TEXAS

Refinery blast hurts 4, shuts road, schools

Thunderous explosions rocked an oil refinery in Big Spring, injuring four workers and shaking buildings miles away.

The blast at Alon USA Energy Inc. sent black smoke billowing and forced the closure of schools and an interstate.

Fires caused by the blast were under control but still burning in the afternoon. The company was waiting for access to the site to investigate the cause of the explosion. The refinery was shut down.

One employee was hospitalized for burns, and the others were treated and released, said company spokesman Blake Lewis.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Amtrak to screen some carry-ons

Amtrak will start randomly screening passengers’ carry-on bags this week in a new security push that includes officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains.

The initiative is to be announced today.

Unlike the airlines, Amtrak has had relatively little visible increase in security since the 2001 terrorist attacks. But concern has been mounting since the 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people.

Items tied to JFK killing unveiled

Items related to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy that had been locked inside a Dallas courthouse for nearly two decades were revealed by Dallas County Dist. Atty. Craig Watkins. They include a purported transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald’s killer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby; a leather gun holster that held the weapon Ruby used to shoot Oswald; and a movie contract signed by Henry Wade, the district attorney when Kennedy and Oswald were killed.

Watkins said he learned of the cache last year and decided “this information was too important to keep secret.”

From Times Wire Reports