Amtrak will start randomly screening passengers’ carry-on bags this week in a new security push that includes officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains. The initiative, to be announced by the railroad on Tuesday, is a significant shift for Amtrak. Unlike the airlines, it has had relatively little visible increase in security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a distinction that has enabled it to attract passengers eager to avoid airport hassles. Amtrak officials insist their new procedures won’t hold up the flow of passengers.
Two Impressionist paintings stolen in one of Europe’s largest art thefts have been recovered in an abandoned car, police said Tuesday. The pictures by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet were among four paintings worth $163 million that were stolen from a private museum in a Feb. 10 armed robbery. The two other paintings taken from the E.G. Buehrle Collection – one by Edgar Degas and the other by Paul Cezanne – remain missing, Philipp Hotzenkoecherle, commandant of the Zurich city police, told reporters.
The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to offer help to Hurricane Katrina victims who want their insurance companies to pay for flood damage to their homes and businesses. The justices rejected appeals from Xavier University and 68 other individuals and businesses seeking to allow their lawsuits against the insurers to go forward. Xavier asked the court to step in after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the policies did not cover damage from floods, even those that resulted from man-made failures such as the collapsed levees in New Orleans.
The U.S. and the European Union’s biggest powers quickly recognized Kosovo as an independent nation Monday, widening a split with Russia, China and some EU members strongly opposed to letting the territory break away from Serbia. A day after Kosovo declared independence, ethnic Serbs in the north angrily denounced the United States and urged Russia to help Serbia hold on to the territory that Serbs consider the birthplace of their civilization. Protesters also marched in Serbia’s capital, and that nation recalled its ambassador to the U.S. to protest American recognition for an independent Kosovo.
Air Force officials are warning that unless their budget is increased dramatically, and soon, the military’s high-flying branch won’t dominate the skies as it has for decades. After more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force’s aging jet fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and gunships are at the breaking point, they said, and expensive, ultramodern replacements are needed fast. “What we’ve done is put the requirement on the table that says, ‘If we’re going to do the missions you’re going to ask us to do, it will require this kind of investment,’” Maj. Gen. Paul Selva, the Air Force’s director of strategic planning, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry ordered police on Tuesday to begin rounding up beggars, homeless and mentally disabled people from the streets of Baghdad and other cities to prevent insurgents from using them as suicide bombers. The decision, which elicited concern from advocates for the mentally disabled, came nearly three weeks after twin suicide bombings against pet markets. Officials said those blasts were carried out by mentally disabled women who might have been unwitting attackers.
