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| Commuter train derailment kills 4 in NYC - USA TODAY Posted: 01 Dec 2013 08:51 AM PST Four people were killed and more than 60 were injured Sunday when a Metro-North commuter train derailed in the Bronx. VPC NEW YORK — Four people were killed and more than 60 were injured Sunday when a commuter train derailed in the Bronx. The Fire Department of New York said more than 130 firefighters raced to the derailment scene just north of the Spuyten Duyvil station, helping extricate passengers and crew from the Metro-North train. Four or five of the southbound train's seven cars derailed in an area on the edge of the Hudson River near the station just north of Manhattan, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The crash shattered the Sunday morning calm in one of the city's most bucolic neighborhoods. Wilma Rosen has lived-in the Spyten Dyvll section of the Bronx for 35 years. Hilly, leafy and on the water at the confluence of the Harlem and Hudson rivers, "it's such a beautiful spot. Most people's idea of the Bronx is not like this," she said. The train originated at 5:54 a.m. in Poughkeepsie, one of New York City's northern suburbs. The derailment, at about 7:20 a.m., forced a suspension of all service on the Hudson line between Grand Central Station in Manhattan and the Croton Harmon station in Westchester County, a northern suburb. The New York City Police Department declared a "level-three mobilization" — a somewhat-common alert for a serious incident — sending officers from across the Bronx to the derailment scene. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a "Go-Team" to investigate the tragedy. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who arrived at the scene later Sunday morning, said all train passengers and crew were accounted for. The cause of the derailment remained under investigation. "What we do know is four people lost their lives in the holiday season after Thanksgiving," said Cuomo, who called for memorial prayers. Cuomo said 11 of the 63 injuries were considered critical, with the remainder less serious. Families trying to get information about relatives or friends who were aboard the train were advised to contact New York City's 311 information system, Cuomo said. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the train engineer "got banged up somewhat, but is conscious and alert." The engineer made some "unofficial statements" to investigators, but that information is being withheld for the NTSB, Kelly said. Frank Tatulli, a passenger on the train, told WABC-TV in New York that he takes the train every Sunday morning, and that it was travelling faster than usual as it approached a curve. Tatulli said he got out of the train on his own, but suffered head and neck injuries. MTA President Tom Prendergast, who joined Cuomo for a briefing near the derailment site, said speed was one factor in the investigation. He also said the incident took place near the area of a July derailment, but was believed to involve a different track. The White House released a statement saying President Obama had been briefed on the tragedy by Lisa Monaco, assistant to the President for homeland security and counterterrorism. "His thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families who lost a loved one and everyone affected by this incident," the statement said. "The White House will continue to stay in contact with the federal, state and local partners as they respond to this event." Charles Manley lives with his family on fifth floor of apartment house overlooking the tracks on Palisade Avenue. He said he was in bed when he heard a sound "like someone dropping a pile of pipes down next to your head" -- even though the crash was hundreds of yards away and below. "There there was this long terrible sound of sheet metal screeching," Manley said. Enrie Morales, 50, of the Riverdale section of the Bronx, said she was out for her morning walk along an escarpment overlooking the tracks about 60 feet below. "It sounded like the earth rumbled," she said. She ran to the edge of the cliff and saw train cars spread across the tracks like toys. "At that hour it's always the same people, the same conductors. Everybody knows everybody" and many passengers are asleep, she said. The Metro-North's Hudson line serves New York City and Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess counties, ending in Poughkeepsie. Service on the line was at first suspended from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station. Later Sunday morning, Metro-North said rail service was restored from Poughkeepsie to Tarrytown. Passengers would then take buses to the White Plains station on the Harlem line, where they would catch trains to and from Grand Central Station. Amtrak Empire Line service between New York City and Albany was suspended after the derailment, according to a service update on the national rail carrier's website. However Amtrak Northeast Corridor service between New York City, Washington, D.C. and Boston was not affected, according to the update. Contributing: Bart Jansen; David Jackson |
