Extensive triple digit heat, broken temperature records and oppressive humidity piled up into a steaming mess as the heat dome crushing the Eastern half of the nation sizzled to what should be its worst Tuesday. New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) a little after noon, the first time since 2013. More than 150 million people woke up to heat warnings and forecasters at the National Weather Service expected dozens of places to tie or set new daily high temperature records Tuesday. “Every East Coast state today from Maine to Florida has a chance of 100 degree actual temperature,” said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist. “Getting Maine to 100 degrees is infrequent.” Tuesday’s heat came on top of 39 new or tied heat records Monday. But just as dangerous as triple digit heat is the lack of cooling at night, driven by the humidity. “You get the combination of the extreme heat and humidity but no relief,” said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist at the weather’s service’s Weather Prediction Center. “It’s kind of been just everything stacked on top of itself…. It just speaks to how strong this heat wave is. This is a pretty, pretty extreme event.” Asherman and Maue said Tuesday is the peak of the high pressure system that sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic and keeps the heat and humidity turned up several notches. “It’s oppressing,” Maue said, adding that the dome is pushing the heat down. The heat hit New York City as residents headed to the polls to vote in the city’s primary election. In the Queens neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Rekha Malhotra was handing out flyers in support of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani while wearing a pink electric fan around their neck. “It’s 90 bazillian degrees and here I am,” said Malhotra, an event DJ. “I could have been phone banking.” “I have all the things — hat, ice and this,” Malhotra added, pulling out a commercial-grade spray bottle from their bag. The heat and humidity during the day was compounded by humid nights where the temperatures don’t drop much and the human body and the electric bill don’t get a break to recover from the worst of the day, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central. “The longer the heat lasts, the more it wears on the body, the more it wears on the health, the more it where’s under the energy bill,” Woods Placky said. “So one day is going to take a hit, but then when that combines with another day and night, and then another day at night, it just continues to add up.” Amtrak reported delays Tuesday due to speed restrictions caused by the heat on routes that went through Washington, Philadelphia and New York. And in New Hampshire, two 16-year-old hikers were rescued from a mountain in Jaffrey late Monday afternoon, overcome by the heat, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said. They were described as being in and out of consciousness and taken to a hospital. (AP)

A long-delayed project promising nonstop rail service between San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours may be able to secure the private funding it desperately needs if California agrees to pay the investors back, its chief executive told The Associated Press. Ian Choudri, who was appointed CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in August, is tasked with reinvigorating the nation’s largest infrastructure project amid skyrocketing costs and new fears that the Trump administration could pull $4 billion in federal funding. “We started this one, and we are not succeeding,” Choudri said, describing what drew him to the job after work on high-speed systems in Europe. “That was the main reason for me to say, let’s go in, completely turn it around, and put it back to where it should have been. Fix all the issues, get the funding stabilized, and demonstrate to the rest of the world that when we decide that we want to do it, we actually will do it.” Voters first approved $10 billion in bond money in 2008 to cover about a third of the estimated cost with a promise the train would be up and running by 2020. Five years past that deadline, no tracks have been laid and Choudri acknowledges it may take nearly two more decades to complete most of the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles segment, even if funding is secured. Funding woes The project’s price tag now exceeds $100 billion, more than triple the initial estimate. It has mostly been funded by the state through the voter-approved bond and money from the state’s cap-and-trade program. A little less than a quarter of the money has come from the federal government. The authority has already spent about $13 billion. The state is now out of bond money, and officials need to come up with a financing plan for the Central Valley segment by mid-2026, according to the inspector general’s office overseeing the project. “The managers of the project were in trouble from the very beginning because they never had the financing – certainly not stable and predicting financing — that they would have needed to manage the project efficiently,” said Lou Thompson, who led a peer review group that analyzes the state’s high-speed rail plans. Losing money from the federal government “would require a real hard rethinking of what do we do to survive the next four years,” he said. Rail leaders are in talks with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and state lawmakers on what will be needed to secure private investment, Choudri said, adding that without the private sector money the state may have to take out federal loans or issue new bonds. At an industry forum in January, private investors expressed interest in the project but need some form of security, he said. Choudri is pushing Newsom and lawmakers to consider a program that would eventually commit the state to paying back private investors, possibly with interest. That would give the state more time to cover the cost. Legislative Democrats say they remain hopeful for the project’s future. But they haven’t unveiled any proposals yet this year in the state Legislature to set aside additional funding and have resisted spending more money on the project in the past. Choudri plans to provide lawmakers this summer with an updated timeline

