text stringlengths 13 81.7k |
|---|
CBS Dallas affiliate KTVT's investigative team found that the federal government has no oversight of amusement parks and some critics say the state has very little, putting the investigation largely in the hands of Six Flags instead of an independent group. Texas state's Department of Insurance, however, does hire a pr... |
Meanwhile, Six Flags has temporarily closed the Iron Rattler roller coaster at its Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. The decision came late Friday after officials heard about the accident in Arlington, Fiesta Texas spokeswoman Sydne Purvis said Monday. |
Purvis said it's a precautionary move until the Texas Giant investigation is completed. Both roller coasters are wooden structures with steel rails. |
The Texas Giant first opened in 1990 as an all-wooden coaster but underwent a $10 million renovation in 2010 to install steel-hybrid rails before reopening in 2011. The coaster, which can carry as many as 24 riders, has a drop of 79 degrees and a bank of 95 degrees. |
Reiss, the amusement park expert, speculated that either Esparza managed to slip out from behind a locked mechanism or that the harness mechanism failed and it opened. |
"Right now, I would say investigators are probably tearing apart every inch of that train and every harness mechanism, and inspecting and testing every millimeter of those harness mechanisms to find out whether the potential even exists for her harness to have failed or for any other harness to have failed," Reiss said... |
The roller coaster was issued its most recent safety permit in February and was in compliance with state regulations that require an annual inspection by a qualified engineer, according to state records. Proof of those inspections also must be submitted to the Texas Department of Insurance. |
Hagins noted that Texas has an insurance-based regulatory system for amusement park rides and that the ride also was in compliance with rules that require $1 million liability insurance. |
The Dallas Morning News has reported that officials with the roller coaster's car manufacturer, Gerstlauer Amusement Rides in Germany, were set to come to Texas to inspect the ride. The company could not be reached late Monday by phone and an email was not immediately returned. |
Don Hankins, of Lakeland, Fla.-based PLH & Associates, Inc., who inspected the roller coaster in February, did not return a call to The Associated Press on Monday. |
Opinion: As U.S. Seeks To Withdraw Troops, What About Afghanistan's Women? The U.S. and the Taliban are working on an agreement to end the war and bring troops home. But NPR's Scott Simon asks: what will happen to Afghanistan's women if the Taliban return to power? |
I bought a burqa in a market when I covered the war in Afghanistan in 2002. I showed it to my wife when I got home, and pulled the blue garment over my head to look through the single thin eye slit that allowed an Afghan woman's only view of the world. |
That's when I truly understood why the Taliban had forced all women in Afghanistan to wear the burqa. It disguised, depersonalized, and confined them. |
This week it was reported that the U.S. and the Taliban have agreed in principle to a plan that could end the war and bring home U.S. troops. |
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative, told the New York Times the Taliban has agreed not to permit Afghanistan from becoming a home for international terrorists. Khalilzad did not mention any negotiations regarding the rights of women. But I doubt any Afghan woman forgets the terror the Taliban created for... |
Under the Taliban, women couldn't leave their homes without a male relative. Women couldn't go to school or work. They couldn't speak in public. They couldn't be treated by a doctor. They could be beaten for reading a book. |
If so much as an inch of a woman's flesh was exposed — like a flash of ankle beneath the burqa when they walked — they could be beaten. Many women were beaten, and raped, and stoned to death. |
An unknown number of women took their lives. Several women told us how they had tried. They simply couldn't see an end to the misery of living under the cruel iron rule of the Taliban. |
I remember going to the first soccer game in the Kabul stadium after the Taliban collapsed. Every few minutes during the game, we'd hear a cheer from different parts of the crowd each time a woman stood up and threw off her burqa — to show her face, and show she had survived and triumphed. |
Americans have grown pessimistic about the war in Afghanistan. More than 2400 Americans have died there over the past 17 years. More than 45,000 Afghan security personnel have been killed just since 2014. |
The constitution Afghanistan adopted in 2004 enshrines the rights of women, and today, 27 percent of the members of the Afghan parliament are women. But as many as two-thirds of school age women in Afghanistan may not be in school, because they live in areas where the Taliban is powerful. |
Will the U.S. work for an agreement that will not only let U.S. troops declare victory over terrorism and go home, but also help Afghan women live free from the terror of oppression? |
