WASHINGTON - Metro is back to normal service Friday after a downed power line stranded more than 40 passengers Thursday afternoon. The 41 passengers got stuck when a storm brought a power line down on the tracks west of Washington. They were able to get off the train about three hours later. [widget:news__wtop] Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Capt. Oscar Garcia ...

Under the gaze of some 300 enthusiastic hairy and hairless-lipped onlookers, an Orlando, Fla.-area firefighter who founded a mustache-based charity was crowned with this year's "Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year" award. The firefighter, Brian Sheets, managed to capture about 110,000 of more than a half million votes cast online, to win the title and his stately $3 crown ...

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Forest Service has launched an inspector general’s investigation and invited Congress to order a broad inquiry into last summer’s disastrous Station fire, after the recent discovery that dispatch recordings from the critical early hours of the blaze were withheld from The Times and a federal review team. The inspector general’s probe will focus on why several ...

NEW YORK — City officials on Friday said the Fire Department of New York won't hire any firefighters until a new entry exam is created to replace one a federal judge said discriminated against minorities, which is expected to take at least a year. A federal judge had ordered the city to choose one of five temporary methods for selecting applicants ...

SHAPLEIGH, ME - A Shapleigh firefighter is in the hospital with serious injuries after crashing her engine Sunday evening. Officials say Captain Natasha Kinney was returning to the station after a call when she lost control of the engine she was driving and rolled over on Newfield Road. The engine came to a rest on it's roof and crews had to ...

SPRINGFIELD - A 26-year-old Springfield man was arrested late Tuesday in connection with a fire that led to the deaths of three children. Shortly before 11 p.m. Greene County Jail officials confirmed a man was booked on a 24-hour hold pending the filing of formal charges. He was arrested by Springfield police officers on suspicion of first-degree arson, according to online ...

NEW YORK — A set of 354 narrow steps spirals all the way up to the Statue of Liberty's crown, and it's the only escape route for tourists in an emergency. On a recent summer day, one tourist put his hands on his knees and gasped for air as a few others funneled down the tightly twisting staircase to the statue's ...

INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY - Firefighters already accustomed to the oppressive heat of real fires filed down the stairs of a five-story training structure in northern Terre Haute. The smoke - albeit fake - was so thick it shrouded the room in almost total darkness. Dave Dziedzicki, a graduate assistant in Indiana State University's athletic training department, waited at the bottom. Wearing ...

HARDYSTON — Ice, snow and a lack of water did not deter local firefighters from putting out a house fire on the shores of Beaver Lake Wednesday night. The first two fire trucks were stuck on icy private roads leading up to the single-story house, so firefighters hauled hoses some 300 yards through snowdrifts to the blaze, according to Frank Lacatena, ...

LOS ANGELES - Millions of Southland residents were glued to their television sets last week watching the live team coverage of a rescue of man's best friend. A German shepherd mix was fighting for its life in a maelstrom of debris in the fast-moving flow of a swollen flood control channel during the recent rainstorms. Not to worry, the good men ...

CLEVELAND — Medeia Carter, 33, rented her aging three-story house on East 87th Street with the help of a federal Section 8 rent subsidy. Her son, Moses Williams Jr., celebrated his 14th birthday at the house on May 21, 2005 with a sleepover, inviting his cousins and a friend to join him and his siblings. The youngsters, ranging in age from ...

NEW YORK - Firefighters rushed through a wall of flames to rescue an elderly couple Thursday after an early morning blaze ripped through their Brooklyn apartment, authorities said. The blaze started just after 5 a.m. in a fifth-floor apartment at 111 E. 21st St. in Flatbush belonging to Manuel and Maria Gonzalez. When a firefighter scaling a ladder spotted the unconscious ...

ST. LOUIS — Ernest Strong hobbled through the courtroom's swinging gate Friday morning and stopped next to the man who shot him seven times. The two did not look at each other. "This young man has completely turned my life upside down," Strong told the judge who was about to sentence Terrence Hendricks. "I ask that you give him as much ...

HAVERHILL -- The man accused of helping his fellow Haverhill firefighters lie about receiving mandatory EMT training may learn his fate today in Suffolk Superior Court. Former Firefighter Jeffrey Given, 41, is charged with four counts of aiding and abetting the making of false statements in documents to the state Office of Emergency Medical Services, violating state emergency medical requirements, and ...

After more than 40 years in the FDNY, new Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano knows the job's glories - and its risks. A "firefighter's firefighter" with five citations for bravery, Cassano's voice still trembles when he describes losing a colleague in a blaze. He has made it his mission to prevent others from making that supreme sacrifice. "If you're going to send ...

TRENTON - Call Augustine Pope a miracle toddler. About an hour after falling asleep in a Trenton basement, he awoke to flames and smoke clogging the air early Thursday. As at least four others escaped the house, Augustine got trapped in the basement, which began to fill with water as firefighters fought the blaze. Somehow, he stayed afloat as the fire ...

BALTIMORE - One firefighter was in serious condition after falling from a second-story window at an apartment fire in Northwest Baltimore late Wednesday. The firefighter, who also had burns to both hands, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a department spokesman. The injuries were not considered life-threatening. He was not identified. Two residents were also injured ...

BANGOR, CA -- Firefighters are a pragmatic group who learn to assess a situation objectively and make reasoned decisions based on training and judgment. So discussions of the supernatural aren't usually part of their working world, except at Butte County Fire Station 55 in Bangor. Sitting on the northern edge of what was a Gold Rush boomtown, the Bangor Fire Station ...

BRISTOL - "We'll add that to the list." That was pretty much the phrase for the day among emergency personnel throughout the region Tuesday as they struggled to run from one water emergency to another. "Three feet of water in the basement," a Norton dispatcher announced over the police scanner. "Need more pumps here," an Attleboro firefighter reported to headquarters. "We'll ...