• Tornado spotted near Wichita, Kan., residents told to take cover

    Shalyn Phillips / TVNWeather.com

    A funnel cloud is seen in southwest Wichita on Sunday.

    People in two states were taking shelter amid wailing warning sirens Sunday as tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in Kansas and Oklahoma. Thunder clouds were also heaving hail -- dime to softball sized -- as well as rain across broad swaths of both states. 

    Residents in downtown Wichita, Kan., were told to seek shelter Sunday afternoon after a tornado was confirmed on the ground – with its presence hidden by heavy rainfall.

    The National Weather Service in Wichita warned of a large and “extremely dangerous and potentially deadly” tornado late Sunday.  Weather spotters confirmed the tornado 7 miles northwest of Haysville and moving northeast at 30 mph, the Weather Service said.

    The tornado later passed south of the city in Sedgwick County in southern Kansas but rain and thunderstorms continued to batter the area, NBC station KSN TV in Wichita reported.

    Authorities are telling people from Iowa to Oklahoma to prepare for powerful storms. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports.

     


    The warning, which covered downtown Wichita as well as the surrounding area that includes Haysville, was lifted in early evening, KSN reported.

    At least three homes were damaged, KSN reported. Authorities said there were no injuries to report. Another tornado was confirmed near Udall.

    The tornado danger remained in many parts of southcentral Kansas. 

    People south of Wichita were told to take shelter amid tornado warnings, which remained in effect for central Butler County, near El Dorado and El Dorado Lake, central Sumner County, including areas around Wellington and northwestern Cowley and southeastern Butler counties.

    A tornado was also reported on the ground near Oklahoma City, NBC station KFOR reported. The Weather Service reported it was confirmed by spotters near Luther and was moving east at 30 mph. Tornado warnings were in effect for Lincoln and other northeastern Oklahoma counties.

    The Lincoln County sheriff's office reported damage related to the three tornadoes that touched down, but the extent of the damage was not immediately known.  There was no word of injuries from the storms as of Sunday evening.

    The weather outlook across Middle America looks stormy with the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., forecasting tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds over parts of the central Plains on Sunday.

    Eastern Kansas, Western Missouri, Southern Nebraska, Central and Northeast Oklahoma were the areas most likely to be hit by the severe weather.  

    Low pressure in the Plains states will keep things "very unsettled and stormy" as the week goes on, The Weather Channel reported.

    On Monday, the severe storms threat moves down to North Texas and Oklahoma, through northwest Arkansas, southeast Kansas and Missouri into parts of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes, according to the Weather Channel. Large hail and damaging winds are also possible.

    By Tuesday the large  system is expected to be moving slowly to the East, from eastern Texas to the southern Great Lakes.

    The storms are being generated by a dip in the jet stream combined with moisture moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, Kim Cunningham of The Weather Channel reported on NBC Nightly News.

    The danger follows a series of tornadoes that struck northern Texas on Wednesday night, leaving six people dead and dozens injured. One of the twisters was preliminarily classified EF-4 by the National Weather Service, meaning it could have had winds up to 200 miles per hour.

    Overall, tornadic activity has been slow this May, typically a bad month for twisters, said the Weather Channel’s Tom Moore.

    Tornado watches are already in effect until late Saturday for parts of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. And forecasters say this violent storm system could stretch into the Midwest Sunday. The Weather Channel's Kim Cunningham reports.

  • Two men arrested in killing over iPad in Las Vegas

    Two men have been arrested in the killing of a teenage boy over an iPad in Las Vegas, police said Sunday.

    Jacob Dismont, 18, and Michael Solid, 21, were booked Saturday into the Clark County jail on charges of open murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.

    According to investigators, Marcos Arenas, 15, was walking down a street with the iPad on Thursday when a passenger got out of a vehicle and tried to steal the device from him.

    Dismont is accused of trying to wrest the tablet away and dragging Arenas toward the SUV when the youth wouldn't let go of the device. After Dismont re-entered the vehicle and Solid sped away, the teen was dragged until he fell, police said. The vehicle ran over Arenas and he died at a hospital.

    "I think both the public and police department share the same sentiment that this was a senseless act of violence," police spokesman Bill Cassell told The Associated Press.

