Global Pulse

分类： society

  • Rush-hour chaos sweeps New York after busiest rail system shutdown

    Rush-hour chaos sweeps New York after busiest rail system shutdown

    Monday’s morning rush hour devolved into widespread travel disruption for tens of thousands of New York area commuters after a work stoppage by Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) personnel ground the nation’s busiest commuter rail route to a complete halt, even as both sides in the dispute returned to the bargaining table to resolve the standoff.

    At Penn Station, the central transit hub that typically sees more than 600,000 passengers pass through its concourses on an average weekday, the usually bustling space was unnervingly quiet on Monday. Stranded commuters scattered across the city, scrambling to cobble together alternate travel plans to reach work, appointments and critical commitments.

    Among those caught off guard was Mekan Esenov, a Brooklyn resident attempting to travel to a Long Island airport to catch a scheduled flight. “There are no trains,” Esenov explained to reporters. Rideshare options like Uber were priced out of reach for most travelers, he added, with quotes reaching as high as $250 for the single trip.

    To mitigate the disruption, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which oversees the LIRR, has deployed free shuttle buses to cover several high-demand routes in the city. Even with the added service, MTA officials have warned commuters to expect severe overcrowding and lengthy delays across all alternate transit options.

    The work stoppage, which marks the first major strike on the LIRR in more than three decades, was launched Saturday by unions representing roughly 3,500 rail workers after talks between labor representatives and LIRR management collapsed over disagreements on pay and work rule reforms. Union leaders say their members have gone years without wage adjustments, and are pushing for improved compensation and safer working conditions ahead of a new contract set to take effect in June. The unions have formally requested a 5% annual wage increase for the upcoming contract term.

    After New York Governor Kathy Hochul publicly called on both parties to restart negotiations, talks with MTA leadership resumed Sunday, with a federal labor mediation agency stepping in to facilitate productive bargaining on the same day. On Monday, LIRR union members held peaceful protests across the city, including a large gathering in Midtown Manhattan where workers marched in a circle chanting for fair contracts, living wages and workplace dignity.

    Speaking to reporters on the picket line at the LIRR’s Jamaica Station in Queens, Olivier Desinor, a representative for the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, said the vast majority of striking workers would prefer to be on the job rather than walking the picket line. “We’re hardworking men and women,” Desinor said. “It’s not one of the best positions we want to be in, but, thankfully, we’re together in solidarity, and we’re gonna get through this.”

    As of Monday, the MTA’s latest contract offer included a base 3% annual raise, with potential performance adjustments that could lift the total increase to 4.5%, according to CBS News, the U.S. partner of the BBC. Governor Hochul, who has called for a swift resolution that balances worker demands with fiscal responsibility, defended the MTA’s position on Sunday, noting that New York is a “pro-labour state.”

    “We believe in working men and women receiving a fair wage and benefits, but the MTA cannot agree to a contract that would raise fares as much as 8% and risk hiking taxes for Long Islanders,” she said in a statement.

    The strike is projected to impact approximately 250,000 weekly LIRR riders, including commuters traveling to New York City from eastern suburbs and summer travelers heading to Long Island’s popular Atlantic coast beaches, which run from the city’s outer boroughs through the Hamptons to Montauk.

  • Two men arrested over stunt at enclosure of famed monkey Punch

    Two men arrested over stunt at enclosure of famed monkey Punch

    An internet-famous baby macaque at a Japanese zoo has found himself at the center of an unexpected international incident, after two American men were arrested for trespassing into his enclosure earlier this week.

    Nine-month-old Punch, a baby Japanese macaque, won global hearts earlier this year after footage of him clinging to a stuffed orangutan toy went viral across social media. Abandoned by his mother shortly after birth, Punch relied on the soft toy for comfort while he struggled to bond with the other macaques in his troop at Ichikawa City Zoo, located just outside Tokyo. Recent updates from the zoo had brought good news, however: after months of gradual socialization, Punch is finally integrating with the rest of the group, even being spotted grooming other monkeys and returning hugs from his new companions.