| White House declares victory on fixing healthcare website - Chicago Tribune Posted: 01 Dec 2013 08:18 AM PST CAPTIONS HealthCare.gov The Obama administration declared victory on Sunday in its effort to get HealthCare.gov working smoothly for the vast majority of users, saying the site had reached a goal of handling 50,000 simultaneous users after a five-week "tech surge." In a six-page progress and performance report, administration officials said the troubled website could now handle at least 800,000 visitors per day, with the system remaining up at least 90 percent of the time. The new performance levels mark significant improvement after the Obamacare website's disastrous October 1 launch, when it crashed in the face of high traffic volumes and remained down 60 percent of the time for weeks. But officials remain concerned about high volumes this month, with the potential for large numbers of people entering the site to apply for insurance coverage beginning January 1. Reuters |
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| Did the feds fix HealthCare.gov? How we'll know - NBCNews.com Posted: 30 Nov 2013 08:57 AM PST 35 minutes ago  KAREN BLEIER / AFP - Getty Images file The HealthCare.gov insurance exchange website. Today's the deadline – it's the last day of November and the day the Obama administration promised its health insurance website would be working smoothly for "the vast majority" of people. Officials say there won't be an obvious "before" and "after" picture of HealthCare.gov. "November 30 does not represent a relaunch of HealthCare.gov. It is not a magical date," says Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates the site. To show how serious they are, CMS took the website down for an extended maintenance from 9 p.m. ET Friday, Nov. 29 to early morning Saturday. But if you really want to know it's working, look for insurance company ads. So far, insurers have been a little bit quiet about the site which, after all, is supposed to be driving them lots of business. "As the technical issue get worked out, health plans are going to get more and more engaged," says Robert Zirkelbach of America's Health Insurance Plans, meaning they're waiting until it works better before they start a full-court press of ads. The administration says the site, which crumpled almost as soon as it opened on Oct. 1, is now working for just about everyone. "We're happy to report that 90 percent of users are now able to create accounts," the Health and Human Services Department said in a statement Tuesday night. "Two key factors are whether the site can handle the volume of people who are expected to want to enroll through the end of the year and whether the process is smooth and error-free," says Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been monitoring the rollout. "It doesn't have to work perfectly for everyone." CMS says it can now handle 50,000 users at the same time, or 800,000 a day, which was the original specification. CMS also cautions that it may not work perfectly for people with complicated situations. But Zirkelbach says the "back end" of the site — the part where the policy actually gets bought and paid for — is still rough. "Health insurers are still seeing enrollments that are duplicated, missing information, things like that," he said. And one big piece is missing: so-called direct enrollment. If that ever works as it should, people should be able to go directly to a health insurer's site and sign up with a small detour to HealthCare.gov to see if they are eligible for a subsidy. That function is barely working now. Nonetheless, the government says it is ready for an end-of-the-month rush, combined with a post-Thanksgiving pile-on. "Health care is going to be a popular topic of conversation over the holidays," Levitt said. The Monday after Thanksgiving has, in the past, been a popular day for people to sign up for Medicare Part D (the prescription drug coverage plan) and Medicare Advantage (Medicare provided by a private insurer) coverage, for example. The White House knows it cannot count on the insurers for now so it's turned to advocacy groups. Organizing for America, which campaigns for President Barack Obama, plans a public relations blitz called "Health Care for the Holidays". "Are your family members traveling home for the holidays? There are a few things they'll need to sign up for health coverage," it advises. Their "packing list' includes W-2s and Social Security numbers. "Don't forget to follow up: 'Have you signed up yet?'" it urges. AARP, the group for people over 50, has its own campaign, with e-cards ready to send out to adult children. One choice: "Get health insurance so I can stop pestering you to sign up and start pressuring you to get married." The White House has asked Democrats to reach out to constituents, and urged them to tell success stories. The right-leaning Heritage Foundation has counter-programming e-cards. "Let's be thankful the government doesn't regulate how much we can eat at Thanksgiving dinner," one reads. A little worried about all this propaganda working too well, the White House and HHS officials have asked groups like Enroll America and labor unions to hold off on driving traffic to the site until it's clear what it can handle. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius advised shoppers to "Shop HealthCare.gov during off-peak hours (mornings/nights/weekends)." The health insurance exchanges are the centerpiece of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. They're the main vehicle for getting insurance coverage to the more than 40 million Americans who don't have any now. No one expects all those people to sign up on the exchanges, however. The Congressional Budget Office originally projected that 7 million people would sign up for private insurance on the exchanges the first year, with another 9 million signing up for Medicaid in states that are expanding their programs. It's not clear whether the publicity surrounding the slow start has put a significant number of people off. During the first month the exchanges were open, HHS says about 26,000 people signed up on the federal exchange, operating on behalf of 36 states, while close to 80,000 signed up on the state-run websites. Some states say they have done much better since then. New York says 76,177 have signed up on its exchange. "The way we are going to be evaluating success will be based largely on anecdotes," Levitt says. It may be hard to tell, given that critics of the site have been pushing out tales of woe from people who said they couldn't sign up, found their insurance premiums were more expensive than they had expected, or found their favorite doctors or hospitals were excluded from the new insurance networks. The White House has countered with first-name-only anecdotes of people who have succeeded in enrolling. Hard new numbers from the administration will come in mid-December, when HHS will release enrollment numbers for November. "More important than how many sign up is who signs up," Levitt says. Experts agree it will be important to get the right mix of sick vs. well people into the exchange plans. Insurance companies will go broke if they have to cover too many sick people without premiums from healthy people to balance them out. That's why there's been so much attention lavished on the "young invincibles" — young adults who don't yet have the chronic health conditions that are so expensive to pay for, and who may be wary of shelling out for health insurance. The administration's already had to admit that parts of the system don't work. On Wednesday, it said small businesses will have to wait until next year to use the exchanges. It's extended the open enrollment period for people who want health insurance to start on Jan.1 – they get an extra week now, until Dec. 23. But the White House has repeatedly reminded people that they have until March 31 to sign up for insurance to get credit for being covered in 2014 and avoid the tax being levied on those who don't have health insurance. |
| Police Helicopter Crashes Into Crowded Glasgow Pub - New York Times Posted: 30 Nov 2013 08:54 AM PST By STEPHEN CASTLE and STEVEN ERLANGERPublished: November 30, 2013LONDON — Eight people were killed when a police helicopter that apparently lost power crashed through the roof of a crowded pub in Glasgow, injuring at least 30 people, police officials said Saturday. Three people in the helicopter died as did five of those in the wrecked building, where a ska band was performing about 10:30 p.m. Friday when the chopper, carrying two police officers and a civilian, spun down onto the pub, the Clutha. Chief Constable Stephen House, who announced the latest casualty figures, said that of the 32 people taken to three Glasgow hospitals after the accident, 14 had suffered serious injuries and were still receiving treatment. Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, said it was a "black day for Glasgow and Scotland," and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain described the accident as a "tragic event." The crash took place on the eve of Scotland's national day, St. Andrew's Day, and left the country in shock. But there was widespread praise for the reaction of Glaswegians who rushed to help get the injured clear. Mr. Salmond said Scots could take "pride and courage in how we respond to adversity and tragedy." Fraser Gibson, who was at the pub at the time of the crash, estimated that there were about 120 people inside. "It sounded like a giant explosion," he told the BBC. "Part of the room was covered in dust. We didn't know what had happened. We froze for a second, there was panic and then people trying to get out the door." At first, patrons did not understand the seriousness of the situation, said Grace MacLean, who was also inside. "There was like a whoosh noise," she said. "Then there was some smoke, what seemed like smoke, so the band were laughing and we were all joking that the band had made the roof come down, and at the time they carried on playing. Then it started to come down more and someone started screaming, and then the whole pub just filled with dust, like you couldn't see anything, you couldn't breathe." A Labor member of Parliament, Jim Murphy, was driving nearby and saw "a pile of people clambering out of a pub, the dust, no smoke, no fire, but huge dust and people covered in dust and multiple injuries," he said. Patrons formed a human chain to help pull others out of the pub, he said. "The helicopter was inside the pub," Mr. Murphy told Sky News. "It's a mess. I could only get a yard or two inside." "No one knew what it was, but you saw the pandemonium of people trying to get out of the pub. It was a horrific scene," said Mr. Murphy, whose