WATERFORD, Conn. - A high-speed Amtrak Acela train plowed into a car at a crossing Wednesday, killing a woman and her 8-year-old grandson and causing major delays along the Boston-to-Washington corridor.
The accident happened just after 7:40 a.m. on the southbound tracks 21/2 miles west of New London, Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said. The train hit the car and dragged it several hundred yards, with the engine coming to rest on top of the demolished vehicle.
Patricia Metzermacher, 61, and Zachary Joseph Metzermacher were killed, police said. A granddaughter, Courtney Metzermacher, 4, was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday evening.
None of the 116 passengers and four crew members on the train were hurt, police said.
Train service was halted for about six hours. The passengers were taken to other trains in New London.
First black female federal judge dies at age 84
NEW YORK - Constance Baker Motley, a civil rights lawyer who fought nearly every important civil rights case for two decades, winning the desegregation of schools, buses and lunch counters, and then became the first black woman to serve as a federal judge, died Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 84.
The cause was congestive heart failure, said Isolde Motley, her daughter-in-law.
Judge Motley was the first black woman to serve as a New York state senator, as well as the first woman to be Manhattan borough president.
She graduated in 1943 from New York University with an economics degree and entered Columbia Law School in 1944. While still a student she met her mentor Thurgood Marshall, who was then with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and started there as a law clerk. She obtained a law degree in 1946, the same year she married real estate and insurance broker Joel Wilson Motley.
Over two decades Judge Motley, who rose to principal trial attorney for the NAACP, worked with Marshall on many of the landmark cases that ended segregation and established equal rights for African-Americans.
They pushed the constitutional claims that allowed James Meredith and Charlene Hunter-Gault to attend Southern universities and desegregated many state university systems, including Florida's.
Former Illinois governor goes on trial in graft case
CHICAGO - The biggest corruption trial in Chicago in decades opened Wednesday with a federal prosecutor launching a blistering attack on former Gov. George Ryan, saying he betrayed the public's trust by taking cash and gifts to help insiders land lucrative state contracts.
"The fix was in in Illinois government," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon.
Ryan, 71, is accused of giving a lobbyist friend, Larry Warner, free rein to steer contracts to his clients in exchange for gifts and favors during Ryan's term as Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s. Ryan faces 18 corruption counts, including conspiracy and fraud. Warner, a co-defendant, faces 12 counts.
The federal case, dubbed Operation Safe Road, began seven years ago as an inquiry into the paying of bribes for drivers' licenses and ballooned into a full-scale investigation of political corruption.
Pentagon okays hybrid chopper-airplane
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to begin full-rate production of the V-22 Osprey, the hybrid helicopter-airplane that the Marine Corps considers vital to the future of its air fleet.
The Osprey program has been threatened since 23 Marines died in crashes during testing in 2000.
The go-ahead to start full-scale production was approved by the Defense Acquisition Board.