A major winter blast of snow, ice, wind and plunging temperatures in the U.S. stirred dangerous travel conditions from central and southern states all the way to the East Coast early Monday, prompting schools and government offices in several states to close. Snow and ice blanketed major roads across Kansas, western Nebraska and parts of Indiana, where the state’s National Guard was activated to help stranded motorists. At least 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow was expected, along with gusting winds up to 45 mph (72 kph). The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings from Kansas and Missouri all the way to New Jersey. “For locations in this region that receive the highest snow totals, it may be the heaviest snowfall in at least a decade,” the weather service said. The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole. People in the U.S., Europe and Asia experience its intense cold when the vortex escapes and plunges southward. Studies show a fast-warming Arctic is partly to blame for the increasing frequency of the polar vortex extending its icy grip. Classes canceled School closings are expected to be widespread Monday. Districts in Indiana, Virginia and Kentucky began announcing cancellations and delays on Sunday afternoon. Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools canceled classes, extracurricular activities and athletics for its nearly 100,000 students. Classes also have been cancelled in Maryland, where Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency Sunday and announced the state government would be closed Monday. “Keeping Marylanders safe is our top priority. Please stay off the roads during this storm. Prepare your home and family and charge your communications devices in case you lose power,” Moore said in a statement. Car wrecks proliferate as storm hits Over the weekend, at least 600 motorists were stranded in Missouri, authorities said. Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky, where a state trooper was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after his patrol car was hit. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who declared a state emergency, said government buildings would be closed Monday. “We see far too many wrecks out there for people that do not have to be on the roads, so I want to ask: Stay inside,” Beshear said. Virginia State Police reported at least 135 crashes as the storm entered the state Sunday. In Charleston, West Virginia, where several inches (centimeters) of snow had fallen by Sunday night, authorities urged motorists to stay home. Snow and ice in the forecast In Indiana, snow fully covered portions of Interstate 64, Interstate 69 and U.S. Route 41, prompting Indiana State Police to plead with motorists to stay off the roads as plows worked to keep up. “It’s snowing so hard, the snow plows go through and then within a half hour the roadways are completely covered again,” Sgt. Todd Ringle said. Roughly 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow fell in Kansas, with eventual totals predicted to top 14 inches (36 centimeters) for parts of that state and northern Missouri. In Kentucky, Louisville recorded 7.7 inches (19.5 centimeters) of snow on Sunday, a new record for the date that shattered the previous mark of 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) set in 1910. The storm was forecast to move into the Ohio Valley and reach the Mid-Atlantic states on Monday, with a hard freeze

President Joe Biden on Wednesday honored his first wife and baby daughter 52 years after they were killed in a car crash in Delaware that is a defining moment for the lifelong public servant. Biden’s wife Neilia, 30, had taken their kids — 1-year-old daughter Naomi and sons Beau and Hunter — shopping when the car she was driving was broadsided by a tractor-trailer. Neilia and Naomi were killed. Beau, 3 and Hunter, 2, were gravely injured. The president, his current wife, Jill, son Hunter and other members of the family attended a private memorial service near Biden’s home in Delaware. After the service, the family, with Jill Biden seen holding hands with Hunter’s young son, Beau Biden, walked to the cemetery where the gravesites are located. Biden speaks often about the personal loss, sharing the story as recently as last week. He told of being in Washington with then-Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., when he got a phone call. “I got a phone call from my local fire department, telling me there had been an accident,” he said at a White House dinner attended by members of Kennedy’s family. “And the poor firewoman they put on the call for me said — I said, ‘How are they?’ They said, ‘Uh, uh, um, she’s dead. Your daughter is dead. And I’m not sure your two sons will make it.” Biden, who also was 30 at the time of the accident, talks about how he almost walked away from his career. But he took the advice of other senators, was sworn into office at his sons’ hospital bedside and made a daily commute between Delaware and Washington on Amtrak. Next month, Biden will close the book on a nearly 50-year career in elected politics and public service that includes 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president and four years as president. His openness about his grief and coping with it, and his ability to empathize with others who have experienced loss, have become one of his trademarks. Biden married Jill Jacobs in 1977 and she helped raise Beau and Hunter as if they were her own. Later, she and Biden added daughter Ashley. Decades after that fatal car crash, Biden, as vice president, navigated through personal loss again when Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at 46. Beau Biden is also buried in the cemetery. (AP)

The federal government is handing out $2.4 billion in railroad grants to help pay for 122 projects nationwide with more than half of the money going to smaller railroads. The grants announced Tuesday by the Federal Railroad Administration will go to projects across 41 states and Washington, D.C. Most of the money will go to track and bridge upgrades. But some of the grants will be used to bolster training and explore cleaner-burning alternatives to the diesel railroads have long relied on. Some small railroads will also get help upgrading to more efficient locomotives. Much of the money comes from the 2021 infrastructure law that President Joe Biden championed. Last year, the administration handed out $1.4 billion in these rail grants. “Each project advances a future where our supply chains are stronger, passenger rail more accessible, and freight movement safer and more efficient,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. Some of the grants will also help address rail safety concerns that have become prevalent since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023 and spilled a cocktail of hazardous chemicals that caught fire. Regulators have urged railroads to improve safety and the industry has undertaken a number of initiatives on its own. But bigger changes that lawmakers proposed after the disastrous derailment have stalled in Congress and little progress has been made in the current election year. The biggest single project is a $215 million grant that will help pay to replace a Hudson River bridge that CSX owns between Albany and Rensselaer, New York, that Amtrak relies heavily on. The state is paying the other 60% of the $634.8 million cost of the project that will allow two trains and pedestrians to cross the river at the same time. Currently, about 12 Amtrak trains and several freight trains cross the bridge, built in 1901, every day. In Illinois, nearly $160 million will go toward consolidating Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern’s tracks through Springfield and help clear the way for a higher speed rail connection between Chicago and St. Louis. One grant worth up to $100 million will help bolster tracks that Amtrak uses against threats related to climate change and improve the reliability of the tracks in southern California’s Orange County. Several grants, including one worth more than $48 million, will go toward development of hydrogen-powered locomotives that could one day help the rail industry drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Other grants include $67 million to expand an intermodal railyard in Michigan where shipping containers are moved between trains and trucks. Nearly $73 million will go to improving the Muskego railyard in Milwaukee. But the majority of the money — nearly $1.3 billion — will go to 81 projects at smaller short line railroads across the country. Chuck Baker, president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association trade group, said the grants will help those smaller railroads significantly. “Congress and the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) can be confident that short lines will put these public dollars to good use, providing new and efficient ways of serving customers, linking small town and rural America to U.S. and international markets,” Baker said. (AP)