    The suspects succeeded in making off with the device, officers said.

    Ivan Arenas said he bought the iPad for his son less than two months ago. The family has never had a lot, the father said, and his son valued everything he had.

    "For him to lose his life over an iPad, it's just not fair," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Never in my life would I imagine that me buying my kid an iPad for his birthday would end up with him getting run over."

    Similar thefts of iPads, IPhones and other Apple devices have become so widespread nationwide that the crime has earned the nickname, "Apple picking," Cassell said.

    "This is a nationwide phenomenon where thieves are targeting individuals who are carrying them," he said.

    Police urge victims of such crimes to always let go of the devices.

  • Small Florida town buzzing over news of local winner

    Brian Blanco / EPA

    Clutching the Powerball tickets that she estimates she won $8 on, Denise Godsey looks over at a gaggle of gathered television news trucks at a Publix in Zephyrhills, Fla.

     

    The residents of a small Florida town known for its bottled water are now thirsty to know if one of their neighbors is the sole winner of the largest Powerball jackpot in history.

     

    Lottery officials confirmed early Sunday that the one winning ticket for the estimated $590.5 million prize was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla.

    But so far, only the losers have come forward.  

    “I wish it was it was me. But it wasn’t,” said Cindy Frappier as she exited the lucky Publix on Sunday.  

    “I’m happy for whoever did win,” said Roberta Cutting as she made her way into the store.

    Zephyrhills is about 30 miles northeast of Tampa, and is where the popular bottled water that bears its name is produced.

    It is also a hotbed for skydiving, and attracts thrill seekers from around the world — which increases the possibility that the lotto winner is not from the area, but an out-of-towner who just happened to drop in on the supermarket on while visiting.

    Many of the shoppers on Sunday wondered aloud whether or not they know the soon-to-be millionaire, and many hoped some of the winnings would go back into the town with a population of 13,337. 

    Joan Albertson drove to the Publix early Sunday morning with her camera in hand, in case the winner emerged. She said she had bought a ticket at a store across the street, and the idea of winning that much money was still something of a shock.

    "Oh, there's so much good that you could do with that amount of money," Albertson said. "I don't even know where to begin."

    Others, like local Danny Rike, are still holding out hope that they've actually won. Rike participated in a Powerball office pool, and though none of his co-workers have alerted him that they’ve won — no one has said they lost, either.

    “It could be a good surprise for tomorrow when I go into work,” he said.

    Crunching the numbers reveals that the enormous jackpot could fund the city of Zephyrhills government for 12 years. The $148 million in taxes on the gargantuan purse could fund the federal government for almost 27 minutes.

    If the winner takes the lump sum, it will be a $370 million payday, the second largest ever in the U.S.

    It traditionally takes days or weeks for big winners like the one on Saturday to come forward. "It never happens this quickly," Florida Lottery spokesman David Bishop told the Associated Press. "If they know they won, they're going to contact their attorney or an accountant first so they can get their affairs in order."

    The winning numbers were 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball of 11. The chances of winning were 1 in 175.2 million.

    The country's largest ever jackpot was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. But that prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

    The store where the winning ticket was sold will receive an $85,000 bonus commission, according to Shelly Gerteisen, a spokeswoman for the Florida Lottery.

    Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous said that there are a lot of rumors about who won, but the store doesn't know. "We're excited for the winner or winners," she said.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

  • Obama stresses personal responsibility to Morehouse graduates

    President Barack Obama delivers an emotional speech to the Morehouse College class of 2013 in Atlanta, Ga., Sunday.

    President Barack Obama on Sunday stressed the importance of personal responsibility and “what it means to be a man” in his commencement address at historically-black Morehouse College in Atlanta.

    In the midst of a driving rain, Obama told graduates at the all-male private college that they have obligations to “those still left behind” to be role models for the entire African-American community, both personally and professionally.  

    “My whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn’t for my mother and me,” Obama said, referring to his own dad who left his family when the president was just a baby. “I want to break that cycle where a father’s not at home, where a father’s not helping to raise that son and daughter. I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man.”

