Sunday.

“No one associated with this whole activity … wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico,” said Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer. “Right now we don’t have a target to return the well to flow.”

Retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen outlined a different plan on Saturday, saying that after the test was complete, the cap would be hooked up through nearly a mile of pipes stretching to ships on the surface that will collect the oil.

Clinton aims to refine goals of Afghan war (AP)

ISLAMABAD – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton started a South Asia tour on Sunday aimed at refining the goals of the nearly 9-year-old war in Afghanistan and pushing neighboring nations to work together in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban extremists.

Clinton landed in Islamabad where she will underscore the need for Afghan-Pakistani cooperation in winning the war but also announce plans to beef up U.S. development assistance to Pakistan, which is rife with anti-American sentiment.

The Gulf waits: Oil is plugged, but for how long? (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – The Gulf Coast found itself in an odd moment of limbo Saturday: The oil has been stopped, but no one knows if it’s corked for good.

The clock expired on BP’s 48-hour observation period and the government added another day of critical monitoring. Scientists and engineers were optimistic that the well showed no obvious signs of leaks, but were still struggling to understand puzzling pressure readings emerging from the bottom of the sea.

BP: No sign of leaks as capped well nears 48 hours (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – BP’s experimental cap was holding Saturday as the final hours ticked away in a two-day trial run to make sure it keeps oil from pouring into the Gulf of Mexico without blowing a new leak in the busted well.

Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said engineers glued to an array of pressure, temperature, sonar and other sensors were seeing no evidence of oil escaping into the water or the sea floor. Undersea robots were also patrolling the well site for signs of trouble.

Car bomb signals new dimension to Mexican drug war (AP)

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A drug cartel has used a car bomb for the first time in Mexico’s decades-long fight against traffickers, setting a deadly trap against federal police in a city across the border from Texas, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Friday.

Mayor Jose Reyes said federal police have confirmed to him that a car bomb was used in the attack that killed three people Thursday.

BP, scientists try to make sense of well puzzle (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – In a nail-biting day across the Gulf Coast, engineers struggled to make sense of puzzling pressure readings from the bottom of the sea Friday to determine whether BP’s capped oil well was holding tight. Halfway through a critical 48-hour window, the signs were promising but far from conclusive.

Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said on an evening conference call that engineers had found no indication that the well has started leaking underground.

“No news is good news, I guess that’s how I’d say it,” Wells said.

Feds: Test results from well not as good as hoped (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – Pressure readings have been less than ideal from the new cap shutting oil into BP’s busted well, but the crude will remain locked in while engineers look for evidence of whether there is an undiscovered leak, the federal pointman for the disaster said Friday.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said on a conference call that pressure readings from the cap have not reached the level that would show there are no new leaks in the well.