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MONTGOMERY, W.Va. (AP) —
A broken rail that wasn't found on two previous inspections led to a fiery oil train derailment in southern West Virginia in February, federal investigators said Friday.
A CSX train was carrying 3 million gallons of Bakken crude when it derailed Feb. 16 during a snowstorm in Mount Carbon. Twenty-seven of the train's 109 cars derailed. Twenty cars leaked crude oil.
The Federal Railroad Administration said the broken rail resulted from a vertical split head rail defect. The problem was missed by CSX Corp. and a contractor on two separate inspections in the months leading up the accident. The rail was near the location of a previous broken rail discovered by an FRA inspector that was repaired in May 2014.
The previous inspections that missed the defect were conducted in December 2014 and January 2015. Data from both inspections show evidence of the defect, the FRA said. But neither CSX nor contractor Sperry Rail Service discovered it.
CSX and the contractor have been fined $25,000 apiece for failing to verify a potential rail defect, the FRA said.
"Our country relies on the safety transportation of large quantities of energy products across the nation, and it is our responsibility to require operators to implement strict safety standards," U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release. "FRA's findings and action today should make it clear to rail operators that we will do exactly that."
The derailment shot fireballs into the sky, burned down a nearby house and caused fires on the ground that smoldered for days.
The owner of the destroyed home was treated for inhalation injuries. No one else in the area was hurt.
The FRA said it also will issue an advisory urging more detailed inspections where defects and flaws are suspected. It also will seek advanced training for rail inspection vehicle operators.
The administration also will look into the need for rail-head wear standards and possibly requiring railroads to slow trains or replace rails where certain conditions pose safety risks.
Speed had previously been ruled out as a factor. The FRA has said the train was going 33 mph at the time of the crash. The speed limit was 50 mph.
Oil from the tank cars caused a sludge deposit in the Kanawha River and an adjoining creek, as well as a sheen along the shorelines, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Two water treatment plants downstream closed their intakes temporarily after the derailment and customers were asked to conserve water.
Under a March consent order with the EPA, the railroad agreed to a long-term plan for cleaning up and restoring the area around the derailment. CSX has said more than 181,000 gallons of crude oil was recovered after the accident and thousands of tons of soil has been removed and shipped for disposal.
The train was bound for Yorktown, Virginia. In recent years, trains hauling crude from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana have been involved in fiery derailments in six states.
A lawsuit was filed in September against CSX on behalf of more than 200 residents of Fayette County.
NEW YORK (AP) —
Selena Gomez has revealed that she's battling the debilitating immune system disorder lupus.
"I was diagnosed with lupus, and I've been through chemotherapy," the 23-year-old singer told Billboard magazine in an interview published Thursday.
Gomez acted in "Wizards of Waverly Place" before becoming a pop star. She says she was treated in late 2013 and early 2014 after she canceled the Asian and Australian legs of her Stars Dance tour.
Lupus causes fibrous tissue and inflammation of internal organs, skin rashes and joint pain. It affects women nine times more than men. Organs affected by lupus include the kidneys, heart and lungs.
Gomez's song hits include "Come & Get It" and "Hit the Lights." She has also appeared in the films "Rudderless" and "Spring Breakers."
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —
Netflix is raising the price of its Internet video service by $1 for new customers in the U.S., Canada and some Latin America countries to help cover its escalating costs for shows such as "House of Cards" and other original programming.
The new price of $10 per month for Netflix's standard plan — its most popular — marks the second time in 17 months that Los Gatos, California, company has boosted its U.S. rates by $1. The trend reflects the financial pressure that Netflix is facing as it competes against Amazon.com, HBO and other services for the rights to TV series and movies that will expand its audience.
Netflix's 42 million existing U.S. subscribers are being insulated from the price bump. That's a move CEO Reed Hastings is taking in an effort to avoid a repeat of the customer backlash that stung the company four years ago when it raised rates by as much as 60 percent for subscribers who wanted Internet video and DVD-by-mail rentals.
The abrupt price increase in 2011 triggered an exodus that cost Netflix more than 800,000 subscribers and caused its stock to lose 80 percent of its value in a tumultuous 13-month period.
The experience taught Netflix to reward its existing subscribers as higher prices are phased in on new customers.
Subscribers who have been with Netflix since May 2014 will still pay $8 per month under a two-year rate freeze adopted when the company last raised its U.S. prices by $1. Customers who signed up since the last price increase will pay $9 per month until October 2016.
Netflix's audience continued to expand after last year's price increase, a pattern that investors appear confident that will be occur again with the latest uptick in rates. Netflix's stock surged $6.83, or 6.8 percent, to $114.93 Thursday.
Wall Street has been hoping Netflix would increase its prices because its profit margins have been shrinking as the company's expenses climb for programming and an aggressive international expansion.
Netflix Inc.'s programming costs are expected to rise from $3 billion this year to $5 billion next year. The research firm Ampere Analysis predicts Netflix will be paying $6 billion annually for its line-up by 2018.
Some of that money is being spent on previously released TV series and movies, but Netflix is pouring more money for shows that can only be found on its service — a formula that has been highly successful for HBO's pay-TV channel.
The strategy has paid off for Netflix too as its U.S. customer base has swelled by about 70 percent from 25 million subscribers since the 2013 debut of "House of Cards," the service's first major splash in original programming. Netflix now features dozens of exclusive programs.
Netflix's higher price might help Amazon's rival Internet video service, which is sold with a bundle of other features that includes free shipping from Amazon's online store for $99 annually, or $8.25 per month.
Some analysts, though, view Netflix's biggest competition as HBO, which sells an Internet-only version of its channel for $15 per month.
HBO's price may give Netflix leeway to raise its prices even further, according to Per Sjofors, CEO of consulting firm Atenga. His analysis of customer sentiment concluded Netflix could charge as much as $13 per month for its standard Internet plan without hurting its growth.
Netflix's standard plan allows subscribers to stream video on as many as two different devices simultaneously and watch programs in high definition. A basic plan available to new customers for $8 per month limits watching to just one screen, with no high-definition option.