Gas blast eyed in NYC building collapse
NEW YORK – An apparent gas explosion leveled an apartment building, largely destroyed another and launched rubble and shards of glass across streets in the heart of Manhattan’s trendy East Village on Thursday, injuring at least a dozen people. Smoke could be seen and smelled for miles.
Restaurant diners ran out of their shoes, and bystanders helped one another to escape the midafternoon blast, which damaged four buildings as flames shot into the air, witnesses said. Passers-by were hit by debris and flying glass, and bloodied victims were aided as they sat on sidewalks and lay on the ground, they said.
“It was terrifying – absolutely terrifying,” said Bruce Finley, a visitor from San Antonio, Texas, who had just taken a photo of his food at a restaurant known for its French fries when he felt the explosion next door. “It just happened out of the blue. ... We were shaking even an hour, hour and a half later.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said preliminary evidence suggested a gas explosion amid plumbing and gas work inside the building that collapsed was to blame. Firefighters said at least 12 people were hurt, four critically, some with burns to their airways.
House panel looks into Bergdahl swap
WASHINGTON – The House Oversight panel is asking the White House for intelligence information, reports and documents on the swap of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive for five years, for five members of the Taliban.
Republican Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the committee’s chairman, and Ron DeSantis of Florida sent a letter late Thursday to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough seeking the information.
Last year, President Barack Obama sent five Taliban detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Qatar as part of an exchange for Bergdahl. The move angered many lawmakers who weren’t given the proper notification.
Bergdahl, who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held captive by the Taliban, was charged Wednesday with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
GOP budget moving fast in Senate
WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans pushed a balanced-budget blueprint toward late-night approval Thursday night, laying down conservative markers for a likely struggle with President Obama over their plans to erase deficits through trillions in spending cuts and repeal of the health-care law.
Approval of the non-binding budget was a certainty, one day after the House ratified a slightly different version on a party-line vote.
Separately, legislation to stabilize the system for paying physicians who treat Medicare patients cleared the House during the day and is expected to pass the Senate. As a result, the week’s events gave credence to Republican claims that their new, two-house majority would be able to govern without the chaos that often has plagued Congress in recent years.
But first, senators plunged into a peculiarly senatorial ritual known inside the Capitol as “vote-a-rama” – bringing up dozens of proposed changes largely designed to score political points on issues as diverse as the sage-grouse and the minimum wage.
Iran centrifuges may run at fortified site
LAUSANNE, Switzerland – The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites, officials have told The Associated Press.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb, and the site would be subject to international inspections, according to Western officials familiar with details of negotiations now underway. In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said. The number of centrifuges would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium needed to produce a weapon within a year – the minimum time-frame that Washington and its negotiating partners demand.
Associated Press, Washington Post
