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Planes, trains and ferries: It’s Monday and a transportation edition of the 5 things you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door:
1. Amtrak
If your one job is to get people safely from point A to point B, yesterday was a miserable one for Amtrak. The rail line suffered three crashes in one day: one near Philly that killed two workers when a train hit a backhoe; a person died in Illinois when a train hit a vehicle; and a person was injured after being hit by a train in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As for folks hoping to take Amtrak to work or whatever today, be aware that service will be limited between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.
2. Migrant crisis
They’re sending them back. Early this morning ferries filled with migrants arrived in Turkey from Greece, as deportations begin under a controversial new EU deal. Under the deal people who get into Greece illegally by sea will be sent back to Turkey. For every person sent to Turkey – which has 2.7 million refugees of its own – one will go from Turkey to Europe. Will the deal alleviate the pressure on Europe as it struggles to absorb thousands of migrants? Maybe. Or it may just shift the migrant routes. If they can’t get in through Greece anymore, they may try farther west through Italy.
3. Campaign 2016
The political circus known as the 2016 primaries comes to Wisconsin this week. On the GOP side, The Donald is coming off his worst week ever. Can he right the ship in Wisconsin? Or will Ted Cruz inch even closer in the delegate count with a victory? Meanwhile, on the Dems side, Hillz and Uncle Bernie continue to squabble over oil-and-gas money and holding another debate. But the sniping is to be expected – they’re reportedly neck-and-neck in the latest polls in Wisconsin as Tuesday’s primary looms.
4. Muslim family kicked off flight
Flying these days is hard. Safety and terrorism fears, interminable delays, no-rhyme-or-reason ticket pricing. A Muslim family out of Chicago is adding discrimination to its list of complaints. The family wants United Airlines to say “sorry’ after the parents and three kids were kicked off a plane before takeoff in Chicago last month. A discussion about a child booster seat ended with the family being booted over a “safety” issue. The mother, Eaman-Amy Saad Shebley, wonders if her headscarf had anything to do with it. United said no it didn’t, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others aren’t convinced.
5. 2016 Olympics
If you want to get tickets to the Olympics this summer in Rio, you have … an excellent chance of scoring them. Wait, what? Aren’t Olympic tickets nearly impossible to come by? Not this year. With four months to go Brazil’s only sold half of them, and its sports minister resigned, so it’s up to his replacement to boost sales. If you haven’t noticed, Brazil is having something of a, um, challenging year. Just to review: Protests in the streets, the President may get impeached, a collapsing economy, massive cost-cutting, crime and terrorism fears. Oh, and there’s this thing called Zika. The Brazilians repeat, like some kind of mantra, that they’ll get it done. We will see.
But wait, there’s one more…
Elected leaders and top officials from around the world are responding with denials and outrage to allegations that they used secret offshore companies and accounts to hide billions of dollars. Read more about the Panama Papers.