    The speech was strikingly more personal than the commencement he delivered two weeks early at The Ohio State University when he called on graduates to be engaged citizens. On Sunday, Obama emphasized to the some 500 graduating men of Moreouse to “keep setting an example for what it means to be a man,” praising students who worked multiple jobs to earn a degree while also supporting a family.

    He celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse alumnus, whose legacy has opened doors for graduates that have never before existed.

    “Laws and hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of these Unites States of America,” he said.

    Though opportunities exist now that never have before for black men, the president warned that the legacy of discrimination is still an issue the college graduates will need to overcome.

    “Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing,” Obama said.

    “But there is no longer any room for excuses,” he added.

    The day before, First Lady Michelle Obama took to the commencement circuit, speaking to outgoing seniors at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School in Tennessee on Saturday.

    “Do not waste a minute living someone else’s dream…It takes a lot of work, a lot of real work to discover what brings you joy,” she told graduates.  “It just doesn’t happen; it requires you spending some time.  And you won’t find what you love simply by checking boxes or padding your GPA.”

    A week earlier she told graduates at Eastern Kentucky University to get outside their comfort zones and spend time with those who have opposing views.

    The president has one more upcoming commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy on Saturday.

  • Conn. train outage expected for days following crash that injured 72

    Brian A. Pounds / The Connecticut Post via AP

    A derailed Metro-North rail car is hoisted back on to the tracks in Bridgeport. Conn. on Sunday, May 19, 2013. President Howard Permut said Sunday.

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Commuters are bracing for a difficult trip around southwest Connecticut and to New York City beginning Monday as workers repair the Metro-North commuter rail line crippled by a derailment and crash.

    Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday. Nine remained hospitalized.


    "This amounts to the wholesale reconstruction of a two-track electrified railroad," he said.

    Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, Permut said. The damaged rail cars were removed from the tracks on Sunday, the first step toward making the repairs.

    Service disruptions on the New Haven line between South Norwalk and New Haven are expected to continue "well into the coming week," Permut said.

    Amtrak service between New York and New Haven also was suspended, and there was no estimate on service restoration. Limited service was available between New Haven and Boston.

    Jim Cameron, chairman of a commuter group, the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he's asked officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations. Twelve stations are on the route that's been shut down.

    The state Department of Transportation was expected to provide details Sunday on bus service between stations on Monday. Cameron said he doubts many commuters will use three modes of transportation to get to work: driving their cars to catch a bus to get to a train station for the final leg.

    Commuters will more likely rely on their cars, leading to massive traffic problems on highways that are already clogged on normal days, Cameron said. He suggested that local and regional officials post highway signs directing motorists to available parking so motorists "don't get off the highway and drive in circles looking for where to dump their cars."

    About 700 people were on board the trains Friday evening when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed just outside Bridgeport. It was hit by a train heading west from New Haven.

    Dan Solomon, a trauma surgeon who lives in Westport and was headed to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, was on the train that derailed. He said he treated several injured passengers, including a woman with severely broken ankles.

    He said he was in a front car that was not as badly affected as cars in the rear of the train.

    "I hardly lost my iced tea," Solomon said in an interview.

    He said walls were torn off both trains and he quickly checked injured passengers to separate the most badly injured from others.

    "When the EMS arrived, I was covered in everyone's blood," he said.

    Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision.

    NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.

    The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines — the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven — run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.

    The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.

    The Associated Press

  • AP CEO calls records seizure unconstitutional

     

    The president and CEO of The Associated Press said Sunday that the government's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional" and already has had a chilling effect on newsgathering.

    Gary Pruitt says the Justice Department's secret subpoena of reporters' phone records has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists.

    The Justice Department disclosed the seizure of two months of phone records in a letter the AP received May 10. The letter did not state a reason, but prosecutors had said they were conducting a leaks investigation into how the AP learned about an al-Qaeda bomb plot in Yemen before it was made public last year. Pruitt said the AP story contradicted the government's claim at the time there was no terrorist plot.

    Pruitt spoke on CBS' "Face the Nation."

  • Winning ticket for huge Powerball jackpot sold in Florida

    NBC News

    The Publix in Zephyrhills, Florida, where the winning ticket was sold.

