Freight trains collide in Texas; engineer killed

Freight trains collidein Texas; engineer killed
GUNTER, Texas -- Two freight trains collided just outside this small North Texas town Wednesday, killing an engineer and injuring four other people, authorities said. About 20 cars derailed in a tangled mess of steel.
Department of Public Safety Trooper Rebecca Uresti said one of the injured suffered severe burns and was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Dallas, about 50 miles to the south.
The other three victims were taken to a hospital in Sherman, a few miles from the crash scene. Uresti said the man who died was an engineer.
Lt. David Hawley of the Grayson County Sheriff's Department said the rail cars on one of the trains were empty. The other hauled rocks. At least one of the locomotives burned in the head-on crash.
There were no evacuations, but a hazardous materials crew was called to the scene to clean up spilled diesel fuel.
Television footage showed about 20 cars off the tracks. The rock-hauling train had 24 cars and three locomotives, officials said. The number of cars on the other train was not immediately available.
Mass. Senate repeals1913 marriage statute
BOSTON -- The state Senate has voted to repeal a 91-year-old law that Gov. Mitt Romney has used to argue out-of-state gay couples can't tie the knot in Massachusetts, though odds of its permanent repeal are slim.
The Democrat-controlled Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to rescind the 1913 statute that forbids nonresidents from marrying here if the union would not be legal in their home state. Since no other state allows gay marriage, Romney argues that out-of-state couples are prohibited from marrying in Massachusetts.
For the law to be permanently wiped from the books, however, the repeal would have to get through the far more conservative House and then survive a certain veto by Romney.
Democratic state Sen. Jarrett Barrios, a gay lawmaker from Cambridge who sponsored the repeal, cited the 1913 law's "shameful origins" -- it was enacted as a way to bar the recognition of interracial marriages.
Workers ran out of time
GOLDEN, Colo. -- A 40-ton girder that fell from a highway bridge last weekend, killing a family of three on the interstate below, had been temporarily braced because workers ran out of time to finish the construction job, federal investigators said Wednesday.
Workers fell behind schedule because the girder was first installed backward and had to be turned around, investigators said.
The collapsed girder had been secured with temporary braces that were not part of the original job order but were devised by the crew foreman and approved by the state transportation department, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Ken Suydam said.
Four of the five braces were found bent after the collapse Saturday onto Interstate 70.
Jordanian cops cleared
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro -- An international prosecutor cleared four Jordanian police officers of involvement in a Kosovo prison shootout that killed three American corrections officers and the assailant, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
The prosecutor concluded that "there are no reasonable suspicions that any of the four Jordanian officers has committed any offense," said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.
Authorities were investigating whether the officers helped their commander, Sgt. Maj. Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, as he opened fire on the Americans on April 17.
Three American officers were killed and 11 were wounded as they left their first day of work at the prison in the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica. The corrections officers shot and killed Ali after a 10-minute gunfight.
Gangster kills himself
TOKYO -- A gangster killed himself today as police stormed his apartment building, intent on ending a two-day standoff.
A woman in the apartment with the gunman was also found dead of a gun wound, but there were no further details on her death.
Taketo Hatakeyama, 41, had locked himself inside an apartment with the woman thought to be his girlfriend on Tuesday after police tried to raid the apartment and confiscate drugs.
Hatakeyama opened fire, and police sent in 300 agents and evacuated 28 families, beginning the standoff in the city of Utsunomiya, 65 miles north of Tokyo.
As police rushed the building today, shots rang out inside. Hatakeyama and the woman were found lying on the floor, both shot in the head, police said.
Hatakeyama was a member of the Sumiyoshi Kai crime group, one of Japan's largest, police said.
Associated Press