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The ‘summer of hell’ at Penn Station will finish on time, Amtrak says

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Photo via Kev Harb via Flickr The emergency Penn Station repairs that began in July will be completed on time with regular operating service resuming on Sept. 5, Amtrak announced Thursday . After delays and a few train derailments , Amtrak closed 21 tracks at Penn earlier this summer. Nearly seven weeks of the eight scheduled weeks of repair work for this “summer of hell” have been completed thus far. Repairs at Penn Station, courtesy of Amtrak According to Amtrak, their engineers focused on the “A-interlocking” mechanism. This mechanism sorts the incoming and outgoing trains that enter and exit Penn Station from the Hudson River tunnel and the Long Island Rail Road ’s West Side Yard to the correct station tracks and platforms. This summer, Amtrak worked to totally replace some of the station’s tracks and switches. In a statement, the co-CEO of Amtrak, Wick Moorman, expressed gratitude for the customer’s patience. “We also appreciate the collaboration and support of our commu...

200 Americans Living in North Korea Must Get Out by Sept. 1

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When American doctor Stephen Yoon thinks of North Korea, he does not think of ballistic missile tests or the threat of nuclear war. He remembers instead a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, who suffered from spastic quadriplegia that made her unable to stand or sit. Five years ago, she went to Yoon's developmental-disability program at Pyongyang Medical University Hospital , where she received treatments from Yoon and his team of local doctors. After almost a year of exercise therapy and some surgeries, she walked out of the hospital on her own. The event was heralded in North Korean state media as a national victory, but it received no notice in the U.S., where few people even know about the roughly 200 Americans like Yoon who work and live under the rule of Kim Jong Un. Carefully monitored by the regime, they have come and gone for years, doing educational, medical or infrastructural work, and sometimes raising families in a nation that has been officially at war with the ...

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler slow to deliver on promise of affordable housing

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler promised during his 2016 campaign that he would tackle the city's affordable housing crisis if elected. His second day in office, he took over the housing bureau , putting himself in charge of its big decisions on top of his already ambitious workload. But eight months into his term, the mayor has little to show for it. No groundbreakings. A single deal to bring an affordable apartment complex to Northeast Portland . A key policy position on his staff vacant five months after his housing expert quit . He has yet to tell developers what the city will fund if they work to put roofs over needy Portlanders' heads. Wheeler's insistence on painstaking public involvement and the lack of housing expertise on his staff have hampered progress on what he said was an urgent priority. The mayor has also made no decisions about how the city should spend the largest pool of money ever available to address Portland's affordable housing shortage . Wheeler ...

These Are the Heroic Pets Who Saved People's Lives

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August 13, 2017 Cat and dog owners alike adore their pets. And though it’s not always obvious from their behavior and body language, dogs and cats do love their owners back. Sometimes, our pets show extreme bravery to save us from danger or avert tragedy. Want to meet a cat who helped stop a man from committing suicide? How about a dog who fought off coyotes to save his owner? Or a cat who alerted his family to a deadly house fire ? Read on to meet some of the most heroic pets who have made the news for saving people’s lives. ")}; 20. The ‘Hero Cat’ who rescued a child from an attacking dog A brave cat stopped a dog from attacking a child. | iStock.com/Steevy84 Sometimes, an animal attacks a child. And every once in a while, another animal comes to the rescue. That’s exactly what happened when a heroic cat saved a child from a dog attack in Bakersfield, California. The dog, which belonged to a neighbor, dragged the boy off his bicycle with his teeth. But the attack was cut sh...

As UConn returns, a chapter in Hartford’s history is completed

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UConn’s place in the Hartford skyline . Hartford — For nearly a half-century, the University of Connecticut has had no place to call its own in the state’s capital city. Today that changes as Connecticut’s flagship university opens the doors of its new $140- million downtown branch campus on Prospect Street . The arrival of the campus, which comes after five years of false starts and setbacks, is a milestone for the university and the city of Hartford. Hundreds attended the grand opening ceremony downtown Wednesday morning . For UConn, it marks the institution’s return from the suburbs into the heart of the city – where the school first opened its Greater Hartford branch in 1939. It moved to West Hartford in 1970. The university, in the years since, had been able to continue to claim a “presence” downtown. Some of UConn’s graduate business programs are housed in a space it leases in 100 Constitution Plaza, and the university’s basketball and ice hockey teams play games in the XL ...