    Do you have the lucky ticket? A winner for the huge Powerball jackpot was sold at a supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., a Florida Lottery official confirmed to NBC News early Sunday.


    The winning Powerball numbers drawn late Saturday were 10, 13, 14, 22, 52 with Powerball number 11.

    Powerball's website said one winner was sold in Florida, and David Bishop of the Florida Lottery confirmed that it was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa.

    The jackpot of the 43-state lottery game surged ahead of the drawing and had been estimated at $600 million -- the second-largest pot in U.S. lottery history. Powerball officials later revised that to more than $590 million.

    Still, that grand prize, accumulated after two months of drawings, surpassed the previous record Powerball payoff of $587.5 million, set in November 2012. That was split by two winners.

    The largest jackpot in U.S. history stands at $656 million, won in the Mega Millions lottery of March 2012. That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

    The store where the winning ticket was sold will receive an $85,000 bonus commission, according to Shelly Gerteisen, a spokeswoman for the Florida Lottery.


    Who has the lucky ticket? The winning ticket for the $590 million Powerball jackpot was sold at a supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., just south of Tampa. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

    The chances of winning the big prize were low — 1 in 175.2 million — but it didn't stop hopeful Americans across the country from purchasing about 80 percent of all possible combinations, according to lottery officials.

    In addition to the big prize at stake Saturday, tickets worth $2 million were sold in New York and South Carolina. In California, which joined the Powerball lottery in April and figures winnings by pari-mutuel, two tickets each worth $2.3 million were sold, according to the California State Lottery website.

    The estimated cash value of Saturday's drawing, if it had hit $600 million and the winner chose to be paid in one lump sum, would have been roughly $377 million -- before taxes, of course.

    Tiffany Satchell told NBCMiami.com that she knows exactly what she'd do if she won.

    "Pay off all my bills," she said. "I really want a Range Rover."

    NBC News' Hasani Gittens, Justin Kirschner and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Saturday night, someone who felt lucky may turn out to be the luckiest person in the world as they pick the numbers for the Powerball jackpot, now at $600 million. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.

    This story was originally published on

  • Plains states on edge under tornado watches

    Tornado watches are already in effect until late Saturday for parts of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. And forecasters say this violent storm system could stretch into the Midwest Sunday. The Weather Channel's Kim Cunningham reports.

    Large sections of the Plains states came under tornado watches Saturday as a wave of storms swept through.


    The greatest threat late Saturday was in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, weather.com reported, with central Oklahoma seeing a spike on Sunday.

    But Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer said the storms on Sunday afternoon and evening were likely to carry a greater chance of tornadoes and the danger will be present into Monday.

    The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for most of western and central Kansas until 11 p.m. CDT, NBC station KSNW of Wichita reported. Early Saturday evening, a Weather Service tornado warning was in effect for an area north of Dodge City, Kansas, that included Ellis, Ness, Rush and Trego counties.


    The storms are being generated by a dip in the jet stream combined with moisture moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, Kim Cunningham of The Weather Channel reported on NBC Nightly News (see the video above).

    The danger follows a series of tornadoes that struck northern Texas on Wednesday night, leaving six people dead and dozens injured. One of the twisters was preliminarily classified EF-4 by the National Weather Service, meaning it could have had winds up to 200 miles per hour.

    Overall, tornadic activity has been slow this May, typically a bad month for twisters, said the Weather Channel’s Tom Moore.

    NBC News staff writer Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

    Related story: Storm warning: Weekend could turn nasty 

  • Deadly Greenwich Village shooting possible 'hate crime,' police say

    WNBC

    Authorities are investigating the overnight shooting death of a 32-year-old man in New York's Greenwich Village as a hate crime after police said the gunman may have hurled anti-gay slurs.

     

    Authorities are investigating the overnight shooting death of a 32-year-old man in New York’s Greenwich Village as a hate crime after police said the shooter may have hurled anti-gay slurs.

    "This clearly looks to be a hate crime," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters on Saturday.

    While investigators continued to piece together the events leading up to the shooting, police identified the victim as Marc Carson of Manhattan.

    Carson was outside a 99 Cent Pizza on Sixth Avenue before midnight with a friend when they were approached by the suspect, the friend told police, according to NBC New York. After the suspect hurled anti-gay slurs, Carson responded and then walked away, the friend told police.


