• Police seek 7-foot-tall robber on Chicago transit

    By Nesita Kwan, NBCChicago.com

    Victims of a number of recent heists on the Chicago Transit Authority's Pink Line say one of their robbers is so tall his head almost touched the top of the train.

    In the eight days between Dec. 10 and Dec. 18, there were four robberies, police said.

    Read more stories at NBCChicago.com

    Each time, two men would grab someone's phone just as the train approached a station, jump out as the doors closed and run away.

    The men were described as being between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. One of them was about six feet tall. The other man, witnesses said, was more than seven feet tall.

     

  • Water surges into lower Manhattan as superstorm Sandy blasts through

    MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz tells MSNBC's Chris Jansing that water has infiltrated some of the subway tunnels in New York City and describes what it will take the get the system running again.

    Andrew Kelly / Reuters

    A deluge floods the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel in Manhattan as Hurricane Sandy made its approach in New York on Monday.

    By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

    Updated at 12:34 a.m. Tuesday ET: Storm water flooded parts of lower Manhattan on Monday night, pouring into the Brooklyn-Battery and Queens Midtown tunnels, bursting into a subway station and even cascading into the construction site at Ground Zero. 


    The floodwater appeared to be receding around just after midnight Tuesday morning.

    Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, but its wide wingspan crossed the Tri-State area, shutting off power to millions in the region and forcing the residents of the nation's biggest city to stay indoors. Most of Manhattan below 39th Street was without power, Con Edison spokesman Bob McGee told NBCNewYork.com.

    New York City’s Office of Emergency Management sent out blast alerts to phones across the city: “Go indoors immediately and stay inside. DO NOT DRIVE. Call 9-1-1 for emergencies only.”

    Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke directly to New Yorkers, emphasizing that those who didn’t leave when the warnings were issued now stay put, stay away from windows and close the drapes.

    “The time to leave has passed,” Bloomberg said. “Do not go outside. It is dangerous.”

    He told limo and taxi drivers to stay off the road and asked that residents not dial 9-1-1 unnecessarily. The mayor said the emergency line was receiving 10,000 calls per half hour; typical is about 1,000 calls per half hour. 

    Floodwater is now receding following significant flooding in the lower Manhattan area of New York City, blocks from the World Trade Center site. WNBC's Ida Siegal reports.

    About 250,000 people left Manhattan. That’s short of the 375,000 people who live within six and seven feet of sea level and who were ordered to leave the city.

    At Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, the water level rose to a record-breaking 13.88 feet. The previous record was 11.2 feet, set in 1821.

    Photos posted to social media told the story: A haunting image of a lit carousel halfway submerged in Brooklyn; what appeared to be a waterfall pouring into a parking garage, running over cars; water gushing into a Hoboken, N.J. subway station, through an elevator door and past the turnstiles. One photo provided by The Associated Press showed water running down into a construction site at Ground Zero.

    Slideshow:

    John Minchillo / AP

    Water floods the Ground Zero construction site on Monday in New York after Sandy came ashore to the south.

    Launch slideshow

    On Staten Island, rescuers responded in boats at the water line rose, reaching the attics of some homes, NBCNewYork.com reported. Reports from Coney Island and Brighton Beach indicated that ocean water had started making its way through the streets.

    A New York Times story from September discussed what might happen to New York if struck by a storm stronger than Hurricane of Irene during August 2011. Ultimately, Irene “weakened to a tropical storm and spared the city, but it exposed how New York is years away from – and billions of dollars short of – armoring itself,” the story said. According to the story:

    The most vulnerable systems, like the subway tunnels under the Harlem and East Rivers, would have been unusable for nearly a month, or longer, at an economic loss of about $55 billion, said Dr. Jacob, an adviser to the city on climate change and an author of the 2011 state study that laid out the flooding prospects.

    Across the Hudson River in Jersey City, N.J., City Hall and the Jersey City Medical Center were surrounded by water, the Jersey Journal reported. Fire Director Armando Roman said, according to the Journal, that he was on his way to a building when rising waters trapped his vehicle.

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  • LA drivers steer clear of 'Carmageddon' freeway closure

    They survived Carmageddon, but now Los Angeles is coping with the sequel! Once again, the famous 405 freeway has been shut down, forcing Los Angeles drivers off the road. NBC News' Diana Alvear shows us how Angelenos are using this weekend to embrace car-free adventures.

    By NBCLosAngeles.com and NBC News wire reports

    Updated at 1:58 p.m. ET: Carmageddon II, the sequel to last year's shutdown of one of the nation's busiest freeways, appeared early Sunday to be going according to script as many Los Angeles drivers heeded warnings to stay off the road.

    The small exception were the seven people who trespassed -- including newlyweds who sneaked onto the closed portion of I-405. They were immediately detained by the California Highway Patrol.

    "Now they have two documents with their names on them," Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Andy Neiman said. "A marriage certificate and a citation from the California Highway Patrol."

    Four rollerbladers were also caught; they were on their way off the highway.

    Traffic tie-ups were minimal Saturday as construction crews worked around the clock to tear down a portion of the Mulholland Drive bridge on Interstate 405 as part of a $1 billion project to add a new carpool lane. Officials said the demolition was on schedule and that they expect to reopen the freeway as planned for 5 a.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) Monday.

    For the most part, drivers steered clear from the freeway.