Mike Krause wrote: This DP editorial refers to the city's "most vulnerable citizens." This raises a question; if someone is homeless or otherwise living on the streets, and happens to be inside the city limits of Denver, does that mean they are now a citizen of Denver and thus entitled (and there really is no other wor... |
Very perceptive. My own city doesn't have a homeless problem because we don't have any real services for the homeless, and they all go to Denver. |
Wait a minute. Your user name is DenverTodd and your zip code is 80212, yet you say you are not from Denver? |
Stop Fearmongering wrote: "We have a profound hatred of the weak and the poor, and a groveling terror before the rich and successful, and we're building a democracy to match those feelings." |
Yep- and MSNBC, TheDailyKos, and MediaMatters are GREAT sources for unbiased new too. |
Matt Taibbi's opinion seems to be right on when it comes to looking at the U.S. these days. Our collective puppy-kicking skills are developing quite nicely, just look at the comments on this thread. |
People do realize that a lot of the homeless who could benefit from this day center are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, right? Call them bums if you want, but they're on the streets because we are cutting the spending that helps them deal with what our wars did to them. |
throatwarbler wrote: Why spend $10 million on a "problem" that will be FIXED BY THE HICK in exactly 16 months?!? |
They aren't spending $10 million. Read the article. |
Not only can I read, but unlike you I know what it means! When Denver says they are going to build something for $8.6 million it MEANS they are going to spend over 10 million before they even start suing the contractors for the cost over-runs. I'll bookmark this and remind you in a couple of years if they ever build th... |
Still to come, Hancock said in his council letter, is a budget request seeking an undetermined amount for "a significant increase in uniformed police officers in Ballpark, Lower Downtown and on the 16th Street Mall." |
In Ballpark, the request also would cover better street lighting, power-washing of alleys and sidewalks, graffiti removal and pickups of large items. |
Mayoral spokeswoman Amber Miller said details of the request, including whether to hire new officers or shift them around, have been the focus of talks with Denver police and other departments for weeks. |
President Trump Donald John TrumpImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element of criminal intent Feds say marijuana ties could prevent immigrants from getting US citizenship Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report's release: poll MORE’s decision to call for ObamaCare’s complete dismantling in court is... |
Mulvaney, a former member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, argued in favor of backing a lawsuit to nullify the Affordable Care Act during a White House meeting with other officials, according to two published reports. |
The intervention in a case brought by attorneys general from more than a dozen GOP states has frustrated congressional Republicans by handing a new campaign argument to Democrats — just as that party was staggering from the end of special counsel Robert Mueller Robert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Muel... |
A few of those frustrated Republicans see a pattern: The House Freedom Caucus pushing the GOP into a compromising political fix. |
“As a tactic this strikes me as one that is unlikely to be successful, much like the government shutdown in 2013,” said Michael Steel, a onetime aide to former Speaker John Boehner John Andrew Boehner20 years after Columbine, Dems bullish on gun reform Dem says marijuana banking bill will get House vote this spring Tru... |
The Freedom Caucus helped set up the 2013 government shutdown and also backed Trump’s partial shutdown of the government earlier this year over his demands for border wall funding. Its take-no-prisoners approach to governing has frequently rubbed other Republicans the wrong way. |
Rep. Tom Reed Thomas (Tom) W. ReedLawmakers offer bipartisan resolution highlighting sexual assault prevention GOP lawmaker: Battle over Trump tax returns 'is going to have to be litigated' Overnight Health Care: Lawmakers get deal to advance long-stalled drug pricing bill | House votes to condemn Trump's anti-ObamaCar... |
Politico reported Tuesday that Mulvaney was a driving force behind the call for ObamaCare to be struck down, and that the decision was made over the objections of Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Attorney General William Barr William Pelham BarrImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element ... |
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Mulvaney, during an Oval Office meeting on Monday, made the case to Trump that attempting to overturn the law through the courts is the right approach. |
GOP leaders have avoided criticizing Trump’s decision while describing the Affordable Care Act as a flawed law. For the most part, however, Republicans have also not offered praise for the administration’s move. |
Asked about the decision to call for ObamaCare’s dismantling, Rep. Mark Meadows Mark Randall MeadowsThe Hill's Morning Report — Mueller aftermath: What will House Dems do now? Mueller report poses new test for Dems Washington in frenzy over release of Mueller report MORE (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus’s chairman who is c... |
