In brief: Freight rail delays hurting business

WASHINGTON – Senators and shippers complained Wednesday that widespread delays in freight rail shipments are hurting a wide array of industries and driving some companies out of business, and they expressed doubt that the railroad companies are doing all they can to fix the problem.

The delays, which escalated late last year and continued through the spring and summer, appear to be the result of too few rail cars and too much demand from shippers, officials representing the agriculture, auto and chemical industries told a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Edward Hamberger, the rail industry’s top lobbyist, said the industry is struggling to keep up with a sharp increase in freight rail demand created by the oil fracking boom in the Bakken region of North Dakota and two years of unusually bountiful harvests.

Texas inmate gets lethal injection

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A 45-year-old man convicted of gunning down his former common-law wife and her brother more than two decades ago in Houston was put to death by lethal injection Wednesday evening.

Willie Trottie’s execution was carried out about 90 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last-day appeals.

Panel votes against nuke plant closure

LOS ANGELES – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday rejected a senior federal expert’s recommendation to shut down California’s last operating nuclear power plant until the agency can determine whether its twin reactors can withstand powerful shaking from nearby earthquake faults.

In a decision written by Executive Director for Operations Mark Satorius, the agency concluded there is no immediate or significant safety concern at the Diablo Canyon plant, which sits on a seaside bluff midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Michael Peck, who for five years was Diablo Canyon’s lead NRC inspector, said in a confidential report disclosed by the Associated Press last month that no one knows whether the plant’s equipment can withstand strong shaking from those faults – the potential for which was realized decades after the facility was built.

Movie actor Kiel dies at hospital

LOS ANGELES – Richard Kiel, the 7-foot-2 actor best known for portraying the James Bond villain Jaws, has died in Fresno, California. He was 74.

Kiel died Wednesday at St. Agnes Medical Center, Kelley Sanchez, director of communications, confirmed to the Los Angeles Times.

Kiel played the hulking, metal-mouthed Bond villain in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker.”

Sanchez declined to give a cause of death.

Tropical storm forms off Mexico

LOS CABOS, Mexico – A tropical storm formed Wednesday in the Pacific off Mexico’s southern coast and strengthened some as it slowly moved northward, possibly to grow into a hurricane.

Tropical Storm Odile was centered about 195 miles south-southwest of Lazaro Cardenas and edging northwest at 3 mph late Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm’s center was expected to remain offshore through Friday.

A forecast track shows it hitting the area around Los Cabos at the southern end of the Baja Peninsula over the weekend, the center said.

Astronauts return from space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Three space station astronauts are back on Earth.

An American and two Russians landed early Thursday in Kazakhstan after 5 1/2 months aboard the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Steven Swanson and Russian crewmen Oleg Artemiev and Alexander Skvortsov flew to the orbiting outpost in March. Their departure leaves three men still up there: an American, Russian and German.

Mountain lion killed after attack on boy

SAN FRANCISCO – Wildlife officials in Northern California shot and killed a mountain lion Wednesday, saying they are virtually certain it is the one that attacked a 6-year-old boy along a hiking trail three days earlier.

The 65-pound male mountain lion was shot high in a tree near the trail in the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino where the boy was attacked and wounded, California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Patrick Foy said. It will take DNA testing to determine if it is the cat the department has been tracking for days.

Embattled mayor may have tumor

TORONTO – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been admitted to a hospital and is believed to have a tumor in his abdomen, health officials said Wednesday.

Dr. Rueben Devlin from Humber Regional Hospital said Ford had been complaining of abdominal pains and that an examination has resulted in a working diagnosis of a tumor.

Ford, 45, became an international celebrity last year after he acknowledged using crack in a “drunken stupor” following months of denials.

Weight-loss drug gets FDA approval

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the approval Wednesday of the new weight-loss drug Contrave, a mix of antidepressant and alcohol dependence medications.

The drug, which is intended to be used along with a low-calorie diet and exercise regimen, is approved for use in obese adults (body mass index of 30 or greater) or overweight adults (BMI of 27 or greater) who also suffer a weight-related condition, such as high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes, according to regulators.

Gates foundation targets Ebola

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone – As the U.S. government and the United Nations both stepped up giving Wednesday to quell the Ebola epidemic sweeping through several West African countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will spend $50 million on the international effort seeking a vaccine and other therapies.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s donation is the U.S.-based group’s largest to a humanitarian effort. The money will be used to purchase supplies and to develop vaccines, therapies and better diagnostic tools.