As freight trains have grown longer, the U.S. has seen an increase in the number of a type of derailment caused by the forces of railcars pushing and pulling against each other, the National Academies of Sciences said Tuesday in a long-awaited report that urges regulators, Congress and the industry to reexamine their risks. Railroads should take special care in the way they assemble trains that routinely measure more than a mile or two, especially those with a mix of different types of cars, the report said, echoing a warning the Federal Railroad Administration issued last year. “Long trains aren’t inherently dangerous. But if you don’t have adequate planning on how to put the train together, they can be,” said Peter Swan, a Penn State University professor who was one of the report’s authors. The increased use of long trains has allowed the major freight railroads — CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CPKC and Canadian National — to cut costs because they can employ fewer crews and maintain fewer locomotives. The average length of trains increased by about 25% from 2008 to 2017. By 2021, when the report was commissioned, some trains had grown to nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 meters), or more than 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) long. The unions representing train crews have said that longer trains are harder to handle, especially when they travel across uneven territory, because of the way cars push and pull against each other. On a train that’s more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) long, one section can be going uphill while another section is going downhill. Such trains are so long that the radios rail workers use might not work from the front to the back of them. “Anybody and everybody that’s in rail safety knows that this is a problem. It cannot be overstated,” said Jared Cassity, the top safety expert at the SMART-TD union that represents conductors. “Long trains absolutely are a risk to the public and a risk to the workers and anybody with common sense can see that.” Mark Wallace with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said Tuesday’s report reinforces what engineers have long known: “Long trains have a greater risk of derailing, have communications issues, and pose a threat to the public due to blocked crossings, among other issues.” The union urged Congress and regulators to act quickly. The railroads say they work to ensure their trains are safe at any length. The president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads trade group, Ian Jefferies, said many railroads use software that helps them model train forces before railcars are hooked together. “As operations continue to evolve, railroads are pulling on three key levers — technology, training and infrastructure — to further enhance safety and reliability,” Jefferies said. But Cassity said countless derailments over the years have shown that software and the cruise control systems that help engineers operate a train are imperfect. The number of derailments in the U.S. has held steady at more than 1,000 a year, or more than three a day, even as rail traffic decreased. Railroads say two-thirds of those are minor. Derailments have gotten increased attention since a disastrous one in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023 in which hazardous chemicals leaked and burned for days. That Norfolk

A freight train carrying fuel derailed and caught fire Friday near the Arizona-New Mexico state line, forcing the closure of an interstate highway that serves as a key trucking route. Initial passersby posted video and photos on social media of crumpled train cars and billowing, black smoke. No injuries were reported in the midday train wreck near Lupton, Arizona. BNSF Railway spokesperson Lena Kent said company personnel were on site working to clear the wreckage. Kent said the cause of the derailment is under investigation. Interstate 40 was closed by authorities in both directions in the area in the early afternoon, directing trucks and motorists off the freeway to alternate routes, New Mexico State Police and the Arizona Department of Public Safety announced. The train was transporting non-odorous propane and gasoline, and a half-dozen rail cars caught fire and burned for hours after the derailment, New Mexico State Police Lt. Phil Vargas said. “It looks like they’re just letting those (rail) cars burn themselves out,” Vargas said. Nearby residences and a truck stop were evacuated as a precaution as winds carried away thick smoke and local firefighting crews responded. The derailment also led Amtrak to cancel some passenger travel, including on the route between Los Angeles and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Traffic on I-40 backed up for more than 10 miles, though detours were opened on two-lane roads and highways, said Kristine Bustos-Mihelcic, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Transportation. The agency warned Friday evening of an extended highway closure that would increase traffic on other interstate highways, including I-25 and I-10. The Arizona Corporation Commission that oversees railroad safety said in a social media post on X that 10 rail cars were involved in the derailment and that two were transporting liquid petroleum. The agency said it planned to send a railroad inspector to the site but later learned the derailment happened on the New Mexico side of the tracks. (AP)

