Free Republic

Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again.

A rush-hour explosion at a subway station in the center of the Belarusian capital has reportedly killed at least seven people and injured dozens more. The blast occurred at the Kastrychnitskaya (October Square) station in downtown Minsk, not far from President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's offices. There was no immediate indication of whether the explosion was an accident or an attack. A man who gave only his first name, Henadz, told RFE/RL's Belarus Service that he was unsure whether the explosion had struck a train or the platform. Lukashenka has ordered an emergency meeting with officials later tonight. 'Pillars Of Fire' An...

The single-sentence email from a frustrated state worker hit our inbox this morning: "This is what SEIU does to attract attendees, and my fees go to this!" It came with a scan of this flier promoting a series of 30-minute Local 1000 meetings at CDCR headquarters this Wednesday promising, "$5 Subway Cards will be given to all who attend." All employees represented by the union are welcomed and, presumably, will get a Subway card. The flier reminded us of an SEIU protest at the Capitol a few years ago that offered free lunch to participants. At the time we thought...

The cash-strapped MTA may soon put welfare recipients to work scrubbing and cleaning the subways. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to revive its participation in the city's Work Experience Program - which makes the unemployed toil for their benefit checks. "This is a program that has a proven track record of doing three things: providing low-cost cleaning help for the subway; providing job training to people who need it, and leading directly to full-time employment for many of the people who participate in the program," MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/29/2011-03-29_cashpoor_mta_may_put_recipients_of_unemployment_benefits_to_work_again_cleaning_.html#ixzz1Hzztr3Ff

NEW YORK (AP) -- The city's subway riders can handle panhandlers, rats and tuneless street musicians. But eating spaghetti in a crowded subway car? Well, that's just going too far. An Internet video that shows New Yorkers brawling over a passenger's right to nosh noodles on the subway has ignited a debate about what people should and shouldn't do in the nation's largest mass transit system.

A brawl broke out on a New York City subway car after one passenger apparently got upset over another passenger eating a big container of spaghetti on the crowded car. The video was posted to YouTubeand first reported by nyctheblog. The user who uploaded it says that it involved a Brooklyn train. There is no indication of what line it happened and what day it took place. In the video, which contains profanity, starts with some arguing. Then one woman says, "What kind of animals eat on the train?" The woman eating the spaghetti responds, "What kind of fat ******...

Reporting from Tokyo — At the seemingly fragile age of 76, his story is the stuff of Hollywood legend (Well, maybe the seamier side of the San Fernando Valley), a tale made more outlandish because it happened to a buttoned-down salary man in hyper-conservative Japan. For years, a Tokyo grandfather kept a dirty little secret from his family. Longtime travel agent Shigeo Tokuda, who resembles countless older men who ride the Tokyo subway each day, admitted to his wife and daughter that he sometimes performed cameos in small-budget films. But what this senior citizen didn't say was that those scenes,...

An employee at a Subway restaurant in northeast Charlotte who shot and killed a robbery suspect in January will not face charges. Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray said Charlotte-Mecklenburg police consulted with his office about the decision. "We agreed with their decision not to charge because we do not believe a jury would find the use of deadly force was not justified," he said Wednesday. On Jan. 17 around 7 p.m., two men armed with handguns entered the Subway restaurant on Sugar Creek Road near the Hidden Valley neighborhood. They were trying to rob the restaurant, police said, and...

<p>DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa-based convenience store has asked a federal judge to rule that the word "footlong" is part of the general English language and not the special property of the Subway restaurant chain.</p> <p>Ankeny-based Casey's General Stores Inc. filed a lawsuit against Subway in U.S. District Court in Des Moines on Friday seeking a declaration that Casey's use of the word "footlong" to describe its 12-inch-long sandwiches doesn't violate any right owned by Subway.</p>

The MTA may install sliding mechanical doors on subway platforms so riders can't fall, jump - or get pushed to the tracks. The metal-and-glass doors would be part of a barrier along a platform's edge and would open only after a train stops at the station, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority document shows. The system would help prevent tragic incidents, like the Sunday morning death on the L train tracks of 24-year-old Brendan Mahoney in Brooklyn, officials said. And it would protect riders from killers like Andrew Goldstein, the mental patient who shoved 32-year-old Kendra Webdale to her death in front...

