In this morning's New York Times, we'll start by noting Norimitsu Onishi's "Toll Rises to 71 in Japan Crash; Riders Blame Train's Speed:"
The packed commuter train that crashed into an apartment building in western Japan on Monday morning, killing at least 71 passengers and injuring well over 400 more, may have been speeding to make up for a brief delay, survivors said. The authorities here described the train accident as the deadliest in four decades.
The train had been running 90 seconds behind schedule. Five of its seven cars derailed at about 9:20 a.m. at a curve in Amagasaki, a suburb of Osaka. The survivors said the train seemed to have been speeding as it approached the curve.
The first two cars slammed into a nine-story apartment building just 20 feet from the tracks, with the front car hurtling into a first-floor parking garage and the second car twisting itself around a corner of the building.
Lynda e-mails to note Douglas Jehl's "Ex-Officials Say Bolton Inflated Syrian Danger:"
John R. Bolton clashed repeatedly with American intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 as he sought to deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated, according to former intelligence officials.
Ultimately, the former intelligence officials said, most of what Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state, said publicly about Syria hewed to the limits on which the C.I.A. and other agencies had insisted. But they said that the prolonged and heated disputes over Mr. Bolton's proposed remarks were unusual within government, and that they reflected what one former senior official called a pattern in which Mr. Bolton sought to push his public assertions beyond the views endorsed by intelligence agencies.
Ben e-mails to note Eric Lipton's "Some U.S. Security Agents Chafe Under Speech Limits:"
It would be natural to expect that as president of an employee association that represents more than 1,000 federal air marshals, Frank Terreri would be a reasonably outspoken guy.
But since Mr. Terreri became the association's president two years ago, he has been effectively prohibited by the rules of the Federal Air Marshal Service from speaking in public about airline safety matters. He has never been quoted in a newspaper article or written letters to the editor or to members of Congress outside his district.
Billie e-mails to note Sam Dillon's "Texas Officials Shrug Off Fine Over Bush Law:"
The authorities in Texas yesterday shrugged off a fine that the federal Department of Education has imposed on the state because it was late last year in notifying schools and districts whether they had reached student achievement benchmarks under President Bush's No Child Left Behind law.
Robin Toner has a story on Social Security and, to anyone new to the site, a member's allowed to comment on Toner's reporting but I've exempted myself from discussing Toner's writing. That's been the rule from the start. If someone comments (negatively or positively) elsewhere, we're happy to quote from that and link to that. But, as I've noted here from the beginning of this site, I've been told (outside of this site and before it was created) that I'm not objective about Toner's writing so I've always maintained that I wouldn't discuss it here or link to it. That's not intended as an insult to Toner. For the record, I supposedly inflate the value of her writing. Whether that's true or not, that charge existed before this site came into being so I've always refrained from commenting on her writing here.
Any member is allowed to comment. Write down what you want to share with the community. But since I've long been told I'm not objective about her writing, I've noted that here and avoided linking to it, quoting from it or commenting on it. That rule applies only for me, members can share whatever they want to.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
