Stresa, Italy
Cable car disaster: Three men have been arrested on manslaughter charges over a cable car crash in northern Italy that killed 14 people. Prosecutors said the men—the cable car company’s service chief, its director, and its owner—admitted that the car’s emergency brake had been deactivated because of faulty performance. So when a cable snapped as the car neared Mount Mottarone’s 5,000-foot summit, there was nothing to stop the car speeding downhill. It was traveling at 60 mph when it smashed into a pylon and fell into trees above the town of Stresa. The lone survivor, a 5-year-old Israeli boy, is in a critical condition at a Turin hospital. Prosecutors believe the company deactivated the emergency brake to avoid closing the funicular for a lengthy repair.