    According to local Japanese police, the incident unfolded on Sunday morning. Authorities say a 24-year-old American college student climbed over a perimeter fence to enter Punch’s enclosed habitat, while a second 27-year-old American man, who identifies as a singer, filmed the reckless stunt. Clips of the incident captured by other visiting zoo guests and shared online show the trespasser wearing a full costume while carrying a stuffed toy, with the costume reportedly designed to promote a cryptocurrency project. Zoo staff quickly intercepted the intruder and escorted him out of the enclosure without any harm coming to Punch or the other macaques in the habitat.

    Both men have been taken into police custody on suspicion of forcible obstruction of the zoo’s lawful business operations, and both have denied the allegations against them. Ichikawa Police confirmed to AFP that the intruders never reached the area where the animals were housed and were apprehended within minutes, so no animals were injured during the incident.

    In a formal statement released on Monday, Ichikawa City Zoo officials confirmed they had filed an official damage report with local law enforcement and are already implementing new security measures to prevent similar reckless incidents from happening in the future. Planned upgrades include expanding the restricted public viewing zone around Punch’s enclosure and installing new anti-intrusion netting along the perimeter. The facility is also considering a total ban on personal filming around the enclosure and has temporarily paused all requests from content creators to film at the site.

    This is not the first time a viral animal celebrity has drawn unwanted trespassing from visitors seeking their own 15 minutes of fame. Just one month prior, a man was fined $300 for breaking into the enclosure of Moo Deng, the globally famous baby pygmy hippo at a Thai zoo, who also went viral for viral photos and clips of the young endangered animal. Wildlife and zoo officials have repeatedly warned that unauthorized entry into animal enclosures puts both visitors and animals at severe risk, and can disrupt the carefully managed social environments that captive animal populations rely on.

  • Negotiators reach a deal to end strike on North America’s busiest commuter rail system

    Negotiators reach a deal to end strike on North America’s busiest commuter rail system

    After three days of disruptive work stoppage that upended daily commutes for hundreds of thousands of travelers, negotiators announced a tentative deal on Monday to end the strike against the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), North America’s busiest commuter rail network. Full service is scheduled to resume by Tuesday noon, bringing relief to commuters who had scrambled to find alternate travel routes since the strike began early Saturday.\n\nNew York Governor Kathy Hochul confirmed the breakthrough in a post on X, framing the agreement as a balanced compromise that delivers meaningful wage increases for LIRR workers while avoiding unfair cost burdens for riders and taxpayers. The deal caps off years of stalled contract talks between the railroad’s operator, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and five labor unions representing roughly half of the LIRR’s total workforce.\n\nThe unions launched their strike at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after months of failed negotiations over salary adjustments and healthcare premium contributions. Contract discussions first began in 2023, but talks deadlocked over the unions’ core demand: pay hikes large enough to help working employees keep pace with soaring inflation and rising living costs across the New York metropolitan region. The MTA had repeatedly warned that the unions’ initial wage demands would force the agency to raise ticket fares for regular commuters.\n\nA 2024 intervention by the Trump administration temporarily averted a work stoppage back in September, after the unions requested the appointment of a federal expert mediation panel. But even with federal involvement, the two sides failed to bridge their differences over succeeding months, leading unions to ultimately walk off the job earlier this week. It marked the first LIRR strike in 30 years, with the last major work stoppage taking place in 1994.\n\nMore than 250,000 daily weekday commuters rely on the LIRR to travel between New York City’s five boroughs and the eastern Long Island suburbs, a 118-mile route that serves nearly 3 million residents across Nassau and Suffolk counties, and also carries leisure travelers to popular summer destinations like the Hamptons. The shutdown immediately rippled across regional transportation and public events: over the weekend, baseball fans attending the highly anticipated New York Yankees-New York Mets crosstown matchup at Queens’ Citi Field were forced to find alternate travel, and officials warned that a prolonged strike would have disrupted travel for New York Knicks playoff fans heading to Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, which sits directly above the LIRR’s central Penn Station hub.\n\nOver the weekend, hundreds of LIRR workers including locomotive engineers, machinists, and signal maintenance staff picketed at stations across the route. To ease disruptions, the MTA launched limited free shuttle bus service between key Long Island locations and New York City subway stations starting Monday, and Governor Hochul urged all able LIRR riders to work from home if possible to avoid transportation gridlock. Commute data from Monday morning showed far lower ridership on the shuttle service than officials projected: only around 2,000 riders used the service, compared to the MTA’s pre-planned capacity for 13,000, reflecting widespread compliance with work-from-home guidance.\n\nThe breakthrough in talks came after intensive negotiations that stretched from Sunday afternoon into the early hours of Monday, with prodding from the National Mediation Board, the independent federal agency that oversees labor relations for U.S. railroad and airline industries. With the deal now finalized, commuters can expect a full return to regular scheduled service by midday Tuesday, ending one of the most disruptive regional transportation shutdowns in recent New York history.\n\nThis reporting includes contributions from Associated Press correspondents based in New York and Concord, New Hampshire, and corrects an earlier typo confirming the LIRR’s governing body is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

