Nation in brief: Train malfunctions in simulated test

Washington – A train control system that should have prevented Monday’s deadly Metro crash failed in a test conducted by federal investigators, officials said Thursday, suggesting that a crucial breakdown of technology sent one train slamming into another.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board performed the simulation Wednesday night. In the test, investigators positioned a train in the same location as the train that was rear-ended in Monday’s crash. The system failed to detect that the idled test train was there, the NTSB said. Investigators did not say what caused the malfunction, and they stopped short of saying the system failure caused the crash.

The findings suggest that the oncoming train in Monday’s crash might not have received information that a train was stopped ahead on the rails north of the Fort Totten Station. The stopped train was struck by a train operated by Jeanice McMillan. She and eight others were killed in the crash; 80 people were injured.

White supremacists arrested, indicted

Phoenix – Two white supremacists from Illinois have been indicted in a 2004 mail bombing that injured the diversity director in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, federal authorities said.

Twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon are charged with conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday and filed June 16 in federal court.

The indictment says the brothers intended to “promote racial discord” on behalf of the White Aryan Resistance, a decades-old group based in California. The package detonated in the hands of Don Logan, who is black, on Feb. 26, 2004, in the city’s Human Resources Complex.

Authorities arrested the brothers Thursday in their Davis Junction, Ill., home and say they had assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and white supremacist material.