    The suspect approached Carson and the friend again on West 8th Street near Sixth Avenue, law enforcement officials said. The suspect then allegedly pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and shot Carson in the face.

    Carson suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, according to a police release. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Beth Israel Hospital.

    The suspect was later apprehended after trying to outrun an officer who tried to question him. Police say officers found a silver-colored revolver in the suspect's possession. The man was identified as Elliot Morales, 33, of Manhattan, NBCNewYork.com reported. Police said Morales had an arrest for attempted murder in 1998, NBCNewYork.com reported.

    The police are seeking to question two unidentified men who were said to have been with him earlier in the evening, law enforcement officials said.

    The suspect had a separate encounter at a West Village restaurant earlier in the evening, police say. A manager and bouncer at the restaurant said the suspect made anti-gay comments and threats, NBC New York reported.

    “I am horrified to learn that last night, a gay man was murdered in my district after being chased out of a Greenwich Village restaurant and assailed by homophobic slurs,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement on Saturday.

    “There was a time in New York City when hate crimes were a common occurrence,” the mayoral hopeful said. “We refuse to go back to that time. This kind of shocking and senseless violence, so deeply rooted in hate, has no place in a city whose greatest strength will always be its diversity."

    Sharon Stapel of the New York City Anti-Violence Project said in a statement she was “deeply disturbed” by the shooting.

    Police said that a gay couple was attacked in a separate incident on May 10 near Madison Square Garden and severely beaten. One of the victims later required eye surgery. Another gay couple was assaulted by a group of men only days before in the same midtown area of the city.

    "New York has seen a shocking increase in hate crime in recent weeks," Assembly Member Deborah Glick said. "We must stand together as one city and declare that New York is not open for bigotry."

  • Car barrels through Virginia parade crowd, injuring at least 50, official says

    Earl Neikirk / Bristol Herald Courier via AP

    Emergency personnel attend to the injured after a car veered into paradegoers in Damascus, Va., on Saturday, injuring dozens.

    DAMASCUS, Va. -- An elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a Saturday parade in a small Virginia mountain town and investigators were looking into whether he suffered a medical emergency before the accident.


    About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. Their conditions weren't immediately available.

    Another 12 to 15 victims were taken to hospitals by ambulance and the rest were treated at the scene, where some paramedics and other first-responders were participating in the parade.

    It happened around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.

    Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade and he had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past. Multiple witnesses described him as an elderly man.

    Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.

    Witnesses in southwestern Virginia said a car drove into a crowd at a parade Saturday and hurt several people. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    "It is under investigation and charges may be placed," Nunley said.

    Witnesses said the car had a handicapped parking sticker and it went more than 100 feet before coming to a stop.

    "He was hitting hikers," said Vickie Harmon, a witness from Damascus. "I saw hikers just go everywhere."

    Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.

    "Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.

    Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped.

    "There's no single heroes. We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in," he said.

    Nunley cited quick action by police, firefighters, paramedics and hikers to tend to the victims, including a volunteer firefighter who dove into the car to turn off the ignition. The firefighter, whose name wasn't released, suffered minor injuries.

    Mayor Jack McCrady encouraged people to attend the festival on Sunday, its final day.

    "In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

    McCrady said a donation fund was being set up to assist the injured, some of whom don't have medical insurance.

    "We want to make sure they don't suffer any greater loss than they already have," he said. 

  • Hofstra student shot in home robbery was killed by police, officials say

    The New York college student who was shot during a home robbery early Friday was killed by police gunfire, officials said at a news conference Saturday.

    Nassau Co. Police

    Nassau County police on Saturday named 30-year-old Dalton Smith of Hempstead as the man who attempted to rob the off-campus home where Hofstra University junior Andrea Rebello was shot and killed.

    According to NBC New York affiliate WNBC, Nassau County Police said Andrea Rebello, 21, was killed by police fire, not by the armed gunman attempting to rob the off-campus house where she lived with her twin sister, Jessica, and several other women.

    Police identified Saturday the man allegedly involved in the home robbery as Dalton Smith, 30, of Hempstead.

