BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - Investigators will look closely at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the commuter train derailment and collision outside New York City that left dozens injured, as the focus begins to shift toward cleanup and rebuilding ahead of challenging times for travelers and commuters along the Northeast Corridor. A member of the National Transportation and Safety Board said Saturday that a fractured section of rail is of substantial interest to investigators and a portion of the track will be sent to a lab for analysis. Officials also said Saturday the incident was not the result of foul play.
DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) - An elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a Saturday parade in a small Virginia mountain town and investigators were looking into whether he suffered a medical emergency before the accident. About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. Their conditions weren't immediately available.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - It's all about the odds, and one lone ticket in Florida has beaten them all by matching each of the numbers drawn for the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million, lottery officials said Sunday. The single winner was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., according to Florida Lottery executive Cindy O'Connell. She told The Associated Press by telephone that more details would be released later.
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) - In what police are describing as a crime of opportunity, a wanted man with a criminal history dating nearly 15 years entered a front door that had been left open at a New York home near Hofstra University. A short time later, the intruder, Dalton Smith, and a 21-year-old college junior, Andrea Rebello, were both dead. The two were killed early Friday by a Nassau County police officer who fired eight shots at the masked man, hitting him seven times but also accidentally hitting Rebello once in the head, Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said Saturday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office. "Absolutely not," Steven Miller, the recently resigned acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, responded Friday when asked if he had any contact with the White House about targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special treatment.
BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area.
WASHINGTON (AP) - There's an irony in the Internal Revenue Service's crackdown on conservative groups. The nation's tax agency has admitted to inappropriately scrutinizing smaller tea party organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, and senior Treasury Department officials were notified in the midst of the 2012 presidential election season that an internal investigation was underway. But the IRS largely maintained a hands-off policy with the much larger, big-budget organizations on the left and right that were most influential in the elections and are organized under a section of the tax code that allows them to hide their donors.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch's brew of cancer-causing chemicals. But no one responsible for the lab at the base can recall that the procedure - mandated by the Navy - was ever conducted.
MALMO, Sweden (AP) - Denmark's Emmelie de Forest has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune "Only Teardrops," despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, hippie-chic 20-year-old for the catchy love song that is driven by her deep, Shakira-like voice. She received a total of 281 points in the glitzy music battle, which also featured a bizarre opera pop number from Romania, the comeback of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" star Bonnie Tyler and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath.
BALTIMORE (AP) - Right from the start, a horse trained by one not so over-the-hill Hall of Famer and ridden by another took control of the Preakness. The result: a huge upset and the end of any hopes for a Triple Crown attempt at the Belmont Stakes. Thanks to Oxbow's wire-to-wire win Saturday over Kentucky Derby winner Orb, trainer D. Wayne Lukas and jockey Gary Stevens have themselves another classic to add to their stellar resumes.