President Joe Biden got a firsthand look Friday at efforts to clear away the “mangled mess” of remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as cranes, ships and diving crews work to reopen one of the nation’s main shipping lanes. Aboard Marine One, circling the warped metal remains and the mass of construction and salvage equipment trying to clear the wreckage of last week’s collapse, which killed six workers, Biden got an up close view of the devastation. On the ground later, he received a briefing from local officials, the U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers on the situation in the water and its impacts on the region. The president also greeted police officers who helped block traffic to the bridge in the moments before it was hit by a ship — which helped avert an even larger loss of life. “I’m here to say your nation has your back and I mean it,” Biden said from the shoreline overlooking the collapsed bridge in Dundalk, just outside Baltimore. “Your nation has your back.” Eight workers — immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — were filling potholes on the bridge when it was hit by a huge cargo ship and collapsed in the middle of the night of March 26. Two men were rescued and the bodies of two others were recovered in subsequent days. Authorities announced Friday evening that salvage divers had recovered, in the hours before Biden arrived, a third body from the water, that of Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 38, one of the missing workers. They said the search for the other victims will continue. The president also met for more than an hour with the families of those killed. “The damage is devastating and our hearts are still breaking,” Biden said. Officials have established a temporary, alternate channel for vessels involved in clearing debris. The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to open a limited-access channel for barge container ships and some vessels moving cars and farm equipment by the end of this month, and to restore normal capacity to Baltimore’s port by May 31, the White House says. That’s important since longer delays in reopening shipping lanes could send shockwaves through the economy. As much as $200 million in cargo normally moves through Baltimore’s port per day, and it is the leading hub for importing and exporting vehicles. More than 50 salvage divers and 12 cranes are on site to help cut out sections of the bridge and remove them from the key waterway. Officials told Biden they had all the resources they need to meet the targets for opening the channel into the Baltimore port. The president announced that some of the largest employers affected by the collapse, including Amazon, Home Depot and Domino Sugar, have committed to keeping their employees on payroll until the port is reopened. That followed days of outreach by state and federal officials to try to mitigate the economic impact. “From the air I saw the bridge that has been ripped apart,” Biden said, “but here on the ground I see a community that’s pulled together.” It is still unclear, though, how the costs of cleanup and building a new bridge will be covered. The Federal Highway Administration has provided $60 million in “quick release”

A container ship struck a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, causing it to plunge into the river below. From 1960 to 2015, there have been 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collision, with a total of 342 people killed, according to a 2018 report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure. Eighteen of those collapses happened in the United States. A list of notable disasters involving ships or barges hitting bridges in the U.S.: POPP’S FERRY BRIDGE March 20, 2009: A vessel pushing eight barges rammed into the Popp’s Ferry Bridge in Biloxi, Mississippi, resulting in a 150-foot section of the bridge collapsing into the bay. QUEEN ISABELLA CAUSEWAY: 8 DEAD Sept. 15, 2001: A tugboat and barge struck the Queen Isabella Causeway in Port Isabel, Texas, causing a midsection of the bridge to tumble 80 feet into the bay below. Eight people died after motorists drove into the hole. EADS BRIDGE: 50 INJURED April 14, 1998: The Anne Holly tow traveling through the St. Louis Harbor rammed into the center span of the Eads Bridge. Eight barges broke away. Three of them hit a permanently moored gambling vessel below the bridge. Fifty people suffered minor injuries. BIG BAYOU CANOT: 47 DEAD Sept. 22, 1993: Barges being pushed by a towboat in dense fog hit and displaced the Big Bayou Canot railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama. Minutes later, an Amtrak train with 220 people aboard reached the displaced bridge and derailed, killing 47 people and injuring 103 people. SEEBER BRIDGE: 1 DEAD May 28, 1993: The towboat Chris, pushing the empty hopper barge DM3021, hit a support tier of the Judge William Seeber Bridge in New Orleans. Two spans and the two-column bent collapsed onto the barge. Two cars carrying three people fell with the four-lane bridge deck into a canal. One person died and two people were seriously injured. SUNSHINE SKYWAY BRIDGE: 35 DEAD May 9, 1980: The 609-foot freighter Summit Venture was navigating through the narrow, winding shipping channel of Florida’s Tampa Bay when a sudden, blinding squall knocked out the ship’s radar. The ship sheared off a support of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, dropping a 1,400-foot section of concrete roadway during the morning rush hour. Seven vehicles, including a bus with 26 aboard, fell 150 feet into the water. Thirty-five people died. (AP)