shirt had bloodstains from one of the injured as he spoke to a BBC reporter. "It was not something I have ever seen, and it is not something I ever want to see again." The editor of The Scottish Sun, Gordon Smart, was in a parking lot nearby and heard a misfiring engine, he said. The helicopter was about 500 yards above him. "It was falling at great speed," he said. "It looked like the rotors weren't spinning. The helicopter was sort of turning in a strange position and dropped at great speed. But oddly enough there was no explosion, no fireball." Glasgow's deputy chief constable, Rose Fitzpatrick, said in a statement, "We are working hard to recover people still inside the building and we will make further details available when we have them." She said it was too early to know why the helicopter — a Eurocopter EC135 T2, with twin engines — had crashed. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said teams of some 125 firefighters were working to stabilize the building and safely remove those remaining inside, using sniffer dogs. The left side of the building appeared to have collapsed, and a department spokesman, Lewis Ramsay, said the building was "very unsafe." The Accident Investigation Branch said it had sent a team to investigate. Images of the aftermath of the crash showed wreckage from the tail of the helicopter littering the roof of the pub, one piece sticking out of a hole gashed in the building's ceiling. John McGarrigle waited by the police cordon outside the pub, anxious for news about his father. "I think he was in there when it crashed," he said. "I've checked every hospital and there's no sign of him. I'm very anxious. I'm just going to stand here till I see casualties come out of the building." In a statement, Mr. Cameron praised the emergency services and said he wanted to "pay tribute to the bravery of the ordinary Glaswegians who rushed to help."  |
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| Posted: 29 Nov 2013 04:20 PM PST NEW YORK: US stocks on Friday closed a holiday-shortened session mostly lower despite some early statements by retailers reporting a successful launch to the critical holiday shopping season. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 10.92 points (0.07 percent) at 16,086.41. The broad-based S&P 500 declined 1.42 points (0.08 percent) to 1,805.81, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 15.14 points (0.37 percent) to 4,059.89. Retail giants Wal-Mart Stores and Target both reported "record" openings to the critical "Black Friday" shopping weekend, which kicks off the holiday shopping period. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year's accounts for about 20 percent of annual retail sector sales.
Retail stocks had a mixed day. Walmart gained 0.1 percent, The Gap rose 0.5 percent and JC Penney tacked on 1.1 percent, while Target dipped 0.8 percent and Macy's lost 0.5 percent. Technology stocks continued to ride high after the Nasdaq closed above 4,000 earlier this week for the first time in 13 years. Apple jumped 1.9 percent, Dow component Microsoft advanced 1.4 percent and eBay added 2.5 percent. Agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland fell 3.0 percent after Australia rejected its proposed US$2.7 billion takeover of grain handler GrainCorp. Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said the sector was still moving towards more robust competition and that a foreign takeover of the biggest grain handler in eastern Australia could undermine public support for foreign investment in general. Oil and gas producer Pioneer Natural Resources fell 0.7 percent after announcing that severe weather forced it to cut output in a number of major projects. The company said an "extensive recovery period is expected" and that the outages were not accounted for in previous forecasts. Fortinet, a technology security company, tumbled 12.9 percent after announcing on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday that chief financial officer Ahmed Rubaie would step down for "personal reasons." -- AFP |
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| Berlusconi Expelled from Senate in Italy - New York Times Posted: 27 Nov 2013 09:08 AM PST By JIM YARDLEYPublished: November 27, 2013ROME — Having spent months manufacturing procedural delays or conjuring political melodrama, Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday could no longer stave off the inevitable: Italy's senate stripped him of his parliamentary seat, a dramatic and humiliating expulsion, even as other troubles loom on his horizon. In the hours before the vote, Italian senators read speeches for or against Mr. Berlusconi, the once-powerful former prime minister. Mr. Berlusconi responded with an outdoor rally in central Rome, transforming the day into a televised, split-screen standoff: on one screen was the former prime minister, declaring himself a victim of persecution and pledging to remain a political force; on the other, the Italian senate, with a majority of rival politicians, who finished their speeches and lowered the boom. His expulsion came in a series of votes, and after a day of passionate arguments, the reaction in the chamber after the final tally was striking: a resigned silence. Mr. Berlusconi, 77, is now staring at a cascade of