• The Buenos Aires train slammed into the bumper at the end of the line Saturday at the same station 52 people were killed in a crash last year

• This time there was no immediate report of deaths, but at least 80 people were injured including an 8-year-old boy

• A mob quickly formed, unleashing its fury at the train operators and chanting 'murderer, murderer!' at the injured driver

• Officers intervened and the driver was soon hospitalized under police custody though he tested negative for alcohol

A Buenos Aires commuter train slammed into the bumper at the end of the line Saturday at the same station in Argentina's capital where 52 people were killed in a similar crash last year.

This time there was no immediate report of deaths, but at least 80 people were injured.

A mob quickly formed, unleashing its fury at the train operators. Passengers chanted 'murderer, murderer!' at the injured driver through the shattered cabin window. Officers intervened and the driver was soon hospitalized under police custody.

I don't believe in God. However, I do believe in divine retribution. Without going into the specifics of this somewhat counterintuitive theology, suffice to say here that its central axiom is the idea that actions have consequences. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris, and the results aren't pretty.

This is our future. Or, at least, one hopes it is - otherwise, there is no justice in this world, or perhaps even in the next.

This struck me as I was reading a column by Steve Chapman, a mildly conservative journalist with vaguely libertarian leanings: according to him, people on the right (of which I count myself one) are "addicted to apocalypse." He takes us through decades of conservative apocalyptic rhetoric, from Ronald Reagan predicting the end of freedom in America due to the depredations of Medicare to Ted Cruz - the liberal media's villain of the moment - who recently said:

"The challenges facing this country are unlike any we have ever seen. ... (T)his is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights. We're nearing the edge of a cliff. ... We have a couple of years to turn this country around, or we go off the cliff to oblivion." Citing Reagan, Cruz declared: "One day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children's children, 'What was it like when America was free?'"

British graffiti artist Banksy has been told to stop painting murals in New York.

While delighting lovers of street art by painting a new work in a surprise location in the city every day this month, the elusive artist has incurred the wrath of Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor.

The tough-on-crime Mr Bloomberg said that graffiti ''does ruin people's property'' and was ''a sign of decay and lost control''.

''Nobody's a bigger supporter of the arts than I am,'' said the mayor, who donates millions of dollars from his personal fortune each year to the city's artistic institutions. I just think there are some places for art and some places where - no art. You running up to somebody's property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that's exactly what the law says.''

His remarks echoed a decade-long debate in Britain and Australia over what should be done about murals on the streets of London by the artist, whose works now sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Young people in 45 states will see their health insurance premiums increase under Obamacare because the law relies on the money they pay into the system to offset the cost of caring for older enrollees, according to a new study.

Virginia leads the pack, as individuals aged 27 and under will see their health insurance premiums jump by 252.5 percent -- $416.55 -- according to the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.

Virginians under the age of 50 will see their premiums jump by an even greater percentage, rising from $228 to $991.03.

Such increases are not a surprise to the law's architects. "I have always said when looking at this bill, that if I were a young person, I can see elements of this bill that I wouldn't like in the short run," Henry Aaron, vice chairman of the D.C. health exchange, told the Washington Examiner last November.

Heritage expects monthly premiums for young people to drop in Colorado, Ohio, New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, "because those states had already over-regulated insurance markets that led to sharply higher premiums through adverse selection," according to study author Drew Gonshorowski.

The Heritage Foundation's Chairman Jim Demint cited the premium increases as one of the chief reasons his organization pushed for lawmakers to defund Obamacare most recent continuing resolution to fund government in the absence of a proper budget.

Demint argued that the defund push preserved one policy victory on spending. "If the Republicans had not fought on Obamacare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester," he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Thursday.

Joel Gehrke is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

Greek police have launched an international search to establish the identity of a little girl found living with a Roma couple who are not her parents.


They hope Interpol can help solve the mystery of the girl, aged around four, who was discovered in central Greece. Suspicions were aroused as she bore no resemblance to the two adults.

"During questioning about the girl, they gave conflicting answers," a news conference was told by Vassilis Halatsis, the Police Director of Thessalia province. "The constantly changing claims of the supposed parents consolidated our beliefs that these were not the biological parents of the child."

Seawater just outside one of Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors registered radiation levels on Wednesday 13 times the previous day's reading, the operator of the crippled nuclear plant said on Thursday.

Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said combined Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 readings just outside the damaged No. 2 reactor jumped to 1,200 becquerels per liter on Wednesday, the highest levels recorded since late 2011.

