Cause of deadly leak in Texas unknown

LA PORTE, Texas – DuPont officials said Sunday it’s still not clear what caused a toxic chemical to leak from a valve at a suburban Houston plant, killing four workers and injuring a fifth.

Company spokesman Aaron Woods said DuPont is investigating the cause of the leak of methyl mercaptan at a plant in La Porte. The chemical is used to create crop-protection products such as insecticides and fungicides.

The workers were exposed early Saturday while responding to the leak that started around 4 a.m. and took about two hours to contain. They all were working there as part of their normal shift when the leak happened, Woods said.

The four workers died at the plant, and a fifth was transported to a nearby hospital. The injured worker has been released from the hospital.

Man pushed before subway train, dies

NEW YORK – A man standing with his wife on a Bronx subway platform was pushed onto the tracks Sunday morning by another man and was struck and killed by an oncoming train, police said. The assailant fled.

Police said an unidentified man pushed the husband off the platform at the Grand Concourse and East 167th Street station in Highbridge, an act that appeared to be unprovoked. He was struck by a southbound D train at around 8:40 a.m. and pronounced dead at the scene. His wife was not injured.

There was no indication that the husband knew the man nor had he been in an altercation with him before he was pushed, police said. Witnesses told police they believed the man fled the subway station after the shoving and jumped on a city bus.

There have been three other incidents in recent years that involved a person being pushed onto the tracks.

Video of MH17 downing shows alarm

HRABOVE, Ukraine – Four months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine, The Associated Press has obtained video that shows how close the burning passenger jet came to hitting village homes and suggests that residents first assumed it was a Ukrainian military plane that had been struck.

The amateur footage, filmed by a resident of Hrabove, shows people reacting in alarm as wreckage blazes only a few meters away from their homes on the afternoon of July 17. The video is perhaps the first taken immediately after the plane came down.

The ultimate cause of the MH17 disaster is the subject of major diplomatic disputes. Ukraine and Western government say Russia-backed separatist fighters fired the rockets that felled the plane, while state-run television in Moscow over the weekend produced evidence it claims places blame with Ukraine’s air force.

All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when it was shot down over a rebel-held area. Charred remains of the aircraft are scattered around fields over an area of 8 square miles.

Associated Press