    According to WNBC, Rebello, a Hofstra University student, and Smith were both shot and killed as he was trying to back out of a rear door holding the woman in a headlock and pointing a gun to her head, police said. 

    An officer fired eight rounds, seven of which hit the suspect and one that hit Rebello, police said, according to WNBC.

    According to a police statement, officers responding to a robbery in progress arrived on scene at 2:30 a.m. to find Smith armed with a gun. Three female victims -- the two sister and a third woman -- and one male victim were held inside the home, according to police. Wearing a ski mask, Smith had forced his way inside the house, according to WNBC.

    Smith allowed the third unidentified woman to leave, and she called 911, WNBC reported.

    Police say Smith was on parole for robbery in the first degree and had an extensive criminal history that includes assault.

    A warrant for his arrest was issued last month for absconding from parole.

  • 'Absolutely staggering': Dozens injured in Connecticut train crash

    Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday. NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.

    Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday.

    Area hospitals reported seeing 70 people after the rush-hour collision. Two remained in critical condition on Saturday.

    “The damage is absolutely staggering,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Saturday after a tour of the scene. “Ribbons on the sides of cars are torn away like ribbons of clothes. Tons of metal tossed around like toy things. The insides of cars are shattered.”

    “We are fortunate that even more injuries were not the result of this very tragic and unfortunate accident,” Blumenthal said.

    Connecticut Governor Malloy holds a press conference after two Metro North trains collided injuring 60, 5 critically.

    An eastbound Metro-North train derailed at 6:10 p.m. on Friday and was struck by a westbound train between the Bridgeport and Fairfield stations, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener told reporters on Saturday.

    Investigators from the NTSB arrived in Connecticut at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning and planned to begin documenting the scene of the crash, Weener said. Investigators planned to spend between seven to 10 days on scene, and will conduct interviews with the train’s crew members, passengers, and witnesses.

    “We will not be determining the probable cause of the accident while we’re here on the scene, nor will we speculate on what may have caused the accident,” Weener said.

    Later on Saturday, investigators said they had zeroed in on a fractured part of the rail line as being of particular interest. It has not been determined whether that fracture happened before or as a result of the accident, they said.

    The FBI is no longer a part of the investigation, authorities said.

    St. Vincent Hospital in Bridgeport, Conn. said on Saturday that it saw a total of 44 patients, six of whom were admitted for treatment. All those patients remained in the hospital on Saturday and were reported to be in stable condition.

    Bridgeport Hospital saw a total of 26 patients and admitted three. Two of those patients were in critical condition a day after the accident, and a third was being held for further treatment.

    Passengers who were on the two trains described the rending collision in vivid terms.

    “We came to a sudden halt. We were jerked. There was smoke,” passenger Alex Cohen, a Canadian who was riding the westbound train toward New York, told NBC Connecticut.

    “People were screaming, people were really nervous,” Cohen said. “We were pretty shaken up. They had to smash a window to get us out.”

    A female conductor helped other passengers evacuate the train despite herself sustaining back injuries, authorities said at a press conference late Saturday afternoon.

    The Metro-North train that departs New York City’s Grand Central Station for New Haven, Conn., at 4:41 p.m., with an estimated 300 passengers, derailed near the I-95 overpass in Bridgeport, MTA said in a statement. The train that leaves New Haven’s State Street station for Grand Central at 5:30 p.m., carrying about 400 passengers, struck the derailed train, the statement said.

    Amtrak service between New York City and New Haven, Conn. remained suspended on Saturday following the accident, Amtrak said in a release. Trains would not run through Sunday, and the train service said it could not give an estimate on when schedules may return to normal.

    Amtrak service between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., remained as scheduled, Amtrak said.

    Metro-North, which runs between New York City and its northern suburbs in New York and Connecticut, is one of the busiest commuter rail services in the U.S. There are four tracks on that segment of the New Haven Line, an MTA statement said, but two are out of service for replacement of overhead wires.

    There was "extensive damage" to the track and the wire from the collision, MTA said. The train cars will remain in place until the investigation is completed.

    NBC News Carlo Dellaverson and M. Alex Johnson contributed to this report.

    Related:

    This story was originally published on