Regulatory limits for Cesium, which emits powerful gamma radiation and is potentially fatal to humans, is 90 bq/liter for Cesium-137 and 60 bq/liter for Cesium-134.

The U.S. has quietly decided to release more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan that was suspended when relations between the two countries disintegrated over the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden and deadly U.S. airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers.

Officials and congressional aides said ties have improved enough to allow the money to flow again.

American and NATO supply routes to Afghanistan are open. Controversial U.S. drone strikes are down. The U.S. and Pakistan recently announced the restart of their "strategic dialogue" after a long pause. Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is traveling to Washington for talks this coming week with President Barack Obama.

But in a summer dominated by foreign policy debates over the coup in Egypt and chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the U.S. hasn't promoted its revamped aid relationship with Pakistan. Neither has Pakistan.

The silence reflects the lingering mutual suspicions between the two.

The Pakistanis do not like being seen as dependent on their heavy-handed partners. The Americans are uncomfortable highlighting the billions provided to a government that is plagued by corruption and perceived as often duplicitous in fighting terrorism.

Congress has cleared most of the money, and it should start moving early next year, officials and congressional aides said.

Over three weeks in July and August, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development informed Congress that it planned to restart a wide range of assistance, mostly dedicated to helping Pakistan fight terrorism. The U.S. sees that effort sees as essential as it withdraws troops from neighboring Afghanistan next year and tries to leave a stable government behind.

Other funds focus on a range of items, including help for Pakistani law enforcement and a multibillion-dollar dam in disputed territory.

I appeared on NPR on Wednesday and was surprised to hear a caller say that Sen. Ted Cruz should be charged with sedition. "I'm really baffled by the fact that the discussion has not ever reached the point where charges of sedition should be brought up against him for conspiring and bullying others to work with him to undermine the American economy ... full faith and credit," the caller said. "He's done so much damage to the standing of the United States in the world. And if you read the Sedition Act, it seems like it really applies."

A colleague on the panel, the Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy, assured the caller, "There is no possibility of that." And the conversation moved on. But it turns out that in a few corners of the left, there are activists who would like to see Cruz, along with other Republicans and conservatives who have expressed strong opposition to Obamacare, charged with inciting rebellion against the United States government.

After Cruz and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared together last weekend on the National Mall, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported the event in front of a screen with pictures of Cruz and Palin and the title LATEST SEDITION. Maddow did not utter the word itself, but viewers certainly got the message.

The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on Friday released the initial results of an international survey of adult skills in literacy and mathematics, revealing that Americans rank 21st in "numeracy" and are tied for 15th in literacy among adults in 23 advanced economies.
American adults also scored below the average in both numeracy and literacy for all respondents in all 23 advanced economies.

Japan and Finland ranked first and second in both categories and Italy and Spain took the bottom two spots in both.

The international survey--the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)--was developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The data from Russia was not included in the initial results, the NCES said, "because they were released too late for publication."

"Numeracy" was defined by the survey as "the ability to access, use, interpret, and communicate mathematical information and ideas, to engage in and manage mathematical demands of a range of situations in adult life."

"Literacy" was defined as "understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written text to participate in society to achieve one's goals and to develop one's knowledge and potential."

The survey tested a sample of approximately 5,000 Americans ages 16 to 65, using a test that was scored on a scale of 0-500.

In numeracy, American adults achieved an average score of 253 out of 500, nosing out Italian adults who averaged 247 and Spanish adults who averaged 246.

Emergency crews battle fire after tanker cars carrying crude oil and petroleum gas leak following derailment in Alberta

Emergency crews battled a massive fire on Saturday after a Canadian National tanker train carrying oil and gas derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, overnight. No injuries have been reported so far.

A Canadian National spokesman, Louis-Antoine Paquin, said 13 cars four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine loaded with liquified petroleum gas came off the tracks around 1am local time in the hamlet of Gainford, about 50 miles from Edmonton. The entire community of roughly 100 people was evacuated.

Paquin said three cars containing gas were leaking and on fire. Local officials feared there could be an explosion and declared a state of emergency.

"It's still a risky situation so we need to contain as much as possible and keep people far away," said Carson Mills, spokesman for Parkland County, which includes Gainford.

A resident described hearing a series of crashes moments before a huge fireball shot into the sky. "The fireball was so big, it shot across both lanes of the Yellowhead [Highway] and now both lanes of the Yellowhead are closed and there's fire on both sides," said a witness identified only as Duane.