1. Train derailment
Frightening speed: Why was a commuter train going almost three times the posted speed limit when it jumped the tracks in the Bronx over the weekend? That’s what federal safety officials are trying to figure out. The mayhem that ensued Sunday left four dead and 67 injured. Early data clocked the train at 82 mph as it barreled toward a 30-mph curve. A train operator tried to slam on the brakes, but that move may have come way too late, an investigator said. That rate of speed is even far faster than the 70-mph stretch that led into the curve. Despite the troubling speed reports, investigators have not ruled what caused the accident. The early report “sort of takes your breath away,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer D-New York. “For a train to be going 82 mph around that curve is just a frightening thought.
2. VP to Asia
Tense times: Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Japan and China this week comes at a tough point. China just claimed a new patch of airspace over the East China Sea, a move that Japan and the United States rejected. The power grab set off a war of words. And not only that; in the last two weeks, it has set off flights of military planes in the contested air zone by the United States, China, Japan and South Korea. Not good, say experts, who fear this could spiral into a midair incident. Biden is expected to push for all sides to talk out their differences. But he will also “make the broader point that there is an emerging pattern of behavior by China that is unsettling to China’s own neighbors,” a senior Obama administration official said.
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article courtesy of CNN.com
