N.J. transit investigated before crash
NEW JERSEY — The Federal Railroad Administration began investigating safety problems at New Jersey Transit before a fatal train crash on the railroad last week, a federal rail official said on Saturday.
Federal officials began an audit in June of New Jersey Transit, the nation’s third busiest commuter railroad, after noticing an increase in safety violations and a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, said the official, who was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to discuss it publicly. After completing the audit in June, the federal agency issued a series of violations to the railroad, the official said.
During the busy morning commute last Thursday, a crowded New Jersey Transit train slammed into a wall at the Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey, killing a woman and injuring more than 100 other people. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.
As part of the audit, dozens of inspectors visited New Jersey Transit’s railroad operations in June. A spokeswoman for New Jersey Transit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Candidate accused of rape
ST. LOUIS — A Ferguson lawyer who is running for a seat in the Missouri House has accused another Democratic candidate of raping her during an August meeting to discuss how they could work together in the upcoming legislative session.
Cora Faith Walker, 31, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which broke the story Saturday, that she was sexually assaulted by Steven Roberts Jr., a former assistant prosecutor, after going to meet him at a St. Louis apartment on the night of Aug. 26. Both candidates are black Democrats who are running unopposed for seats in a Legislature that is predominantly white and Republican.
Ms. Walker said she had two glasses of wine and doesn’t remember anything else that happened that night, and that she woke up the next morning in a bed in the home. She said she told her husband what had happened the next day, but that they waited several weeks before going to the police.
March for Calif. man
EL CAJON, Calif. — Alfred Olango, the unarmed black man shot and killed by police in a suburb of San Diego, was remembered in a demonstration Saturday organized by clergy members and supporters of his family.
Several hundred people gathered peacefully at a park in downtown El Cajon to hear speeches by religious leaders and then marched through the streets to police headquarters, where Mr. Olango’s family members were expected to join them.
“Mourning is a public sharing of grief and his unnecessary killing has rent the fabric of our human community yet once again and we are feeling it deeply in our hearts,” said Rev. Frank Placone-Willey of Summit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in nearby Santee, California.
The event came a day after two videos of the shooting were released by authorities, something the family and community leaders had urged.
Also in the nation ...
Albright College in Reading, Pa. says it has suspended two students over an online video showing a student in blackface lampooning the Black Lives Matter movement . ... Police say a 59-year-old man who wore a bikini fashioned out of see-through plastic wrap on a New Jersey beach is facing a criminal charge.