GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) - A suicidal man parked his SUV on the railroad tracks and set off a crash of two commuter trains Wednesday that hurled passengers down the aisles and turned rail cars into smoking, twisted heaps of steel, authorities said. At least 10 people were killed and more than 180 injured.
The SUV driver got out at the last moment and survived.
The collision took place just before daybreak on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Employees at a Costco store rushed to the scene and pulled riders from the tipped-over double-deck cars before the flames reached them. Dazed passengers staggered from the wreckage, some limping. One elderly man on the train was covered in blood and soot, his legs and arms apparently broken.snip
Dozens of the injured were in critical condition, and more than 120 people were sent to hospitals.
The wreck set in motion a huge rescue operation involving more than 300 firefighters, some of whom climbed ladders to reach the windows of the battered train cars. A triage center was set up in a parking lot, where the injured lay sprawled on color-colded mats - red for those with severe injuries, green for those less seriously hurt.
It was the nation's deadliest train accident in nearly six years.
Authorities said Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, of Compton, parked his sport utility vehicle on the tracks and got out before a Metrolink train smashed into it. The train then derailed and collided with another train going in the opposite direction. That train also jumped the tracks.
Alvarez was arrested and will face homicide charges, Police Chief Randy Adams said. Alvarez had also slashed his wrists and stabbed himself, but the injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, authorities said. Adams said Alvarez had a criminal record that involved drugs.
snip. The nasty little pathetic life of Alvarez, the efforts of the rescuers, the ordeal of the passengers. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but this seems a simple method of terror attack.
TAOS, New Mexico (AP) -- Lynn Anderson, who won a Grammy for "Rose Garden" in 1970, is accused of shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD from a supermarket and then punching a police officer as she was being put into a patrol car. Anderson, 57, was arrested Monday night at Smith's Food & Drug Center, said Police Chief Neil Curran. She was taken to police headquarters, where she refused the option of a written citation, he said. A Taos County magistrate released Anderson on her own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for later this week. Telephone calls to a listing for Anderson went unanswered Tuesday.
In December, Anderson was charged with drunken driving after police found her passed out in her car on the shoulder of a highway near Denton, Texas. Anderson, who lives in Taos, was the Country Music Association's female vocalist of the year in 1971. She released an album last year called "The Bluegrass Sessions."
Posted by: Steve ||
01/26/2005 2:36:07 PM ||
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Well, after all, she didn't promise you a rose garden.
Enezi tribe taking center stage at Rantburg this week...
A Kuwaiti man has reportedly confessed to killing his 14-year-old daughter because he believed she was having sex. Adnan Enezi - an employee in the Islamic Affairs ministry - had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca. He allegedly bound and blindfolded his daughter, Haifa, knelt her down in front of her two brothers and sister and then cut her throat. The suspect - who is also undergoing mental health tests - was separated from his wife, and has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for 18 months for his extremist activities, the al-Rai al-Am newspaper reported. The daily said that after cutting Haifa's throat the first time, he swapped the knife for one with a sharper blade as she bled and screamed in front of her siblings. Al-Qabas daily said the brothers and sister fled from the house after the murder, while their uncle took their sister to a hospital, but she had already died.
Somebody's gotta do something about this. Here's a deranged extremist slaughtering his own family. Can anyone in Kuwait or Saudiland find some cause to keep him locked up (and away from others) for the rest of his days?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/26/2005 1:20:13 PM ||
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I bet in his mind it isn't considered "mistaken". The mere rumor of female sexual activity in that world sure seems to result in a plenty of dead female relatives.
Hip-hop radio station HOT 97 has sparked outrage across the city by airing a twisted song that shockingly mocks the 200,000 victims of the South Asian tsunami.
The radio station, WQHT, was forced to air an apology yesterday after the insulting song - whose lyrics include racial epithets aimed at Asians - was played for four days last week by morning deejay Miss Jones.
The nasty parody, sung to the tune of "We Are the World," makes light of how the killer tsunami "washed your whole country away."
Some of the other tasteless lyrics refer jokingly to orphaned children being sold into slavery.
Before one airing of the song, the station's news reader, Miss Info, who is of Asian descent, objected to the song, only to be attacked by Jones and her cohorts.
"That song is really offensive to me, and I opted not to involve myself," Miss Info said.
Jones replied, "I know you feel you're superior because you're Asian, but you're not." Later, co-host Todd Lyn, incensed at Miss Info's criticism, said, "I'm going to start shooting Asians."
Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) said it was outrageous that the station, owned by Emmis Communications Corp., aired the song for four days.
Four days? There's malice aforethought there.
Jones and program director John Dimick both read apologies on the air yesterday.
"HOT 97 regrets the airing of material that made light of a serious and tragic event," Dimick said. "We apologize to our listeners and anyone who was offended."
Songs like this will be created and spread over the Internet. While they will always exist, airing them on the public airwaves should be a hate crime. The station had the song up on its website for download.
Rank: No. 2 among listeners 12 and older for the past two ratings periods, ending Jan. 1, according to Arbitron.
Download a clip of the song being aired on Hot 97, it includes the hosts berating the Asian host, Miss Info. Choice quote: "If you feel that way, why are you even on the show?"
Posted by: gromky ||
01/26/2005 6:37:01 AM ||
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and it's great publicity for radio station. You should kill the link and ignore it. It's not a hate crime, but it's beyond tasteless and their license should at least feel threatened.
#3
With representatives like Miss Jones, NWA and Two Live Crew no wonder the rest of the World hates us. They lost of few of their brethren in East Africa as well but I guess as long as Asians were killed the price is worth it.
#4
If Janet Jackson's sagging tit rates a half million dollar fine from the FCC, this heinous example of open racism and callousness ought to get at least a couple of million. Shut the place down and make an example of them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Kuwaiti man has reportedly confessed to killing his 14-year-old daughter because he believed she was having sex. Adnan Enezi - an employee in the Islamic Affairs ministry - had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca. He allegedly bound and blindfolded his daughter, Haifa, knelt her down in front of her two brothers and sister and then cut her throat. The suspect - who is also undergoing mental health tests - was separated from his wife, and has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for 18 months for his extremist activities, the al-Rai al-Am newspaper reported. The daily said that after cutting Haifa's throat the first time, he swapped the knife for one with a sharper blade as she bled and screamed in front of her siblings. Al-Qabas daily said the brothers and sister fled from the house after the murder, while their uncle took their sister to a hospital, but she had already died.