  • Watch: Strike grinds America’s busiest commuter rail line to a halt

    Watch: Strike grinds America’s busiest commuter rail line to a halt

    A work stoppage by employees of the Long Island Rail Road has thrown New York City’s regional transportation network into disarray, bringing the nation’s busiest commuter rail service to a complete standstill. The industrial action, which marks the first strike the LIRR has faced in more than three decades, has left hundreds of thousands of daily commuters scrambling to find alternative ways to reach their workplaces, schools, and daily appointments.

    As the primary rail provider connecting Long Island’s suburban communities to Manhattan and other parts of New York City, the LIRR carries hundreds of thousands of riders on a typical weekday. The sudden shutdown of service has created cascading disruptions across alternate transit routes, with overcrowded buses and subway lines seeing far higher demand than usual. Many commuters have faced hour-long delays to their trips, while others have been forced to work from home entirely after being unable to secure viable transportation into the city.

    The strike ends a 31-year period of uninterrupted service for the rail line, a stretch that had many New Yorkers unprepared for the widespread chaos that has followed. Transportation officials have urged commuters to avoid non-essential travel into the city and to plan for extended travel times if movement is necessary, as negotiations between union leadership and rail management continue to resolve the dispute behind the scenes.

  • Man in 60s dies following tractor crash

    Man in 60s dies following tractor crash

    A fatal single-vehicle tractor crash in County Leitrim, Republic of Ireland, has claimed the life of a man in his 60s, local law enforcement confirmed. The tragic incident unfolded shortly before 11:00 p.m. local time on Sunday, close to the village of Drumcong on the L3355 route, near Mullaghycullen. First responders confirmed that the driver was pronounced dead at the crash site immediately after the accident. Gardaí, Ireland’s national police service, have implemented emergency traffic measures following the collision. The affected stretch of road has been shut down to all traffic, with clearly marked diversion routes put in place to redirect motorists around the closure. The area is now preserved as an active investigation scene, which will be thoroughly examined by specialist Gardaí forensic collision investigators to determine the exact cause of the crash. In a public appeal for information, Gardaí have asked any member of the public who was traveling in the area around the time of the incident and has relevant dash-cam or other security camera footage to come forward to assist with the investigation. No other vehicles are reported to have been involved in the collision, and no further injuries have been recorded as of the latest update.

  • Italian minister says Modena attack raises integration concerns amid migration debate

    Italian minister says Modena attack raises integration concerns amid migration debate

    On a recent Saturday in the northern Italian city of Modena, a violent assault left eight civilians wounded, one currently in critical, life-threatening condition, that has quickly ignited a charged national conversation around social integration, mental health, and the place of second-generation communities in Italy.

    The attacker, 31-year-old Salim El Koudri, is an Italian citizen born in the country to parents of Moroccan descent, and holds a university education. According to official accounts, he first drove his vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians before crashing into a storefront. After attempting to flee the scene, he stabbed and slightly injured a bystander with a knife, before being subdued by brave members of the public and taken into police custody. Prosecutors have formally charged him with crimes including massacre and aggravated infliction of grievous bodily harm, with a court set to rule on the validity of his arrest within hours of the interior minister’s Monday announcement.

    Speaking in an interview with Italian daily newspaper *Il Giornale* on Monday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi explicitly ruled out terrorism as a motive for the assault. “At this stage, there are no elements that correspond to the classic profile of a terrorist who plans violent actions,” he stated. However, he pushed back against widespread attempts to frame the attack as the isolated action of a single person with untreated mental illness, noting that it exposes deeper, systemic societal vulnerabilities.