President Joe Biden was returning from church a week ago when he stepped out of his armored SUV onto the driveway of his Wilmington, Delaware, home on an important mission: He wanted to inspect the landscaping. The sprawling home on a manmade pond, three miles or five kilometers from downtown, has a special place — some might call it an obsession — in his heart. When he met special prosecutor Robert Hur to talk about the sensitive documents he’d improperly kept after his vice presidency, Biden offered a confession. Three times over the five hours, Biden told Hur he is a “frustrated architect.” He allowed that his wife, Jill, once offered to send him to architecture school if he’d only stop running for the Senate. It was not to be. But he still seems to have architectural design in his blood. And he’s mused privately about redesigning elements of the home after his presidency. The house is central in the controversy over Biden’s handling of classified documents. FBI agents and the president’s lawyers identified at least 28 items there that contained classified information or markings from his time as vice president. Hur this past week defended his assessment that there was not sufficient evidence to charge Biden with willfully retaining the classified information. In a transcript of Hur’s interview, conducted in the fall and released on the day a House committee heard the special counsel’s testimony, Biden lays out in meticulous detail the specifications of his home, prompting Hur to comment on his “photographic” recall even as he had questioned the president’s memory on other fronts. When Biden hopped out to inspect the landscaping, the area had just been replanted after a roughly yearlong project by the Secret Service to improve security at the president’s compound. The work included new fencing and vehicle barriers, bulletproof windows and extensive modifications to the home demanded by the agency to make it more secure. Satellite imagery from last year showed construction crews had dismantled the second-floor balcony and the sunroom overlooking the pond as part of the renovations to the south side of the 7,000-square-foot (650-square-meter) home and the grounds. Ceiling fans from the sunroom were stored in Biden’s cluttered garage alongside his beloved Corvette in January 2023, when FBI agents spent nearly 13 hours doing a top-to-bottom search of the house looking for classified documents. Referred to by Biden aides as the “lake house,” the home has been at the center of Biden’s life since he moved there in 1998. It has been the scene of meetings with aides and the occasional lawmaker for decades and the site of the makeshift basement studio from which he ran much of his 2020 presidential campaign during the pandemic. Biden regularly spends his weekends at the Wilmington house, often staying from Friday to Monday. One bonus: It’s a quick hop to the Philadelphia area, the Democratic base in a critical swing state as Biden campaigns for reelection. His Wilmington visits are something of a continuation of the commuting schedule he kept as vice president. During his three-decade Senate tenure before that, Biden commuted from Delaware to Washington daily on Amtrak. The Delaware home is more than a gathering spot for members of his family and a few of his close friends or a respite from

The late crush of holiday travelers picked up steam Wednesday, with about 2.7 million people expected to board flights and millions more planning to drive or take the train to Thanksgiving celebrations. Airline officials say they are confident they can avoid the kind of massive disruptions that have marred past holiday seasons, such as the meltdown at Southwest Airlines over last Christmas. As of Wednesday evening that appeared to be the case. U.S. airports reported 59 flight cancellations into, out of or within the U.S. Wednesday and 2,750 flight delays, according to FlightAware, a tracking service. FlightAware said anything less than 300 cancellations and 4,000 delays per day is considered very good. Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York said it was checking all vehicles arriving at the airport and performing additional security screenings after a car crashed and exploded at a nearby checkpoint on the U.S.-Canada border. But the airport said it remained open and fully operational. All four border crossings in the area were closed, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission said. Snow showers could snarl traffic in other parts of the country. The National Weather Service was predicting accumulating snow in northern New England Wednesday, including up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snowfall in northern Maine. Snow was also expected to hit the northern Rocky Mountains on Thanksgiving Day, bringing up to 1 foot of snow to parts of Wyoming by Friday. Security lines at airports could be long. Delta Air Lines is telling passengers to arrive at the airport at least two hours before their flight if they are traveling within the United States, three hours early if they’re flying overseas — and maybe earlier on Sunday and Monday. Jordan Sessions heeded that advice and got to the airport early Wednesday for a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Oakland, California. But the Portland airport wasn’t crowded and the check-in lines were short, so he wound up waiting a bit for his flight. That wasn’t the case for Brittany Dandridge, who found lines out the door when she arrived for her flight from Dallas to Oakland. “Luckily I was traveling with my dog and they allowed me to skip the line,” she said. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened more than 2.6 million passengers Tuesday and it expected another 2.7 million passengers to come through airport security on Wednesday. On Sunday, it expects to screen 2.9 million passengers, which would surpass a previous record set on June 30. Lines ebbed and flowed all morning Wednesday at Moynihan Train Hall in New York. Some travelers said they opted to travel by train for convenience or lower prices. Others said they just wanted to avoid any chaos at the airport. Matthew Hudnall and Abby Greenbaum were traveling from Atlanta to New York to Boston to visit family with their 5-year-old daughter. By the time they reach Boston, they will have taken a total of nine trains, they said. “I think we thought it would be calmer and less stressful than flying. So, far that’s true,” Greenbaum said. Amtrak said it was expecting 750,000 passengers between Nov. 19 and Nov. 26. The company said travelers could see some boarding delays this weekend because of high passenger volumes. The holiday will also test the Federal Aviation Administration, which faces shortages

