Right as the conductor was taking my ticket, the train went right off the tracks. It started tipping to one side, constantly bumping up and down and back and forth like crazy. I saw sparks right outside my window. Thirty seconds later, the train going the other way came and jammed right onto us. It scraped the side of our car and gave us another bad jolt. …Life goes on, and it’s not like we’re going to get rid of trains. But you have to figure out what caused this. The accident was right in the middle of what looks like a construction zone — did that play a part? You have to ask the questions.Scott Bartelson • Describing his passenger’s view of yesterday’s frightening train crash and derailment in Connecticut, which hospitalized over 60, some critically — but mercifully, no deaths reported. source
Two Metro North commuter trains crash, reports of injuries: At least 20-25 people have been injured after two Metro North trains crashed outside of Bridgeport, Ct., the Associated Press reports via its Twitter account. (No fatalities have been reported, however.) The heavily-trafficked train route, between New York City and New Haven, Ct., has been suspended for the time being. (photo via NBC Connecticut)
UPDATE: Reports now have 60 injured, including five critically.
Seized from Adam Lanza’s house: Gawker has a breakdown of the unsealed search warrants from after the Newtown shooting. This is one of many lists of the things acquired from the home.
Alissa Parker told “CBS This Morning” in an excerpt of an interview that aired Thursday that she wanted to meet with Adam Lanza’s father, Peter Lanza, to tell him “something” she needed to get out of her system.
It was unclear what they discussed or when the meeting took place. CBS plans to show the rest of the interview with Alissa and Robbie Parker on Friday morning, revealing more details about their meeting with Peter Lanza.
Lanza’s mother was killed during the shooting rampage.
Two Torrington High School football players stand accused of sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. Four others were suspended in a hazing scandal last fall that is still under investigation. One player, the team’s second-highest scorer last fall, was allowed to play even though the team’s coach knew he had been charged with felony robbery and assault.
School officials claim that the sexual assault charges against 18-year-olds Edgar Gonzalez and Joan Toribio, the hazing and other incidents are isolated problems and don’t signal a deeper issue with the culture of Torrington High School, its athletic programs or football team.
…
But on social media in recent weeks, dozens of athletes and Torrington High School students, male and female, have taunted the 13-year-old victim, calling her a “whore,” criticizing her for “snitching” and “ruining the lives” of the 18-year-old football players, and bullying students who defend her.
Extremely tough read. A number of tweets are republished behind the link.
Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, more than a half million cards, letters, and drawings have been sent to the people of Newtown, Connecticut, from around the world. These messages of love, sadness, and hope have been on display in the town hall and viewed there by many residents and visitors. Now they’ll have a permanent home — on Tumblr. Brought to you by Mother Jones, in partnership with Tumblr’s Storyboard.
A reminder of the value of a well-considered concept and a little hard work. Spend a few minutes here today. You will gain a lot from this.
Connecticut school may get named after Sandy Hook victim: Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher who died while shielding her students from a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary, is likely to be honored by nearby Stratford, Connecticut. The town’s mayor, John Harkins, has recommended naming the town’s new school after Soto, who lived in Stratford and graduated from Stratford High School. The town will vote on the proposal tonight.
Although the investigation is still under way, we are aware of no facts or legal theory under which the State of Connecticut should be liable for causing the harms inflicted at Sandy Hook Elementary School.Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen • Discussing, in a statement, a $100 million legal claim filed against the state, which has since been withdrawn, regarding the Sandy Hook shooting. The lawyer, Irv Pinsky, filed the claim upon request of a survivor’s family. (He later withdrew the claim, stating that there was new evidence to research, but he may refile later.) The withdrawn claim stated that the state did not do enough to prevent “foreseeable harm” or offer a “safe school setting.” “We all know it’s going to happen again,” Pinsky claimed last week. “Society has to take action.”
I’m not saying I was always right. I’ll leave that to God and history. But I believed I was doing what I thought was right and people didn’t just disagree with me. There was hatred. But I’m not alone in that. You can take the last three presidents — Clinton, Bush, Obama — and people haven’t just disagreed with them, they’ve hated them. And to me, that’s really terrible. That’s a cancer that’s eating at our politics.Joe Lieberman • Discussing the hatred he’s seen during his time in the Senate, especially in recent years. He should know, he was there, hated by many of the same folks that hated any (or all) of the above presidents. Lieberman, who entered the Senate a Democrat but leaves an Independent, spent 24 years representing Connecticut, and even got thisclose to being a vice president in 2000. No matter your feelings on Joe, he’s probably right on this point.
Nation set to observe moment of silence for Newtown victims
At 9:30 a.m. EST, many people in the United States are joining Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy’s call for a moment of silence to remember the victims of last week’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
NBC News reports thousands of churches are set to ring their bells 26 times at 9:30 a.m.
Photo: A police officer puts his hands together and bows his head before the funeral for 6-year-old shooting victim Catherine Hubbard at Saint Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 20, 2012. (Joshua Lott / Reuters)
Start your moment of silence as soon as you read this. We plan to start ours as soon as we hit the reblog button.
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Dick’s Sporting Goods suspends sale of certain semi-automatics
CNN:
Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of the largest sporting goods retailers in the world, says it has removed all guns from its store nearest to Newtown, Connecticut, and is suspending the sale of certain kinds of semi-automatic rifles from its chains nationwide.
The move was made out of respect for the victims and families of last week’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting “during this time of national mourning,” the store said in a statement Tuesday morning.Photo: An American flag at the center of Newtown, Connecticut, stands at half-staff on Dec. 14. (John Makely / NBC News)
Related to the prior post.
The private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management said on Tuesday that it would sell its investment in the gunmaker Freedom Group in response to the school shootings last week in Connecticut.
Cerberus acquired Bushmaster — the manufacturer of the rifle used by the gunman in the Newtown attacks that killed 27 people, including 20 schoolchildren — in 2006.
The private equity giant later merged it with other gun companies to create Freedom Group, which reported net sales of $677.3 million for the nine months that ended in September 2012, a 20 percent increase compared with the same period last year.
Holy wow. That is a huge harbinger. (ht @BuzzfeedBen)
I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. Friday changed everything. It must change everything. We all must begin anew and demand that Washington’s old way of doing business is no longer acceptable. Entertainment moguls don’t have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America. And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-style, high-caliber, semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high-capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want.
It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas. It’s time for politicians to start focusing more on protecting our schoolyards than putting together their next fundraiser. It’s time for Washington to stop trying to win endless wars overseas when we’re losing the war at home … For the sake of my four children and yours, I choose life and I choose change.
Scarborough, when still in Congress, was notably aligned with the NRA and previously espoused libertarian views on the issue.
Sunday’s New York Times front page does something the paper of record has rarely, if ever, done before: It leads with a black box rather than an image, with zero photos taking up the top half of the page. It also downplays the suspect significantly. (ht @thomaskaplan)
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