    Local authorities have confirmed that El Koudri received a formal diagnosis of a schizoid personality disorder in 2022, but discontinued treatment shortly after beginning care. He had also documented longstanding frustration with his employment and personal social circumstances, and investigators discovered he had sent an email to his former university containing anti-Christian insults, before issuing a later apology. Piantedosi suggested the attack may stem from personal resentment rooted in a perceived experience of systemic discrimination, while cautioning that the full investigation into the motive remains ongoing.

    The incident has thrown gasoline on already heated political debate in Italy, where migration control stands as a core policy priority for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing ruling administration. Though Piantedosi acknowledged the connection to broader integration failures, he drew a clear line between the Modena attack and the government’s migration enforcement agenda, pointing out that El Koudri is a legal Italian citizen, not an undocumented migrant. “We are working on repatriations of foreign nationals who commit crimes, but here we are talking about an Italian citizen,” he explained. “This is something different.”

    He emphasized that legal status, formal citizenship, and even academic achievement do not automatically guarantee successful social integration, warning against oversimplifying the attack by reducing it solely to a psychiatric issue. “It would be superficial to deny psychiatric discomfort, just as it would be to use it to avoid a broader reflection on social and cultural fragilities,” he said.

    Political reactions have been deeply divided across the Italian political spectrum. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the hardline anti-migrant League party, labeled El Koudri a “second-generation criminal” in a social media post, and renewed his calls for stricter border and migration controls. That characterization was immediately rejected by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who pointed out that the attacker is an Italian citizen, not a foreign migrant. Tajani planned to travel to Modena on Monday to visit wounded victims in the hospital.

    Opposition politicians and local officials have pushed back against attempts to exploit the attack for political gain, rejecting attempts to tie the violence to immigration policy more broadly. Modena Mayor Massimo Mezzetti dismissed broad generalizations about foreign-born communities as “nonsense,” noting that two Egyptian migrants were among the members of the public who intervened to stop El Koudri and take him down before police arrived.

    The attack has also refocused national attention on the unique challenges faced by so-called second-generation Italians, people born and raised in Italy to immigrant parents, who often fall into gaps in the country’s citizenship and social systems. Under current Italian law, second-generation individuals are not automatically granted citizenship at birth, and must apply for status later in life. Even when they grow up, attend school, and build their lives in Italy, many continue to face persistent barriers to employment, social inclusion, and a shared sense of national identity.

    Thousands of Modena residents gathered over the weekend in the city’s central Piazza Grande to hold a public gathering in solidarity with the attack’s victims, as medical teams continue to treat the wounded, with one woman still listed in life-threatening condition as of Monday.

  • Strike halts New York commuter rail line

    Strike halts New York commuter rail line

    On Saturday, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) — the busiest commuter rail system across North America — ground to a complete halt after unionized workers launched a work stoppage, the first major industrial action the line has seen in 30 years.

    Shortly after midnight, the entire rail network stopped operating. Five labor unions representing approximately half of the LIRR’s total workforce, totaling more than 3,500 employees ranging from locomotive engineers and signal technicians to ticket clerks, electricians, and machinists, walked off the job after months of stalled contract negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the public agency that oversees operations of the LIRR.

    Negotiations between the two sides have hit an impasse over two core issues: worker wage adjustments and healthcare premium contributions. As of Saturday, no new bargaining sessions have been scheduled, according to Kevin Sexton, national vice-president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

    By Saturday afternoon, the LIRR’s central hub, Manhattan’s Penn Station, bore little resemblance to its usual crowded weekend self. The bustling main concourse that normally teems with thousands of daily commuters hosted only a few dozen people, most of whom were transiting through the station to access unaffected Amtrak intercity services. Departure boards that once display upcoming LIRR trips by destination now carry unusual entries for “ghost trains” marked “No Passengers,” while hand-placed signs on locked customer service windows inform travelers of the strike-related shutdown. Barricades and roll-down gates block access to LIRR platforms, with MTA police officers posted to redirect displaced commuters to alternative travel options.

    While the shutdown was felt immediately on Saturday, transportation officials and commuters are bracing for far more severe disruption when the workweek begins on Monday. On an average weekday, the LIRR carries nearly 300,000 commuters traveling between New York City and Long Island’s eastern suburbs. Displaced riders will need to rely on limited alternative bus service, which can only accommodate roughly 13,000 passengers during both morning and evening rush hours, or opt to drive into the city, despite ongoing elevated gas prices that already strain household budgets.

