McCain: CIA misled on missing American
WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain said Sunday the CIA has not been forthcoming with the Congress on details about an American who disappeared while on a secret intelligence mission to Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister asserted that Robert Levinson is “not incarcerated by the government, and I believe the government runs, pretty much, good control of the country.”
An Associated Press investigation published last week found that Levinson was working for the CIA – investigating the Iranian government. The U.S. long has publicly described Levinson as a private citizen who traveled to an Iranian island on private business.
McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN’s “State of the Union,” “The CIA did not tell the truth to the American Congress about Mr. Levinson.”
Peter O’Toole passes away at 81
LONDON – Known on the one hand for his starring role in “Lawrence of Arabia,” leading tribesmen in daring attacks across the desert wastes, and on the other for his headlong charges into drunken debauchery, Peter O’Toole was one of the most magnetic, charismatic and fun figures in British acting.
O’Toole, who died Saturday at age 81 at the private Wellington Hospital in London after a long bout of illness, was nominated a record eight times for an Academy Award without taking home a single statue.
He was fearsomely handsome, with burning blue eyes and a penchant for hard living that long outlived his decision to give up alcohol. Broadcaster Michael Parkinson told Sky News television it was hard to be too sad about his passing.
“Peter didn’t leave much of life unlived, did he?” he said.
“If you can’t do something willingly and joyfully, then don’t do it,” O’Toole once said. “If you give up drinking, don’t go moaning about it; go back on the bottle. Do. As. Thou. Wilt.”
Many trains don’t use available auto brakes
NEW YORK – After a speeding Metro-North Railroad commuter train barreled into a curve and derailed in New York City on Dec. 1, safety advocates said similar deadly accidents might soon be avoided. Railroads across the country are preparing to deploy high-tech control systems that will let computers automatically slow trains that are moving too fast or headed for a collision.
Yet there is already low-tech equipment, widely available since the Great Depression, that could have prevented the crash, and every Metro-North train already has it.
For many years, the trains have been outfitted with control systems that will sound an alarm if an engineer exceeds a designated speed or blows through a red light, then robotically slam on the brakes if the driver doesn’t respond.
Historically, though, the system has been used on Metro-North mainly to keep trains from colliding, not to enforce speed limits on curves, hills or bridges.
That meant that no alarm sounded when engineer William Rockefeller failed to slow as he approached a tight curve in the Bronx. Federal investigators said the train was moving at 82 mph, well above the curve’s 30 mph speed limit. Four people died in the wreck. Rockefeller said he became dazed or nodded at the controls, according to federal investigators, his lawyer and a union official.
Skiers, lodges buoyed by Northeast snow
HARTFORD, Conn. – A weekend storm that dumped a foot or more of snow in parts of the Northeast made ski-area operators and snow removal workers happy, but travelers were forced to deal with slippery roads and flight cancellations Sunday.
Molly Taaffe, 23, was on the slopes at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, N.H., by 8 a.m. for her 10th day of skiing this season. She said it was her best outing yet.
Snowfall in the region ranged from 2 to 8 inches in Connecticut and Rhode Island to almost 11 inches in northern Massachusetts and nearly 17 inches on Maine’s southern coast, according to the National Weather Service.
Car accidents were reported across the region, including a crash in central Pennsylvania that killed two people late Saturday morning.
Associated Press