Passengers have been stuck for several hours on two New York City subway trains stalled in snow drifts near Kennedy Airport. A rescue train has been sent to one train, and passengers have been stranded since about 1 a.m. on the second train.

Officers will start random bag inspections on the sprawling Washington subway system, the Washington Metro Transit Police said on Thursday, a week after a man was arrested for making bomb threats to the rail system. Metrorail police officers plan to randomly select bags before passengers enter subway stations and they will swab them or have an explosives-sniffing dog check the bags, according to the Metro police.

First exploded a car at the busy shopping street Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Then came another explosion some distance away and one man died. According to news agency TT, the man had blown himself to death. There was a bag on the ground filled with nails, according to newspaper Expressen. Alarm calls poured in to the Emergency Services from concerned residents about the explosions in central Stockholm on Saturday afternoon. But the initial info from the police was extremely unclear. First there was talk of two cars that exploded, later it proved to be just one... At Bryggargatan a man...

WASHINGTON -- Metro has circulated an internal memo asking employees to be on the lookout for two men seen videotaping the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station. An internal memo says the individuals were "attempting to videotape inconspicuously, by holding the camera at their side, between their chest and waist." Metro was alerted by a rider who took a picture of the men last week while they were sitting on the train. The alert comes just after the recent arrest of a Northern Virginia man in a sting where he videotaped two Metro facilities for what we thought was going to be...

A Manhattan man who miraculously survived getting hit by a subway train over the weekend could pen a movie about his experience -- he's a big-time Hollywood screenwriter, sources said yesterday. Will Rokos, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the Halle Berry-Billy Bob Thornton movie "Monster's Ball," was in critical but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital yesterday, a day after he was clipped in the head by a train while leaning over a subway platform. Cops said Rokos was waiting inside the 14th Street station at Seventh Avenue for a No. 2 train Saturday afternoon when he leaned over...

When USC professor and transportation expert James Moore heard the findings several days ago that the $9 billion Subway to the Sea won't relieve congestion on the Westside, as vowed by Antonio Villaraigosa, Moore was among a number of transportation insiders who wasn't stunned. "I didn't need an Environmental Impact Report to know that," says Moore, iconoclastic director of transportation engineering at USC, referring to an environmental study by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Moore says the truth about how Metro plans to use up to $9 billion in sales taxes being paid by 8 million consumers in Los Angeles County...

The second part of Metrorail's extension from Falls Church to Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County could cost as much as $1.3 billion more than original estimates, which may mean higher rates for people who use the Dulles Toll Road. The new estimate was provided Wednesday to members of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing construction. The first phase is costing $2.75 billion, the authority said. Early estimates had placed costs of the second phase in the same range. The new price range increases the cost by at least $690 million and potentially twice as much. The plan...

Metro plans to put bullhorns in rail stations and improve crowd-management techniques after rush-hour escalator breakdowns at Dupont Circle Station last week left hordes of customers struggling up broken, 130-foot escalators -- with some people forced to crawl over the handrail to avoid falling into a hole. Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn told Metro's board of directors at a meeting Thursday that an investigation into the incident, which started with a report of smoke at the Q Street NW entrance, determined that there were failures in radio communications and that for a short time the station's only open entrance...

The metropolitan commuter transportation mobility tax (MCTMT) is a new tax imposed on certain employers and self-employed individuals engaging in business within the metropolitan commuter transportation district (MCTD). This department administers the tax for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. (The MCTD includes the counties of New York (Manhattan), Bronx, Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, Richmond (Staten Island), Rockland, Nassau, Suffolk, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, and Westchester.)

SNIPPET: "U.S. counterterrorism officials have linked one of the nation's most wanted terrorists to last year's thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system, authorities said Wednesday. Current and former counterterrorism officials said top al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah met with one of the would-be suicide bombers in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since the 9/11 terror attacks."