    Speaking on the picket line outside Penn Station Saturday morning, union member Duane O’Connor acknowledged the widespread inconvenience the strike would impose on ordinary commuters and local communities, but emphasized that workers are only demanding fair compensation. “I feel terrible. Terrible. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt the island, this is going to hurt the city … All we are asking for is fair wages,” O’Connor said.

    This work stoppage marks just the fourth strike in LIRR’s recorded history, and the first since 1994. Previous strikes between 1980 and 1994 lasted anywhere from two to 11 days, leaving uncertainty for commuters who rely on the line for daily travel, as no end to the current shutdown is in sight with no new talks scheduled.

  • Japan arrests Americans over stunt at baby monkey Punch’s zoo

    Japan arrests Americans over stunt at baby monkey Punch’s zoo

    Japanese law enforcement officials confirmed Monday that two American citizens have been taken into custody following a reckless public stunt that saw one man breach the enclosure of Japan’s most famous infant primate at Ichikawa City Zoo, located just outside Tokyo. The viral baby macaque Punch has drawn massive crowds of visitors to the facility since his rise to global internet fame earlier this year.

    According to local police accounts, the incident unfolded Sunday, when a 24-year-old American man identifying himself as a college student scaled a safety fence and dropped into the dry moat that surrounds the zoo’s monkey exhibit. His accomplice, a 27-year-old American man who says he works as a professional singer, remained outside the enclosure to record the stunt for sharing online.

    Social media footage circulating after the incident shows the trespasser dressed in a full costume featuring a large smiley-face headpiece fitted with dark sunglasses. As the man climbed over the barrier, the entire troop of macaques in the exhibit scattered in panic. A senior Ichikawa Police official, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the pair never made direct contact with any of the animals, including Punch, and were quickly detained by on-duty zoo staff before they could escalate the incident.

    Police confirmed that the two Americans are currently facing misdemeanor charges of forcible obstruction of business, a charge both men have formally denied. Investigators also noted that the pair carried no official government identification at the time of their arrest, and initially provided false names to responding officers.

    The unauthorized intrusion comes in the wake of an unprecedented surge in visitors to Ichikawa City Zoo, a boom driven entirely by the global viral fame of Punch. The baby macaque captured global attention earlier this year after zookeepers shared photos of the tiny infant clinging to a plush IKEA orangutan toy for comfort, after he was rejected and abandoned by his biological mother shortly after his birth last July.

    After being hand-raised by keepers in a controlled human care environment, Punch recently began gradual training to reintegrate into his troop. His story of resilience resonated with animal lovers across social media, where a dedicated global fanbase has formed around the hashtag #HangInTherePunch, drawing tens of thousands of domestic and international tourists to the previously little-known suburban zoo.

    The incident is the latest in a growing string of high-profile cases of unruly tourist behavior in Japan, a trend that has sparked growing frustration among local residents as the country sees a record post-pandemic boom in international visitor numbers. Last year, a Ukrainian YouTube creator with more than 6.5 million subscribers was arrested after livestreaming himself trespassing inside an abandoned residential home in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear exclusion zone. In 2023, an American livestreamer known online as Johnny Somali was taken into custody on trespassing charges after he entered an active construction site without permission.

  • Escaped tiger shot by German police after attacking man

    Escaped tiger shot by German police after attacking man

    A violent incident near Leipzig, Germany, has sparked fierce public debate over private big cat ownership after an escaped tiger owned by controversial animal trainer Carmen Zander — who calls herself the nation’s “Tiger Queen” — was killed by police following a serious attack on a senior keeper.

    The attack unfolded on Sunday at a private, industrial-zoned animal holding facility just outside Leipzig, near the town of Schkeuditz. A 73-year-old man was mauled while inside the tiger’s enclosed space, leaving him with critical life-threatening injuries, law enforcement officials confirmed. After the large cat broke out of its enclosure, armed responding officers tracked it down within minutes and made the decision to shoot it dead to contain the threat.

