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<p>NEW YORK (AP) — A man riding a Metro-North train dropped his cell phone in a toilet and got his arm stuck trying to retrieve it Thursday, forcing the train to stop and delaying the evening commute for thousands of people.</p>

Mechanics for the nation's third-largest public transportation system went on strike Tuesday, forcing hundreds of thousands of commuters to scramble for alternate transportation for the second time in three years. Metropolitan Transportation Authority mechanics walked off the job after midnight, and bus drivers, train operators and other workers were honoring picket lines. The move - which came on the heels of an unrelated strike at the region's groceries - shut down buses and trains that an estimated 500,000 daily riders count on to get around Los Angeles County. "I'm just stranded," commuter David Strattling, 59, said early Tuesday. "I won't...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — Saying that overloading may have contributed to a fatal plane crash this month in North Carolina, federal aviation officials announced today that thousands of passengers flying on small planes over the next month will have to tell ticket agents how much they weigh, or step on a scale, to check whether existing estimates of average passenger weight are accurate The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering all 24 airlines that operate the small planes to collect weight information from a sampling of their flights. Investigators suspect that a Beech 1900 that crashed on takeoff in Charlotte, N.C.,...

<p>BURBANK, California (CNN) -- At least one person died and several people were injured when a Metrolink commuter train slammed into a vehicle Monday, police said.</p> <p>The accident occurred at 9:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) at Lincoln Street and San Fernando Boulevard, said Lt. Janice Lowers of the Burbank Police Department.</p>

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