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    13 People Injured as School Bus Overturns on Garden State Parkway

    The bus overturned near Montvale, N.J., officials said, closing all lanes in the area. It had been traveling from Lakewood, N.J., to Rockland County, N.Y.A school bus with at least 30 passengers on board overturned on the Garden State Parkway near Montvale, N.J., on Monday evening, injuring 13 people, the authorities said.According to the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the bus overturned on the northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway north of Exit 171 at around 7:40 p.m. Monday, temporarily closing all lanes near the area.The bus was traveling from Lakewood, N.J., to Rockland County, N.Y., according to officials. The cause of the crash, the ages of the passengers, and what group the bus might have been associated with were not yet known.Mayor Mike Ghassali of Montvale said in a post on social media that 13 people had been injured and taken to to local hospitals. No fatalities were reported, he said.“I’ve been briefed on a crash on the Garden State Parkway earlier tonight near the James Gandolfini Service Area involving an overturned school bus from Lakewood,” Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said in a post on social media.The New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Department of Transportation were on the scene, he said, and an investigation into the incident was underway.The Montvale Police Department directed questions to the New Jersey State Police, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Mark Bonamo More

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    Multiple Bus Explosions in Israel Put Country on Terrorism Alert

    The attempted attacks on Thursday, which injured no one but shut down buses and trains across the country, came amid Israel’s ongoing raids in the West Bank and as its cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza nears its end.Three buses exploded in Tel Aviv area parking lots on Thursday night, raising suspicions of an attempted, coordinated terrorist attack and prompting the Israeli authorities to halt all buses and trains nationwide. There were no injuries reported.After the explosions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had instructed the military to carry out “a massive operation” in the West Bank targeting militant hubs and had ordered the police and intelligence forces to step up preventive measures in Israeli cities to thwart any subsequent attempted attacks.The three buses were parked at different depots in Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv, Tzvika Brot, the city’s mayor, said in a statement. Unexploded bombs were also found in parking lots in the nearby city of Holon, the mayor noted.Mr. Brot said he had ordered additional security patrols throughout Bat Yam. “The city will remain on high alert throughout the weekend,” he added. “However, the city’s routine continues as usual. There is no change to school tomorrow or any other activities.”Ofir Karni, director of the Dan bus company, told Israeli news media that the last passenger on one of the buses that exploded had noticed a suspicious bag on a back seat and had alerted the driver. They drove into the depot, got off the bus and it exploded after they exited, he added.The series of explosions in central Israel came on what was already a difficult day for Israelis and for the country’s tenuous truce with Hamas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Woman Who Stowed Away on Paris Flight Tries to Flee by Bus to Canada

    The woman, Svetlana Dali, had been ordered to wear an ankle monitor after her arrest, but she cut it off and boarded a bus, a law enforcement official said.The woman who stowed away on a plane from New York City to Paris late last month was arrested on Monday after trying to leave the country again, this time on a bus bound for Canada, two law enforcement officials said.The woman, Svetlana Dali, had been released and ordered to wear an ankle monitor after a Dec. 5 federal court hearing in Brooklyn on a charge of stowing away aboard a Delta Air Lines plane to Paris from Kennedy International Airport.Ms. Dali, 57, a U.S. permanent resident who emigrated from Russia, was supposed to stay at a friend’s apartment in Philadelphia, one of the officials said. But she cut off her monitor and made her way to upstate New York, where she rode a bus toward the Canadian border, the official said.Ms. Dali had a ticket for that ride, the official said, unlike the flight to Paris. She was charged with sneaking aboard that flight without a boarding pass or a passport.On Monday night, Ms. Dali was in custody in Buffalo, Barbara Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of New York, said. Ms. Dali is scheduled to appear in court there on Tuesday afternoon before Magistrate Judge Michael J. Roemer and then to be returned to custody in Brooklyn, Ms. Burns said.Phone and email messages left for the lawyer who represented Ms. Dali in court in Brooklyn, Michael Schneider, were not returned.Ms. Dali’s arrest on Monday was previously reported by CNN.To get to Paris last month, Ms. Dali exploited weaknesses in the security system at Kennedy during the busiest period of the year for air travel by blending in with crowds of boarding travelers, prosecutors in Brooklyn said.She slipped past a checkpoint by mixing in with the flight crew of a Spanish airline and then walked, undetected by Delta employees, onto a fully booked plane, they said. During the seven-hour flight, Ms. Dali tried to avoid notice by ducking into the aircraft’s bathrooms.Delta returned Ms. Dali to Kennedy after she had spent about a week in the custody of French authorities. She was arrested there by F.B.I. agents.At Ms. Dali’s first appearance in court in Brooklyn this month, Brooke Theodora, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said, “We’re concerned for a risk of flight here rather than the nature of the offense.”Olivia Bensimon More