    Local media reports confirm the facility is owned by Zander, a long-controversial figure in German animal circles who holds public tiger petting experiences where visitors pay to interact with her collection of big cats. Her official website advertises these encounters as “unforgettable” and “one-of-a-kind,” describing the animals as 250-kilogram “powerhouses” kept in a animal-friendly setting. The site lists eight tigers in Zander’s care, including three that have died over the past nine years; named animals include 190-kilogram Kiara, 20-year-old Aschanti, and two-year-old cub Imana. Social media posts attributed to Zander regularly share images of her tigers playing in their enclosures, framing her operation as humane and responsible. The BBC has confirmed it contacted Zander for a response to Sunday’s incident, and she had not issued a public statement as of reporting.

    Police defended their decision to kill the animal, noting that it had become unmanageable and that lethal action was the only way to eliminate immediate risk to the general public. Officers added that no other animals escaped the facility, and they have scheduled a drone sweep of the surrounding area to confirm the site remains fully secured.

    The incident has prompted immediate calls for reform and relocation from local leaders, residents, and animal welfare groups alike. Thomas Druskat, district mayor for the area, called for all seven remaining big cats at the facility to be moved to appropriate permanent sanctuaries, telling local media it was “unthinkable” to consider what could have occurred if the escaped tiger had harmed members of the public. Local residents speaking to Germany’s DPA news agency described the event as “terrible and worrying,” with one resident claiming the animals have long been kept in inadequate, unsafe conditions.

    Leading international animal rights organization PETA has echoed these concerns, calling on German federal and state authorities to introduce stricter regulations governing private ownership of big cats. The group told DPA that tighter legal frameworks are urgently needed to protect both animals and public safety in cases of private exotic animal keeping.

  • Driver of crashed train tested positive for drugs, Thai police say

    Driver of crashed train tested positive for drugs, Thai police say

    On a Saturday afternoon in central Bangkok, a devastating collision at the Asoke-Din Daeng railway crossing has left eight people dead and dozens more injured, after a freight train slammed into a public bus that became stranded on active tracks, triggering an intense fire that engulfed the vehicle. In the days following the tragedy, Thai authorities have unveiled troubling findings that point to both human error and longstanding systemic failures as core causes of the deadliest railway incident in the country in recent years.

    Officials confirmed late last week that the freight train driver tested positive for illegal substances following the crash, and has since been formally charged with reckless driving. Preliminary data pulled from the train’s black box shows the driver only activated the emergency braking system when the train was roughly 100 meters from the stopped bus — a distance too short to stop the heavy vehicle in time to avoid impact. Beyond the train driver, two other people are also facing criminal charges: the bus driver, who got stuck on the tracks amid peak-hour gridlock, and the manual crossing guard responsible for lowering safety barriers, which failed to deploy correctly because the bus was blocking the mechanism.

    The crash has pulled back the curtain on long-known safety hazards at the Asoke-Din Daeng crossing, a high-traffic chokepoint that connects to one of Bangkok’s busiest downtown intersections. Structural engineers familiar with the site warn the crossing has operated well above its safe capacity for years: Dr. Amorn Phimarnmas, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Thailand, estimates that more than 100,000 road vehicles pass through the crossing every single day, far exceeding the safety threshold for an at-grade, manually operated railway crossing.

    Decades of unplanned urban growth have exacerbated the risks, experts note. The railway tracks were laid decades before the surrounding road network and dense commercial and residential development sprung up around them, creating a persistent conflict between rail and road traffic that has become normalized over time. Local commuters regularly skirt safety rules: motorcyclists frequently weave around partially lowered barriers to cut through crossing, beating congested traffic but creating constant risks of collision with oncoming trains. This routine exposure to risk has led to what Dr. Amorn calls “risk normalization” — a dangerous dynamic where commuters, operators and regulators accept daily unsafe conditions as the status quo, until a disaster strikes.

    In response to the crash, Thailand’s top rail transport regulator has announced immediate new safety rules to prevent similar tragedies. Pichet Kunadhamraks, director-general of Thailand’s Department of Rail Transport, ordered mandatory pre-shift drug and alcohol testing for all train operators and railway staff across the country, a sweeping change meant to rule out impairment on the job. Authorities have also launched a full review of all at-grade railway crossings across Thailand to identify high-risk sites that need upgraded safety infrastructure or full grade separation to eliminate conflicts between road and rail traffic.