The Congress you didn't know

November 03, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

The furious intensity of the Washington spin machine makes it so easy for voters to despise politicians. But we shouldn't.

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The US government says Volkswagen cheated a second time on emissions tests, programming about 10,000 cars with larger diesel engines to emit fewer pollutants during testing than in real-world driving. The German automaker installed software designed to defeat the tests on VW, Porsche and Audi vehicles from the 2014 to 2016 model years with six-cylinder diesel engines, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board. While on the road the cars give off up to nine times more nitrogen oxide pollution than allowed by EPA standards, the agency said.

Mystery and confusion surrounded the final moments of a Russian jetliner that plummeted suddenly from high altitude to the Egyptian desert, killing all 224 people aboard. The airline Monday ruled out pilot error or a technical fault, but Russian aviation officials dismissed those comments as premature. Some aviation experts raised the possibility that a bomb on board the Metrojet Airbus A321-200 brought it down, while others cited an incident in 2001 when the aircraft grazed the runway with its tail while landing. James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said that while there is no direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet, it couldn't be excluded that the plane was brought down by Islamic State extremists in the Sinai Peninsula.

Three small earthquakes rattled parts of central Arizona Sunday evening and were felt in the Phoenix area. The US Geological Survey says a magnitude 4.1 temblor struck at 11:29 p.m. MST Sunday, followed by a 4.0 quake about 20 minutes later. A smaller, magnitude-3.2 quake, hit at 9 p.m. The USGS says all the quakes ranged from 3-6 miles in depth and were centered near Black Canyon City, about 45 miles north of Phoenix.

Bouncing from politics to the big screen and back, Fred Thompson played many roles well and those who knew him say the folksy former US senator won't soon be forgotten for his impact on American life and the arts. He died Sunday at age 73. A Tennessee-trained lawyer, prosecutor, hard-driving Senate counsel at the Watergate hearings, movie and TV actor and even a fleeting presidential hopeful, Thompson commanded audiences with a booming voice, outsized charisma and a 6-foot-6 frame.

A daring dash by Eric Hosmer tied the score in the ninth inning, and those bound-and-determined Kansas City Royals rallied yet again to beat the New York Mets, 7-2, in 12 innings early Monday for their first World Series championship since 1985. One agonizing win from ecstasy last year, this time the Royals reign after their latest incredible comeback and a go-ahead hit in Game 5 from pinch hitter Christian Colon, maybe the most unlikely player in uniform.

An international team of researchers has published the first-ever video captured of Omura’s whales, among the rarest species of whales in the world. The footage, made public via the New England Aquarium’s website, was released a week after the scientists published a paper detailing the whales’ behavior and habitat preferences in the shallow waters off Madagascar. The study marks the first definitive field observations of Omura’s whales since the species was identified in 2003.

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