    See full coverage at NBCLosAngeles.com

    As temperatures climbed into the 90s, those who couldn't resist a trip to the beach said traffic was smooth.

    "We've been all over the city, no traffic. We even went to Dairy Queen for an ice cream and there was nobody there," Marilyn Millen told KNBC-TV.

    For weeks, Angelenos have been warned to avoid the area on L.A.'s West Side. If they don't, officials warn, a citywide traffic jam could result. But beyond just scare tactics, city officials have been encouraging Southern Californians to get out and enjoy their own neighborhoods on foot, on bikes or via short drives on surface streets.

    During a similar closure last year commuters stayed away from the freeway in droves, the shutdown was considered a success, and crews finished the first phase of the work early.

    See time lapse video of Carmageddon II at NBCLosAngeles.com

    This time, the contractor faces a penalty if the work isn't done in 53 hours. The fine is $6,000 per lane of freeway, for every 10 minutes over the deadline.

    Handout / Reuters

    Construction crews demolish the north side of the Mulholland Bridge over the closed 405 freeway in Los Angeles, California, Saturday.

    Officials on Saturday night told NBCLosAngeles.com that the work should be finished by the completion deadline.

    However, workers however hit a snag just after 4 p.m. PT Saturday (7 p.m. ET) when a big chunk of the bridge gave way, collapsing onto a hillside while still attached to a large support column.

    The work was temporarily halted for a short time while engineers could check out the fallen section. No one was injured in the collapse and the bridge demolition later resumed.

    Dave Sotero, a spokesman for Metro, the agency overseeing the project, said that it was not clear what caused the large chunk of the bridge to fall.

    The chunk fell from the eastern span of the bridge onto the slope leading down to the edge of the freeway.

    The closed section of the freeway carries about 500,000 motorists each day on a typical weekend, according to the Los Angeles Times. California Department of Transportation officials said that in order for Carmageddon II to be a success, at least two-thirds of those drivers need to stay off the road.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • New York subway stations to display anti-jihad ad

    By NBC News

    An ad initially rejected in New York City for its "demeaning'' language about Islam is expected to appear at 10 subway stations next week.


    Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Aaron Donovan told The New York Times that "our hands are tied.'' 

    A Manhattan federal court judge ruled in July that the MTA violated the First Amendment rights of the ad's sponsor, The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), and must let the ad appear, NBCNewYork.com reported.

    The ad states: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.'' It adds, "Support Israel. Defeat Jihad,'' in between two Stars of David.  

    Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

    The group also bought ad space in Washington D.C., where the transit authority there told the Times that it had "deferred" the ad’s placement "out of a concern for public safety, given current world events."

    The group's ad appeared on public buses in San Francisco in August. The transit agency there, known as Muni, said it would donate the $3,400 ad revenue to the city's Human Rights Commission and place an ad next to AFDI's message to say "Muni doesn't support this message," local media reported at the time.

    Golden Gate Bridge transit district, which provides bus and ferry service between San Francisco and suburbs to the north, rejected the ads at a Sept. 7 board meeting by adopting a policy banning religious and political ads.

    Pamela Geller, executive director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, said in an email to the Times that that transit officials in Washington were "kowtowing to the threat of jihad terrorism."

    Recent events in the Middle East have not given her pause "for a second" about posting the ads in New York, she told the Times. "I will never cower before violent intimidation and stop telling the truth because doing so is dangerous," Geller said. "Freedom must be vigorously defended."

    "If someone commits violence, it is his responsibility and no one else’s," she added.

    The Southern Poverty Law Center branded Geller "the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead" and AFDI as a hate group.

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    The Anti-Defamation League said in March that Geller "fuels and fosters anti-Muslim bigotry in society."

    Muneer Awad, the executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Times the ads were an attempt to "define Muslims" through hate speech.

    "It’s perfectly legal to be a bigot and to be a racist," he said. "We want to make sure there’s a counter-voice."

    Donovan said the MTA might consider revising its ad policy at its board meeting next week.

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  • Transit police walk out on strike in Philadelphia over pay

    By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

    More than 200 transit police officers in south-eastern Pennsylvania have walked out on strike, forcing authorities to use private security firms to patrol subways and stops in the Philadelphia area.

    Members of the Fraternal Order of Transit Police, Local 30 division, were called off their jobs on Wednesday, just minutes after negotiations with transit organization SEPTA broke down, NBC10 Philadelphia reported.

    The station reported that the union has been in talks with SEPTA management from April last year and officers had been working since then without a contract.

    A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer said union officials were demanding a $0.50 hourly pay raise to cover the cost of training certification for the 219 officers.

    "At no time did we want to have to go on strike, but SEPTA forced our hand to do what we had to do right now," Rich Neal, of the union, told NBC10.

    Read the full story on NBC10

    In a statement issued on its website, SEPTA said that it did "not anticipate this labor action will affect any transit operations or service."

    "SEPTA has hired a private firm to provide security at our major transit facilities," SEPTA said. "We have an agreement with the Philadelphia Police Department to immediately begin periodic checks of our stations and vehicles 24 hours a day, with an increase presence at our key stations during school dismissal between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. and during rush hour."

    NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

  • Latest New York cancellations

    Twitter.com

    Updated 3:07 p.m. ET: Mass transit in New York City will begin closing at noon ET Saturday, the most striking illustration of the impact Hurricane Irene is expected to have.

    NBC station WNBC-TV has a roundup of the latest closings and cancellations in the New York region.