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    School Bus Fire in Thailand Kills at Least 23 People

    The vehicle was returning from a field trip and caught fire outside Bangkok. Rescuers were still searching for bodies in the wreckage.The authorities believe the fire occurred after a tire exploded, causing the bus — which was filled with children and schoolteachers — to lose control and hit a barrier.Chalinee Thirasupa/ReutersA bus filled with schoolchildren and teachers caught fire just outside Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people.There were 23 bodies found on the double-decker bus, Police Lt. Gen. Trairong Phiwpan, chief of the Police Forensic Science Office, told reporters. Nineteen other people were injured, a doctor told reporters.Rescue workers were still trying to recover the bodies from the wreckage on Tuesday evening, according to Thailand’s interior minister, Anutin Charnvirakul. He did not give an official death toll.Photographs showed the bus was completely charred by the fire. Mr. Anutin added that the bus was powered by compressed natural gas, a fuel that makes vehicles more prone to fire compared with diesel.The driver fled the scene, Mr. Anutin said.The bus was one of three that were carrying children and teachers from the province of Uthai Thani, which is northwest of Bangkok. They were returning from a school field trip to the ancient temples of Ayutthaya. The school’s students range in age from 4 to 15 years old.The episode occurred at about 12:30 p.m. on a road in Pathum Thani on the northern outskirts of the capital. The fire happened after a tire exploded, causing the bus to zigzag and hit a barrier, according to Pornprapa Aundonkloy, a teacher who was on another bus. The interior minister provided a similar account.When the other bus arrived at the scene, two young students jumped off the bus, Ms. Pornprapa told local reporters. She carried them and said their bodies were swollen from the fire.Ms. Pornprapa said that only the front door of the bus could open. “If the back door could open, more children would have survived,” she added.The fire happened so quickly that teachers onboard could not grab their phones, according to the Royal Thai Police’s acting national police chief, Police Gen. Kittirat Panpetch. Several teachers could get out through the door, but some students were forced to jump through the windows.“The rest were probably shocked and couldn’t come out,” General Kittirat said. “We are in the process of checking who are those children.”Dr. Anocha Takham, a surgeon from PatRangsit Hospital, said the facility received three female patients, including a child whose corneas were burned.Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was teary as she spoke about the incident and said the government would cover all medical costs and compensation.“As a mother, I would like to express my deepest regrets to the families of those killed,” she said.Ryn Jirenuwat More

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    M.T.A. Says No More Free Bus Rides for Fare Evaders

    M.T.A. officials on Thursday announced an effort to curb rampant fare evasion on city buses that has cost the agency hundreds of millions in lost revenue.Transit officials on Thursday expanded efforts to prevent fare beaters from boarding New York City buses, where one out of two passengers fails to pay.While most enforcement efforts have focused on the subway, fare evasion is much more prevalent on city buses. According to the latest statistics from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in 2022 the state agency lost $285 million to fare evasion in the subway system and $315 million on buses even as roughly twice the number of passengers ride the trains.It is the latest enforcement effort by an agency facing a dire financial future, in part because of widespread fare evasion. The M.T.A. has predicted deficits of almost $1 billion by 2028, mostly because of lower-than-expected fare revenue.The authority for years has sent groups of unarmed, uniformed employees to patrol buses and give tickets to riders who do not pay as part of its Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication program, known as EAGLE. Last year, the M.T.A. expanded the routes the groups covered and focused on locations with high rates of fare evasion.At the same time, the Police Department created a unit specifically dedicated to bus fare evasion. As part of that effort, the department deploys officers alongside the M.T.A.’s teams to more effectively curb fare beating and to keep the transit workers safe from retaliation.It’s unclear how successful the latest round of enforcement will be. Past attempts to rein the problem in have failed to yield results on the subway, where 14 percent of riders failed to pay to ride during the first three months of the year. During the same time period last year, the rate was 11 percent.Enforcement is even more difficult on the buses, where there are no turnstiles or gates to block access. Transit experts say it is much easier to skip the fare, and some riders also feel justified because heavy traffic and a lack of bus lanes means that bus service can be slow and unreliable. On buses, the fare evasion rate was 39 percent at the beginning of 2023 and 48 percent at the start of this year.On a webpage posted Monday to announce the recent effort, the M.T.A. said that fare beaters who refuse to pay may asked to leave the bus and may receive a summons. More

