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At least 25 people have been killed and many more injured when a Metrolink commuter train collided yesterday afternoon with a Union Pacific freight train in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles. Around 250 firefighters have responded to the accident scene. Estimates are that 350-400 people were on the number 111 commuter train which departed from Los Angeles' Union Station at 3:35pm PDT. The collision occurred on Friday at about 4:25pm PDT on Metrolink's Ventura County Line. The area in which the crash took place is hilly and contains a sin

Two nationwide polls released this week, one conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs and the other by the John Birch Society (JBS), show several third party U.S. presidential candidates varying radically in popularity. Among the 1,018 adults surveyed in the Ipsos poll, 48% said they would vote for Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama, while 42% said they would vote for Republican Party nominee John McCain. 2% support independent Ralph Nader and 1% of respondents said they would cast their ballots for Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr. The margin o

XL Leisure Group — the United Kingdom's third largest tour operator — has collapsed and entered administration. About 85,000 passengers have been left stranded outside the UK as a result. The Civil Aviation Authority is working to bring these people home, and Air Travel Organisers' Licensing scheme stated that "repatriation aircraft" had been scrambled. Both flights chartered specially for the purpose and scheduled services with spare seats are being used. XL operated a number of subsidiaries, including XL Airways, Travel City Direct and the

After the table tennis event concluded, medalists from the martial art events (taekwondo, karate and judo) were confirmed on the September 8, third match day of "Invitational Games for the Deaf, Taipei 2008." Except for steady performances from the host Chinese Taipei team during the karate and taekwondo events, European athletes battled East Asian (Japan and South Korea) athletes. During the third match day, Korea's Sukchan Yun ever defeated Turkey's Kayaci Ibrahim within only 6 seconds in men's 90.1 kg to 100 kg class. It was the shortest ma

Scuderia Toro Rosso–Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel won the pole position for the Sunday FIA Formula One 2008 Gran Premio Santander d'Italia race at Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy. The track was wet during most of the Friday practice sessions and all the qualification triplet, a rare event for the Formula One at Monza. Heavy rain conditions on the racing circuit caused a couple of surprises for the spectators. First was the major defeat of Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes), two major competitors in the Drivers'

A series of clashes in the West Bank have left several injured, following an arsonist's targeting of the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar. An unknown Palestinian man began setting fire to several buildings in the village, when a 9-year old child saw him and started shouting. The man stabbed the child, causing only light injury, but sparking retribution from hundreds of Israeli villagers who attacked the Palestinian village of Assira Kubilyeh, smashing windows, shooting erractically and overturning a vehicle. The child was taken to an Israeli ho

The Channel Tunnel, which runs between France and Britain, has resumed limited services after an earlier fire. Of the two tunnels, only the South tunnel has been reopened to the trains that run the route, the blaze having seriously damaged the North tunnel. The fire started on a freight train loaded with lorries. It burned for 16 hours and at its hottest was at 1,000°C. 27 lorries, six freight cars and a locomotive have been damaged. Significantly, the damage to the tunnel itself runs along a 700m stretch and exceeds the damage caused by an ea

Libertarian U.S. presidential nominee and former congressman Bob Barr is the subject of controversy today after his last minute refusal to attend former Republican presidential hopeful Congressman Ron Paul's third party unity conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Wednesday. Barr instead decided to hold a press conference of his own two hours after Paul's at the same location. "I'm not interested in third parties getting the most possible votes," he told reporters. "I'm interested in Bob Barr as the nominee for the Libertar

Two powerful earthquakes occurred on Thursday morning (around midnight UTC), one in Indonesia and one in Japan. There are no initial reports of casualties or damages. Tsunami alerts were issued, later expired. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Indonesia at 09:00 local time (midnight UTC). The focus was located 98.3 km in depth The epicenter was located 120 km north of Ternate, Moluccas, and 2460 km east-northeast of Jakarta. USGS also reported Japan was hit by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake at

The airline company Norwegian Air Shuttle is opening four new domestic destinations from Moss Airport. The new destinations are Stavanger Airport, Trondheim Airport, Bodø Airport and Tromsø Airport. Flying commences on 30 October. Tickets for the new destinations will be put up for sale today. The Tromsø flight has a stopover at Bodø, while the two other destinations have direct flights. There will be daily flights to Stavanger and Bodø–Tromsø, and two daily flights to Trondheim. The ticket price for the new destinations starts at 359 NOK (app

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa won the FIA Formula One 2008 ING Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps Circuit, Spa, Belgium. McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton lead the race from pole for a few laps before he spun backwards and allowed Kimi Räikkönen's Ferrari to pass him. Kimi maintain the lead throughout the race until the rain fell onto the track on the final laps. The series of errors was finalized by Räikkönen, who spun off the track. This led Hamilton to a chequered flag, but then, after the race, he was penalized by 25 seconds for th

Asif Ali Zardari has been sworn in as the President of Pakistan. The 53-year-old Zardari took oath from Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar in Islamabad on Tuesday. He took the oath as the twelfth President of Pakistan. On Sept. 6, Zardari, secured 479 votes from the total number of 702 votes of the electoral college consisting of two houses of the parliament and four provincial assemblies. Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, who was fielded by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Group, received 153 votes while Senator Mushahid Hussain, a candidate from the Pakis