stubborn realities. His removal from the senate means he is without elective office for the first time in roughly two decades and that he has lost the special immunities awarded to lawmakers. With other legal cases underway against him – and the possibility that new litigation could be filed – Mr. Berlusconi is now far more vulnerable than when, as prime minister, he seemed virtually untouchable, batting away sex and corruption scandals. He also is expected to soon start performing one year of community service for the tax fraud conviction that is the basis of his removal from the senate. Moreover, a court in Milan has ruled that Mr. Berlusconi cannot seek any public office for the next two years. For a man who once dominated Italy with a ribald swagger, Mr. Berlusconi is suddenly a sharply reduced figure, having recently watched several longtime lieutenants break away from him. Determined to show his political viability, Mr. Berlusconi bused in supporters from around Italy for the rally outside his palace in central Rome. They waved flags, braved the November cold and sang songs hailing their leader. "It's just unfair that they would condemn him when Parliament is full of people who are way worse than him, who have avoided taxes, stolen public money and worked against the people," said Alessandra Abbate, 49, a supporter from Bologna. "This country would be nothing without him." Mr. Berlusconi appeared at 4:35 p.m., before the senate had voted, and stood on a cheery, sky-blue stage erected for the occasion. He repeated his familiar complaints against Italy's judiciary, blaming reckless magistrates for his legal problems. "It is a bitter day, a day of mourning for democracy," Mr. Berlusconi told the crowd. Mr. Berlusconi's undisputed reign as leader of Italy's powerful center-right political movement was dealt a crippling blow in July when the country's highest court upheld a prison term against him on the tax fraud conviction. His effort to avoid expulsion from the Senate was fatally undermined earlier this month when his party's unity ruptured. Mr. Berlusconi's longtime protégé, Angelino Alfano, announced on Nov. 15 that he and other former lieutenants would refuse to join the former prime minister's re-branded political party, Forza Italia (or Go Italy). Instead, Mr. Alfano formed the New Center-Right, attracting many lawmakers in Parliament who had been committed to Mr. Berlusconi and eliminating the possibility he could beat an expulsion vote. Despite his litany of troubles, lawyers for Mr. Berlusconi have dismissed as highly unlikely the possibility that he could face arrest over other legal transgressions that have shaped his political legacy, including paying for sex with a minor. |
| Winter Storm To Hit Thanksgiving Travelers - TIME Posted: 27 Nov 2013 08:06 AM PST Travelers at LaGuardia Airport in New York, on Nov. 26, 2013. Inches of rain, snow and sleet are pummeling parts of the east coast Wednesday as a massive storm system continues its crawl across the country just in time to wreak havoc on Thanksgiving travel. With more snow and ice still to come, Winter Storm Boreas is projected to have affected about 58 million Americans by Thanksgiving morning, the Weather Channel reports. More than 200 flights were delayed on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports, and more than 5,000 saw delays, in what could cause a cascade of travel woes throughout the long holiday weekend. Airports in Chicago, Denver, Cleveland and Charlotte saw some of the worst problems. The National Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings and advisories for "the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys eastward across the Appalachians to the interior mid-Atlantic region, the lower Great Lakes as well as interior New England." Still, the biggest problem for millions of travelers this week could be the gusty winds forecast to mix in with that wintery precipitation. Already there have been flight cancellations, road closures, hundreds of car accidents and at least 10 deaths from crashes. Sustained winds in New York City, for example, are forecast to hover around 20 miles per hour on Wednesday, with potential gusts of up to 55 miles per hour, according to CNN. Those winds will be only slightly calmer on Thursday – Thanksgiving Day. There's even a chance high winds will ground some of the city's famous Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. Similar windy conditions are expected throughout the northeast in combination with wintery weather, potentially creating a travel nightmare. Gusty winds can cause long delays at airports, sending reverberations through the entire country's air traffic control system. Freezing rain is a safety hazard for aircraft as well — ice buildup can reduce the amount of lift generated by an airplane's wings — so expect delays as airport crews work to de-ice aircraft before takeoff. Drivers, too, will be slowed by the combinations of wind and rain or wind and snow. Visibility will be reduced and roads will be slippery, leading to slower and more dangerous than normal commutes. Those on the roads this week are advised to take caution to avoid accidents, as this storm's already caused hundreds of collisions across the country. |
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