World/Nation

Amtrak train was speeding at 106 mph; death toll reaches 7

PHILADELPHIA - The Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was hurtling at 106 mph before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit drops to just 50 mph, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The engineer applied the emergency brakes moments before the crash but slowed the train to only 102 mph by the time the locomotive's black box stopped recording data, said Robert Sumwalt, of the National Transportation Safety Board. The speed limit just before the bend is 80 mph, he said.

The engineer, whose name was not released, refused to give a statement to law enforcement and left a police precinct with a lawyer, police said. Sumwalt said federal accident investigators want to talk to him but will give him a day or two to recover from the shock of the accident.

Mayor Michael Nutter said there was "no way in the world" the engineer should have been going that fast into the curve.

"Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible in his actions," Nutter told CNN. "I don't know what was going on with him, I don't know what was going on in the cab, but there's really no excuse that could be offered."

House passes bill to end NSA collection of phone records

WASHINGTON - The House voted by a wide margin Wednesday to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' phone records and replace it with a system to search the data held by telephone companies on a case-by-case basis.

The 338-to-88 vote set the stage for a Senate showdown just weeks before the Patriot Act provisions authorizing the program are due to expire.

If the House bill becomes law, it will represent one of the most significant changes stemming from the unauthorized disclosures of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. But many Senate Republicans don't like the measure, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has introduced a separate version that would keep the program as is. Yet, he also faces opposition from within his party and has said he is open to compromise.

President Barack Obama supports the House legislation, known as the USA Freedom Act, which is in line with a proposal he made last March. The House passed a similar bill last year, but it failed in the Senate.

Most House members would rather see the Patriot Act provisions expire altogether than re-authorize NSA bulk collection, said Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee. "I think the Senate is ultimately going to pass something like the USA Freedom Act," he said.

Lawyers give closing arguments in Tsarnaev trial

BOSTON - Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Wednesday made their final appeals to the jury that will decide the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as jurors began deliberating whether the Boston Marathon bomber should get life in prison or the death penalty.

"The choice between these very serious alternatives is yours and yours alone to make," Judge George O'Toole Jr. told the panel.

Jurors got the case late in the day and deliberated about 45 minutes before going home. They will return to the federal courthouse today to resume their work.

The jury must be unanimous in its decision to impose the death penalty. If even a single member votes against death, Tsarnaev will get life in prison.

Prosecutor Steve Mellin said Tsarnaev wanted to cause his victims as much physical pain as possible to make a political statement.

Cease-fire comes under significant strain as violence resumes

SANAA, Yemen - Yemen's humanitarian cease-fire came under significant strain in its first 24 hours Wednesday, disrupted by a Saudi-led coalition airstrike, fighting between rival sides in a strategic province and shelling by coalition warships west of the port city of Aden.

The airstrike in Abyan province was in response to an attempt by the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, to send a military convoy to reinforce their forces in Aden, according to Yemeni security officials. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the airstrike.

The heaviest violence on the ground was in the southwestern province of Taiz, where the Iranian-backed rebels and their allies - forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh - have for weeks been fighting forces loyal to the nation's internationally recognized president.

Yemeni officials said the Houthis shelled residential areas in Taiz, a claim supported by an Amnesty International report. The London-based rights group said Wednesday that evidence suggested the Houthis have carried out indiscriminate mortar attacks on civilians and repeatedly targeted medical workers and facilities in Aden.

Also in the south, officials and witnesses said coalition warships deployed off Aden shelled rebel forces that attempted to seize an area west of the city that is home to fuel tanks.

Siege at Kabul guesthouse ends with five dead, six wounded

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen stormed a guesthouse in the Afghan capital as it hosted a party for foreigners, and authorities said five people, including an American, were killed during an hourslong siege that ended early Thursday morning. Six people were wounded and 54 hostages rescued.

Kabul police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi said the attack began at 8:30 p.m. local time Wednesday, when gunmen opened fire at the restaurant of the Park Palace Hotel. He had no breakdown on the nationalities of the victims, but a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said an American was among the dead.

Throughout the standoff, sporadic gunfire echoed around the guesthouse in a central neighborhood that is home to United Nations compounds and a foreign-run hospital. At one point, two explosions could be heard and four ambulances later arrived to the scene.

Amin Habib, a U.S. citizen from Los Angeles, said that a party was going on at the hotel to honor a Canadian when the gunmen stormed the guesthouse.

Officials: Boat with more than 500 refugee was turned away

LANGKAWI, Malaysia - Malaysia has turned away a boat with more than 500 Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis after providing them with fuel and provisions, a government official said Thursday.

The boat was found Wednesday off the coast of northern Penang state, just three days after more than a thousand refugees landed in nearby Langkawi island.

Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar said Malaysia cannot afford to have immigrants flooding its shores.

"What do you expect us to do? We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border. We have treated them humanely but they cannot be flooding our shores like this," he told the Associated Press.

- The Associated Press