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    Dozens Are Killed in Two Bus Crashes in Pakistan

    One of the accidents killed 12 people who were returning from a religious pilgrimage to Iraq, officials said.At least 37 people, including a dozen who were returning from a religious pilgrimage in Iraq, died Sunday in two unrelated bus crashes in Pakistan, officials said.Though the causes were under investigation, the accidents highlighted road safety in a country that experts say is known for poor road conditions, lax traffic enforcement and fatal crashes.The first accident occurred in the southwestern province of Balochistan, where a bus carrying pilgrims returning from Iraq plunged into a ravine on a coastal highway.Twelve people were killed and 23 were injured, according to rescue officials, who said the accident was probably caused by speeding or brake failure.Every year, at least 50,000 Pakistanis travel to Iraq to commemorate the Shiite holiday of Arbaeen.The second accident occurred in Kahuta, near the northern city of Rawalpindi. A bus drove into a ditch, killing all 25 people on board, including four women and a child, according to Farooq Butt, a rescue official.One injured man was pulled from wreckage but died on the way to the hospital, Mr. Butt said.Officials said the cause of the accident was not yet known. In a statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the loss of life.Unsafe road conditions, insufficient traffic enforcement and neglected vehicle maintenance often lead to accidents in the country.“Poor enforcement, untrained traffic officers and unsafe vehicles make things worse,” said Syed Kaleem Imam, a former police inspector general.The crash in Balochistan came less than a week after 28 Pakistani pilgrims died in a bus accident in Iran. Twenty-three others were injured, 14 of them critically, according to Pakistani Embassy officials in Tehran. More

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    8 Killed After Bus Carrying Farm Workers Crashes in Central Florida

    Another 40 passengers who had been on the bus were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for injuries, the local authorities said.At least eight people were killed and dozens of others were injured on Tuesday after a bus carrying farm workers collided with a pickup truck in Central Florida, the local authorities said. The bus was carrying 53 farm workers when it sideswiped a pickup truck, drove through a fence and overturned in Ocala, Fla., according to a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol, which is investigating the incident.About 40 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for injuries, the spokeswoman said. She did not say the extent of their injuries.The authorities did not confirm where the bus was traveling, but the local station WCJB reported the bus was carrying migrant workers employed at a watermelon farm in the area.The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said a stretch of State Road 40, where the incident occurred, would be closed for most of the day.This is a developing story. More

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    Blade Now Offers a $275 Bus Ticket to The Hamptons

    Blade, after a decade of flying passengers to eastern Long Island on helicopters, is getting into the luxury coach business.Blade, the helicopter charter company, was founded 10 years ago as a way for commuters going between New York and the Hamptons to avoid vehicle traffic.This May it is introducing a new service, the Hamptons Streamliner, that, starting at $195 a ticket, will take passengers to destinations on eastern Long Island aboard … a bus.Like Blade’s helicopters, seats on which start at $1,025, its buses are marketed as a luxurious option for Hamptons-goers. Seats can recline up to 45 degrees and passengers will be offered free refreshments like espresso martinis, PopUp Bagels and Sweetgreen salads as they make their way from Manhattan to stops in Southampton, Bridgehampton and East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway.Other amenities include a call button at each seat to get the attention of an attendant who can bring riders a snack, a drink, a hot towel or a cashmere blanket. Those who spring for one of seven premium seats, which cost $275, can also ride with a pet (for an additional fee).Each of the 19 seats on a Streamliner bus has a call button passengers can use to get the attention of an onboard attendant. Blade Air Mobility, Inc.The 19-passenger coaches, of course, will be subject to the same gridlock and hourslong traffic delays any vehicle can encounter on the expressway — making the onboard perks a main draw, said Roisin Branch, Blade’s chief marketing officer. “This level of service is commensurate to what you would see in private aviation,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More