“I think it’s very difficult to find anything that brings everybody together,” he said. |
But Rep. Ted Yoho Theodore (Ted) Scott YohoSecrecy behind Saudi nuclear talks infuriates Congress Congress can finally ensure horses are not tortured for ribbons and prizes Trump's decision on health care law puts spotlight on Mulvaney MORE (R-Fla.), another Freedom Caucus member, cheered the move. |
Trump’s decision on the ObamaCare case shows how Mulvaney is wielding his influence over policy since taking over from former chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE. |
Joe Grogan, Mulvaney’s handpicked choice to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, was reportedly among those arguing the administration should support the judge’s ruling. Grogan is among the more than half-dozen staffers Mulvaney has brought on board at the White House since becoming chief of staff just three m... |
Mulvaney’s former deputy at the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was also reportedly supportive. Vought is leading the office in an acting capacity. |
Mulvaney was also seen as playing an instrumental role in the president’s decision to trigger the 35-day government shutdown over his demand for border wall funding. |
The White House press office did not comment on Mulvaney’s role in the decisionmaking, but some officials downplayed his influence. |
One senior administration official, who requested anonymity to describe the deliberations, said the president has been itching to revive health care as a political issue, regardless of what his advisers were telling him. |
The official also downplayed the notion that the administration is drastically changing strategy, saying Trump’s initial reaction to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling that struck down ObamaCare was consistent with the Justice Department’s shift in position. |
“Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!” Trump tweeted last December, shortly after the judge ruled in a lawsuit brought by a group of Republican state attorneys general, including Texas’s Ken Paxton. |
There is a sense within the administration that Capitol Hill Republicans have been too reluctant to tackle the issue of health care and that the approach favored by Trump and Mulvaney will force them to act. |
Virginia forward Mamadi Diakite celebrates with fans after the championship game against Texas Tech in the Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament, Monday, April 8, 2019, in Minneapolis. |
WATCH: March 14, 2017 — March Madness: Do players get taken advantage of? |
Nothing came easily – appropriate given where Virginia has been over the last year, since its history making loss to University of Maryland-Baltimore County in the first round of last year’s tournament. |
“I told them, I just want a chance at a title fight one day,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. |
The team full of overlooked grinders refused to quit. They fell behind by 10 twice in this game – seemingly too much in a matchup between two legendary defences – but just kept coming back. |
The nation’s best defence couldn’t afford to give up a 3, but Jerome skipped a pass to Hunter, who was open on the wing – and spotted up and drained it. Culver missed a 3 with Guy in his face with a second left, and we were headed to overtime, the first extra session in the final since Kansas beat Memphis in 2008. |
General Electric (GE) shares soared almost 11% on Friday, making it TheStreet's move of the day. |
General Electric (GE) shares soared almost 11% on Friday, making it TheStreet's Move of the Day. GE announced Friday morning the sale of most of its finance arm GE Capital. The big buyers are Blackstone (BX) and Wells Fargo (WFC), which are acquiring GE's real estate holdings for $26.5 billion dollars. This comes as GE... |
Feeling the heat from Congress's embrace of the 9/11 commission's report, homeland security officials unveiled a new program on Thursday that will check 2 million airline passengers a day against a centralized terrorist watch list beginning early next year. |
The proposal, known as Secure Flight, supplants a sweeping and highly controversial proposal, known as CAPPS II, introduced in 2002 that was criticized by Congress and privacy advocates until it was killed off by the Transportation Security Administration in June. |
Both CAPPS II and Secure Flight were developed to replace the current system, CAPPS, which is administered by the airlines. CAPPS compares passengers to watch lists provided to airlines by the government and earmarks passengers for extra screening based on behaviors such as buying a one-way ticket or paying in cash. |
Congress and the Sept. 11 commission now want the TSA to do the checking so the watch lists can be expanded without fear that terrorists might get a copy. |
Under Secure Flight, which the TSA wants to start testing on old airline reservation data in November, airlines will forward passenger lists to the government. |
The TSA will then check the names against an interagency centralized terrorist watch list and decide whether passengers should be singled out for extra scrutiny or arrest. |
The announcement was greeted with cautious praise from civil liberties advocates. |
"This program looks better than CAPPS II, but it will be interesting to see if the program expands over the next few months," said Marcia Hofmann, staff counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. |