The Biden administration announced Monday that it has awarded more than $1.4 billion to projects that improve railway safety and boost capacity, with much of the money coming from the 2021 infrastructure law. “These projects will make American rail safer, more reliable, and more resilient, delivering tangible benefits to dozens of communities where railroads are located, and strengthening supply chains for the entire country,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. The money is funding 70 projects in 35 states and Washington, D.C. Railroad safety has become a key concern nationwide ever since a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio, in February. President Joe Biden has ordered federal agencies to hold the train’s operator Norfolk Southern accountable for the crash, but a package of proposed rail safety reforms has stalled in the Senate where the bill is still awaiting a vote. The White House is also saying that a possible government shutdown because of House Republicans would undermine railway safety. The projects include track upgrades and bridge repairs, in addition to improving the connectivity among railways and making routes less vulnerable to extreme weather. Among the projects is $178.4 million to restore passenger service in parts of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi along the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. “This is a significant milestone, representing years of dedicated efforts to reconnect our communities after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement. “Restoring passenger rail service will create jobs, improve quality of life, and offer a convenient travel option for tourists, contributing to our region’s economic growth and vitality.” The grant should make it possible to restore passenger service to the Gulf Coast after Amtrak reached an agreement with CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads last year to clear the way for passenger trains to resume operating on the tracks the freight railroads own. “We’ve been fighting to return passenger trains to the Gulf Coast since it was knocked offline by Hurricane Katrina. That 17-year journey has been filled with obstacles and frustration — but also moments of joy, where local champions and national advocates were able to come together around the vision of a more connected Gulf Coast region,” Rail Passengers Association President & CEO Jim Mathews said. The single biggest grant — nearly $202 million — will help eliminate seven rail crossings in California as part of the larger project to build a high-speed rail line in that state. That will reduce traffic delays and help ensure that first responders can get where they need to go. In one of the biggest other grants, the Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad in Washington state will get $72.8 million to upgrade the track and related infrastructure to allow that rail line to handle modern 286,000-pound railcars. A project in Kentucky will receive $29.5 million to make improvements to 280 miles of track and other infrastructure along the Paducah and Louisville Railway. And in Tennessee, $23.7 million will go to helping upgrade about 42 bridges on 10 different short-line railroads. (AP)

The first big test of whether privately owned high-speed passenger train service can prosper in the United States will launch Friday when Florida’s Brightline begins running trains between Miami and Orlando, reaching speeds of 125 mph (200 kph). It’s a $5 billion bet Brightline’s owner, Fortress Investment Group, is making, believing that eventually 8 million people annually will take the 3.5-hour, 235-mile (378-kilometer) trip between the state’s biggest tourist hubs. The company is charging single riders $158 round-trip for business class and $298 for first-class, with families and groups able to buy four round-trip tickets for $398. Thirty-two trains will run daily. Brightline, which began running its neon-yellow trains the 70 miles (112 kilometers) between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2018, is the first private intercity passenger service to begin U.S. operations in a century. It’s also building a line connecting Southern California and Las Vegas that it hopes to open in 2027 with trains that will reach 190 mph (305 kph). The only other U.S. high-speed line is Amtrak’s Acela service between Boston and Washington, D.C., which began in 2000. Amtrak is owned by the federal government. “This is a pretty important moment, whether you’re thinking about it in the context of the state of Florida or what it might mean for these kinds of products as they develop elsewhere in the United States,” Brightline CEO Mike Reininger said in a recent interview. “The idea that my car is the only way for me to get where I need to go is being challenged by a new product. A new product that’s safer, that’s greener, that is a great value proposition (and) it’s fun.” The Florida trains, which run on biodiesel, will travel up to 79 mph (127 kph) in urban areas, 110 mph (177 kph) in less-populated regions and 125 mph (200 kph) through central Florida’s farmland. Brightline plans possible extensions to Tampa and Jacksonville. John Renne, director of Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions, said the Miami-Orlando corridor is a perfect spot for high-speed rail — about 40 million Floridians and visitors make the trip annually, with more than 90% of them driving. If Brightline succeeds that could lead to more high-speed lines between major cities 200 to 300 miles (320 to 480 kilometers) apart, both by Brightline and competitors, he said. “It is quite exciting for South Florida to kind of be a test bed for what could be seen as a new paradigm for transportation, particularly high-speed rail transportation, in the United States,” Renne said. Because Brightline is privately owned and seeking a profit, it was more sensitive to getting the project completed quickly to save money. On the government side, Renne pointed to California’s effort to build a high-speed rail system. Approved by voters in 2008, it isn’t near fruition, has already cost billions more than expected and its prospects for completion are uncertain as finding a route through mountains is proving difficult and politicians added dubious side projects. Brightline began planning in 2012. Brightline’s development has suffered setbacks, though. COVID-19 shut down the Miami-West Palm Beach line for 17 months. A 2018 partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to rebrand Brightline as Virgin Trains USA quickly soured. Brightline terminated the partnership in 2020 and Virgin sued in London. According

