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WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal safety regulators and Amtrak officials face questions from lawmakers today on why technology to slow speeding trains wasn't in place before the deadly derailment in Philadelphia. The House transportation committee is holding a hearing following seven major passenger and freight train accidents this year. A technology called automatic train control wasn't installed on the curve where eight passengers were killed and about 200 injured last month. The train was going 106 miles per hour in 50 mph area.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Strange-looking planes that are sometimes seen circling neighborhoods could belong to the FBI. The Associated Press has learned that the FBI operates a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and sometimes cellphone surveillance technology. An FBI spokesman says the aviation program isn't secret, but information about specific aircraft and their capabilities is protected for security purposes.
PARIS (AP) — More than 4,100 airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition have done little to stop advances by the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Today, international allies and Iraq's prime minister are gathering in Paris to re-examine their strategy. Secretary of State John Kerry will participate by telephone before undergoing surgery in Boston to set his broken leg.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is posthumously bestowing America's highest military honor on two World War I Army veterans who may have been denied the honor because of discrimination. Obama holds a White House Medal of Honor ceremony today for Sgt. William Shemin, who was Jewish, and Pvt. Henry Johnson, from an all-black regiment. Both are being honored for their heroics in rescuing comrades on the battlefields of France in 1918.
RAANANA, Israel (AP) — In 1933, a promising young Jewish-German violinist named Ernest Drucker left the stage midway through a Brahms concerto in Cologne at the behest of Nazi officials, in one of the first anti-Semitic acts of the new regime. Now, more than 80 years later, his son has completed his father's interrupted work in Israel. Grammy Award-winning American violinist Eugene Drucker says he thinks the weekend performance would have given his late father "a sense of completion."
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