Adm. David Stone, the chief of the Transportation Security Administration, tried to stress that this was a completely new program, telling reporters in a phone conference that "Yes, CAPPS II is dead." |
The new proposal is less a complete rethinking of CAPPS II, than it is a scaled-back version. |
CAPPS II would have required passengers to provide their date of birth, address and phone number when making a reservation. That information, which currently is not in many airline records, would be checked against terrorist watch lists, commercial databases and lists of people wanted for violent crimes. The new system... |
The program will not be looking for people with outstanding warrants, a proposal criticized by many as an expansion of law enforcement powers that was unnecessary for airline safety. |
The new proposal, like the old one, will also consult commercial databases, such as those owned by data aggregators Acxiom and LexisNexis, to verify passengers' identities. But Stone said the TSA was only testing whether that was useful and did not make clear how extensively the program would use commercial databases. |
Secure Flight, as introduced, will not incorporate CAPPS II-style computer algorithms to figure out if passengers not on watch lists have links to or appear to be terrorists. |
"Both the use of algorithms to predict (who is a terrorist), as well as any desire to have folks with outstanding warrants flagged, both of which were part of CAPPS II, are clearly not part of where we are going on Secure Flight," Stone said. |
The reliance on terrorist watch lists is not without its own drawbacks and was one of the main reasons the government wanted to replace the current system. |
Since names and spellings are not unique, anyone named David Nelson and Sen. Edward Kennedy have found themselves caught by the TSA's "selectee" list. |
Lists have also snared people who had the same name as suspected terrorists that were already in custody in Guantanamo Bay. |
Secure Flight will rely on the Terrorist Screening Center's centralized watch list housed at the FBI, but it is unclear if the TSA will maintain its own lists or use the full list. The center's director, Donna A. Bucella, told Congress in March the list is now 120,000 names long. |
Lara Flint, a lawyer at the Center for Democracy and Technology, argues that the TSA needs to use its clout to make sure the centralized lists are carefully constructed and maintained. |
"We have to get these watch lists right or this program is not going to make us more secure and it's going to be bad for civil liberties," Flint said. "You can't roll this out on a scale needed for all airline passengers until you get it right and have enough information in there to make it work." |
Though the TSA has not yet finished its internal evaluation of possible Privacy Act violations committed while developing CAPPS II, the agency plans on publishing a Privacy Impact Assessment and a Privacy Act statement for Secure Flight by Sept. 1. |
The TSA will also need to get clearance from the Government Accountability Office and compel airlines to turn over passenger data. Airlines are reluctant to participate voluntarily, given the bad publicity that accompanied revelations that six of the 10 largest airlines secretly shared passenger data with the governmen... |
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands - Royal Nedlloyd Group NV, the shipping and transport firm, will sell its telecommunications subsidiary, Nedlloyd Telecom, to PTT Telecom, the Dutch telecom monopoly. |
Nedlloyd Telecom, which has a payroll of 30, eventually will be integrated into Unicom, the international joint venture between PTT-Telecom and Televerket. |
NEW YORK - Directors of Illinois Central Corp. announced a 3-for-2 split of its common stock. |
The stock split, announced Tuesday, will be in the form of a stock dividend of the company's common stock to holders of record Feb 18. New certificates will be issued by Feb 28. |
ARLINGTON, Va. - Randall Malin, who had been executive vice president of marketing and vice chairman of the board of directors at USAir, has resigned to pursue other opportunities, the airline said Monday. |
ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Thruway recorded the lowest fatality rate in its 37-year history last year, with 0.67 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. The previous low of 0.70 was recorded in 1984. |
Thruway officials attributed the drop to the use of wider pavement markings, the installation of high-intensity signs, an ongoing program to add more than 85 miles of median barriers and safety campaigns. |
More than 208 million vehicles traveled over 6.2 billion miles on the thruway last year. |
A Heliconius butterfly in captivity feeds on a flower. |
A mating pair of peppered moths - one black, the other pale. The mutation giving rise to the black form is estimated to have occurred in 1819. |
A Heliconius erato demophoon butterfly feeding on a Psychotria flower in the wild in Panama. |
What does the blackness of moths that evolved in the smog of the British industrial revolution have in common with the beautiful colour patterns of certain types of tropical butterfly? |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.