A man who died as a result of a drowning accident in his home is Vermont’s first death related to recent storms and historic flooding, the state’s emergency management agency said. Stephen Davoll, 63, of Barre, died on Wednesday, said Mark Bosma, spokesperson for Vermont Emergency Management. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner investigated the death, in cooperation with local police, Bosma said in a news release late Thursday afternoon. He said Vermonters are urged to continue to take extra care as they return to their homes and repair damage. “The loss of a Vermonter is always painful, but it is particularly so this week,” Vermont U.S. Sen. Peter Welch said in statement. It was the second flood-related death stemming from a storm system and epic flooding in the Northeast this week. The first was in New York — a woman whose body was found after she was swept away in Fort Montgomery, a small Hudson River community about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of New York City. More rain came through the region Thursday evening. There were no reports of any flash flooding from the storm, the emergency management agency said. A tornado warning was issued for parts of the state and Vermont. There were high winds, but no confirmation of a tornado and no major damage reports. As floodwaters receded, the good news was that there were no new rescue missions, dams were holding up and more roads reopened. The bad news was that the storms aren’t over. More rain was expected Friday, Sunday, and into next week. “The period we are more concerned about is Sunday because that could be more widespread and heavier, but not nearly on the scale of what we saw earlier in the week,” National Weather Service meteorologist Seth Kutikoff said. Gov. Phil Scott said it’s important for Vermonters to be vigilant, and that includes not going into the water. “We’ve seen many pictures on social media of kids swimming in floodwaters. This is not typical rainwater — it’s filled with chemicals, oil, waste, and more. It’s simply not safe,” he said. Other New England states to the south were also drying out, including Connecticut, where officials warned boaters and others about dangerous debris in the Connecticut River, including large trees. A dock with several boats attached was washed away in Glastonbury, just south of Hartford, and was seen floating down the river a few towns away. In Vermont, communities were cleaning up from the floods that were more destructive in some places than 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene and regarded as the worst natural disaster since the 1927 floods, which killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction. Transportation officials were moving equipment to areas that were considered more flood-prone to prepare for more storms as they continued to evaluate damage, including to rail lines. Amtrak and other railroad service has been suspended. Scott submitted a request for a major disaster declaration to President Joe Biden. “It’s separate from, and in addition to, the federal emergency declaration the president already signed” on Tuesday, he said. If approved, the declaration would provide federal support for recovering communities. In Vermont’s small state capital of Montpelier, where the swollen Winooski River had flooded downtown, the elevator at City Hall was damaged, making the building inaccessible,

President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, made $579,514 last year and paid $137,658 in federal income taxes. That works out to a 23.8% tax rate, more than the average of roughly 14% for all U.S. households. The Bidens’ earnings have trended slightly downward over the past three years, after averaging more than $600,000 in 2020 and 2021. The median U.S. household income was $69,717 in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The White House on Tuesday released the tax returns of the Bidens and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. This once routine rite of passage for presidents and aspirants to the Oval Office became a source of controversy under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who declined to release his taxes and ultimately had six years’ worth of returns released last year by a House committee. The Bidens’ income has dropped since 2019, when they earned nearly $1 million, primarily from book sales, speeches and their teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia Community College. The former vice president and Delaware senator often notes in speeches that he was once the poorest lawmaker in the Senate, so much so that he could not afford a home in Washington and had to commute by Amtrak. In a Rose Garden speech about child care Tuesday, Biden said he couldn’t keep a home in Delaware and also afford a home for his family in Washington during his 36 years as a senator. As president, Biden earned a salary of $400,000. His wife, Jill, was paid $82,335 for her job teaching at Northern Virginia Community College. They paid state taxes of $29,023 in Delaware and $3,129 in Virginia. The Bidens gave $20,180 to 20 different charities. The largest gift was $5,000 to the Beau Biden Foundation, a nonprofit that works to combat child abuse and is named for their son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46. They gave $1,680 to St. Joseph on the Brandywine, the church in Delaware that the president attends. The Bidens also donated $2,000 to the Fraternal Order of Police Foundation. The tax filings of the vice president and her husband showed them earning $456,918. They paid $93,570 in federal income tax for a rate of 20.5%. They also paid $17,612 in California income tax, while Harris’ husband paid $9,697 in District of Columbia income tax for his work at Georgetown University’s law school. They contributed $23,000 to charity. Biden campaigned on the transparency of his personal finances, releasing 22 years of tax filings ahead of the 2020 election. It was a direct challenge to Trump, who argued for years that an audit prevented him from releasing his taxes — though the IRS had mandated for four-plus decades that the tax returns of sitting presidents and vice presidents be audited. Tuesday was the deadline for paying federal taxes. (AP)

A rare tornado touched down in a Los Angeles suburb, ripping roofs off a line of commercial buildings and sending the debris twisting into the sky and across a city block, injuring one person. The National Weather Service sent teams to assess damage in Montebello and later confirmed that a tornado had touched down around 11:20 a.m. Wednesday. The weather service said that the tornado was an EF1, a measurement on the Enhanced Fujita Scale that indicates it had winds of 86 mph to 110 mph (138 kph to 177 kph). That made it the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles metropolitan area since March 1983, the weather service said. “It’s definitely not something that’s common for the region,” said meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld with the weather service. One person was injured and was taken to a hospital in Montebello, said Alex Gillman, a city spokesman. He didn’t know the severity of the injury. Michael Turner could hear the winds get stronger from inside his office at the 33,000-square-foot (3,065-square-meter) warehouse he owns just south of downtown Montebello. When the lights started flickering, he went outside to find his employees gazing up at the ominous sky. He brought everyone inside. “It got very loud. Things were flying all over the place,” Turner said. “The whole factory became a big dustbowl for a minute. Then when the dust settled, the place was just a mess.” Nobody was hurt, but the gas line was severed, fire sprinklers broke, all the skylights shattered and a 5,000-square-foot (465-square-meter) section of roof was “just gone,” Turner said. He said his polyester fiber business, Turner Fiberfill, could be closed for months. “I’ve been in California since 1965. Never seen anything like this,” Turner said. “Earthquakes — we’re used to that.” Debris was spread over more than one city block. Inspectors checked 17 buildings in the area, and 11 of them were red-tagged as uninhabitable, according to the fire department. Several cars were also damaged. The rare and violent weather came amid a strong late-season Pacific storm that brought damaging winds and more rain and snow to saturated California. Two people died Tuesday as the storm raked the San Francisco Bay Area with powerful gusts and downpours. An on-duty San Francisco police sergeant was hospitalized with life threatening injuries after a tree fell on him Tuesday, the department said. The weather service also sent assessment teams to the Santa Barbara County city of Carpinteria, where it confirmed that a tornado hit a mobile home park on Tuesday, with gusts up to 75 mph (120 kph) that damaged about 25 residences. That tornado was measured at a relatively weak EF0, with winds of 65 mph to 80 mph (105 kph to 129 kph). The last time the weather service’s Los Angeles office sent out tornado assessment teams was 2016 near Fillmore in Ventura County, where it was determined that a small twister had touched down, Schoenfeld said. A tornado warning based on radar also was issued Tuesday night for the Point Mugu area west of Malibu. The warning was later canceled and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office tweeted there was no evidence a tornado touched down. The storm was tapering off in California from north to south while pushing inland across the Southwest, the Four Corners region and

Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured more quirky calls for spiritual healing than actual voter support, launched another longshot bid for the presidency on Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination. “I, as of today, am a candidate for the office of president of the United States,” she said in a campaign kickoff in the nation’s capital. The 70-year-old onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey will almost certainly provide only token primary opposition — a testament to how strongly national Democrats are united behind Biden. Still, she tweaked the president, a longtime Amtrak rider, by holding her opening rally at the presidential suite at Union Station, Washington’s railway hub. Biden gave his own speech from Union Station, close to the Capitol, just before last November’s elections, when he led Democrats to a surprisingly strong showing, urging voters to reject political extremism and saying “democracy itself” was at stake. Williamson, whose red, blue and black campaign signs feature the dual slogans “A New Beginning,” and “Disrupt the System,” plans to campaign in early-voting states on the 2024 election calendar, including New Hampshire, which has threatened to defy a Biden-backed plan by the Democratic National Committee to have South Carolina lead off the nominating contests. Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire have warned that if Biden skips the state’s unsanctioned primary and a rival wins it, that outcome could prove embarrassing for the sitting president — even if that challenger has no real shot of actually being the nominee. “You can appreciate what the president has done, defeating the Republicans in 2020, and still feel that it is time to move on,” Williamson said in a recent interview with “Good Morning New Hampshire.” Biden, 80, is the oldest president in U.S. history and would be 86 at the end of a second term. Most people in the United States — and even most Democrats — say they don’t want him to run again, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The president is expected to announce in the coming weeks that he’s running again. First lady Jill Biden recently told the AP that there was “pretty much” nothing left for the president to do but pick a time and place to announce his reelection bid. Biden’s political advisers say they aren’t worried about the Democratic primary and say Biden is anxious to defeat Donald Trump again in the general election. They say a 2024 campaign against another GOP nominee, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, would look much the same because top Republicans remain promoters of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. The Democratic establishment — and even potential presidential hopefuls who could have competed against Biden from the left or middle — is behind Biden, showing how smooth his path to the nomination probably will be. Even if other Democrats follow Williamson’s lead and jump into the race, the party is not planning to hold primary debates. Williamson insists her 2024 campaign is about far more than just making a statement. In an online post last weekend, she didn’t mention Trump by name but noted that few predicted he would ride an unconventional campaign all the way to the White House seven years

Flag-waving admirers lined the sidewalk outside the National World War II Museum in New Orleans on Wednesday to greet the oldest living survivor of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor as he marked his upcoming 105th birthday. “It feels great,” Joseph Eskenazi of Redondo Beach, California, told reporters after posing for pictures with his great-grandson, who is about to turn 5, his 21-month-old great-granddaughter and six other World War II veterans, all in their 90s. Eskenazi turns 105 on Jan. 30. He had boarded an Amtrak train in California on Friday for the journey to New Orleans. The other veterans, representing the Army, Navy and Marines, flew in for the event. They were visiting thanks to the Soaring Valor Program, a project of actor Gary Sinise’s charitable foundation dedicated to aiding veterans and first responders. The program arranges trips to the museum for World War II veterans and their guardians. Eskenazi was a private first class in the Army when the attack occurred. His memories include being awakened when a bomb fell — but didn’t explode — near where he was sleeping at Schofield Barracks, reverberating explosions as the battleship USS Arizona was sunk by Japanese bombs, and machine gun fire from enemy planes kicking up dust around him after he volunteered to drive a bulldozer across a field so it could be used to clear runways. “I don’t even know why — my hand just went up when they asked for volunteers,” Eskenazi said. “Nobody else raised their hand because they knew that it meant death. … I did it unconsciously.” He was at the Army’s Schofield Barracks when the Dec. 7, 1941, attack began, bringing the United States into the war. About 2,400 servicemen were killed. Eskenazi and his fellow veterans lined up for pictures amid exhibits of World War II aircraft and Higgins boats, designed for beach landings. “Thank you guys for providing us a country that was worth fighting for,” veteran Billy Hall, a who rose to the rank of major in the Marines after enlisting in 1941, shouted to well-wishers. The museum opened in 2000 as the National D-Day Museum and has expanded in size and scope since then. (AP)