NEW YORK — The conductor of a train involved in a derailment and crash outside New York City last week noticed an “unusual condition” on the track before the cars went off the rails, and the area where the wreck occurred had recently undergone repairs, investigators said Friday.

When informed that the Justice Department had seized a trove of Associated Press phone records, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said: "If the Obama administration is going after reporters' phone records, they better have a damned good explanation."

Create a new college in Lodi? I simply have to ask the following: "Why?"

(NAPSI)—Fifteen years after losing her sight, crafter Joyce Kane can still enjoy a good yarn, thanks to the free reading program of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS).

(BPT) - Holmes and Watson, Riggs and Murtaugh, Starsky and Hutch – when it comes to sleuthing out just what critter is munching on your spring garden, you may feel like your partnership with Mother Nature is as contentious as any that ever graced the big, or small screen. After all, how are you supposed to fight the “crime” of a decimated garden if you can’t identify the suspect who’s been devouring your daylilies?

Galt teachers may soon be trained to use and recognize different types of guns in a class sponsored by the Galt Police Department.

The voluntary gun safety and awareness course is in response to December's deadly Newtown, Conn., school shooting, according to Superintendent Karen Schauer of the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District.

The idea came from Galt Police Chief William Bowen, she said.

(BPT) - Do you consider yourself at increased risk for atherosclerosis? If you answered “no” – you’re not alone. A recent survey* conducted by AstraZeneca of more than 2000 American adults revealed that only 1 in 5 (20 percent) respondents consider themselves at increased risk for this potentially dangerous disease where plaque builds up in the arteries slowly over time.

Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a question has been asked over and over: Would schools be safer and better prepared to defend against a live shooter if armed guards were assigned to monitor each campus?

The killing of 26 in Connecticut was an act of a person needing mental help! How did he find this weapon? Because this weapon did not find him. Guns are always to blame, not the person pulling the trigger.

The shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012, has prompted suggestions that armed guards be posted in schools.

I agree completely with the letter written by Mr. Van Amber Fields, "We need to end all the needless violence," published Dec. 27, 2012. We are at the end of the age and the evil spirits are working overtime.

Recently there have been lots of ideas on how to keep an evil like the Connecticut school shooting from happening again — new laws, more gun legislation.

The massacre of 20 6- and 7-year-old children and eight adults in Connecticut is just another in a long series of massacres. The NRA and the people who believe that semi-automatic military assault rifles should be legal are telling us that the problem is video games or the decline of civilization, and the canard that guns do not kill people, people kill people.

Disclaimer: I have had some experience with guns. I was held at gunpoint at my law school campus once and survived.

Cleveland Elementary School ... Columbine High School ... Virginia Tech University ... Tucson, Ariz. ... Utoya, Norway ... Fort Hood, Texas ... Aurora, Colo. ... Sandy Hook Elementary School. Too many places, too many times, too many victims. The list of mass shootings continues to grow. The unspeakable violence is becoming too common.

Two area congressmen say the federal government should look at restricting the availability of assault weapons in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

I am not gifted with the compassion, understanding or the investigative capacity to understand the Connecticut school tragedy. What I do know is that elementary through college schools ruled "no guns" and "safe" is insanity! We can drug our population; however, we cannot identify dangerous, psychotic people posing a danger to others and themselves.

As students returned to classrooms on Monday, local schools planned to answer questions from students and discuss safety plans following the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Oak View Union School District in Acampo

On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman killed 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., before committing suicide. It was the second-deadliest school shooting in United States history and has renewed the debate over gun-control laws.