CHARLESTON, W.Va.

Speed not at fault in fiery train derailment, officials say

Speed doesn’t appear to have been a factor in an oil train derailment in southern West Virginia, a federal official said Thursday.

The CSX train was going 33 mph at the time of Monday’s crash in the town of Mount Carbon. The speed limit was 50 mph, said Federal Railroad Administration acting administrator Sarah Feinberg.

The derailment shot fireballs into the sky, destroyed a house, leaked oil into a Kanawha River tributary and forced nearby water treatment plants to temporarily shut down. The owner of the destroyed home was treated for smoke inhalation. No other injuries were reported.

The cause remains unknown. Investigators had reviewed video from cameras on the front and rear of the locomotives as well as a train coming from the opposite direction. But the footage showed nothing significant.

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Twenty-seven of the 107 tank cars derailed, and 19 of those were involved in the fires, which continued smoldering Thursday.

PHILADELPHIA

‘Michelangelo of injections’ on trial after death of dancer

A Gothic hip-hop artist who did illegal cosmetic surgery on the side boasted at her murder trial Thursday that her body sculpting work was so popular she was dubbed “the Michelangelo of buttocks injections.”

Padge Victoria Windslowe, who performed under the name “Black Madam,” is accused of killing a 20-year-old dancer from London during a procedure at an airport hotel that involved industrial-grade silicone and Krazy Glue.

The woman’s 2011 death – and the months that Windslowe spent on the lam – led Philadelphia police to investigate the strange world of “pumping parties” and underground surgery.

– From news service reports


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