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RICHARDDREW—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE B.B. King plays during his 10,000th career performance in an appearance at his club in New York in this file photo. ByKenRitter The Associated Press LAS VEGAS B.B. King, whose scorching guitar licks and heartfelt vocals made him the idol of gen- erations of musicians and fans while earning him the nickname King of the Blues, died late Thursday at home in Las Vegas. He as 89. His attorney, Brent Bryson, said that King died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT. He said fu- neral arrangements were underway. King's eldest surviving daughter Shirley King of the Chicago area said she was upset that she didn't have a chance to see her fa- ther before he died. Although he had contin- ued to perform well into his 80s, the 15-time Grammy winner suffered from diabe- tes and had been in declin- ing health during the past year. He collapsed during a concert in Chicago last Oc- tober, later blaming dehy- dration and exhaustion. He had been in hospice care at his Las Vegas home. For most of a career spanning nearly 70 years, Riley B. King was not only the undisputed king of the blues but a mentor to scores of guitarists, who included Eric Clapton, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall and Keith Richards. He recorded more than 50 albums and toured the world well into his 80s, often performing 250 or more concerts a year. King played a Gibson guitar he affectionately called Lucille with a style that included beautifully crafted single-string runs punctuated by loud chords, subtle vibratos and bent notes. The result could bring chills to an audience, no more so than when King used it to full effect on his signature song, "The Thrill is Gone." He would make his guitar shout and cry in anguish as he told the tale of forsaken love, then end with a guttural shouting of the final lines: "Now that it's all over, all I can do is wish you well." His style was unusual. King didn't like to sing and play at the same time, so he developed a call-and-re- sponse between him and Lucille. "Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said, to make the au- dience understand what I'm trying to do more," King told The Associated Press in 2006. 'King of the Blues' B.B. Ki ng d ea d at a ge 8 9 OBITUARY By Michael R. Sisak and Maryclaire Dale The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA The Am- trak train that derailed along the nation's busi- est tracks may have been struck by an object in the moments before it crashed, investigators said Fri- day, raising new questions about the deadly accident. National Transportation Safety Board member Rob- ert Sumwalt said an assis- tant conductor aboard the train told investigators that she heard the Amtrak engi- neer talking over the radio with an engineer for a re- gional railroad just before the crash. The regional engineer, who was in the same area as the Amtrak train, said his train had been hit by a rock or some other projec- tile. The conductor heard Brandon Bostian, who was at the Amtrak controls, say the same had happened to his train, according to Sumwalt. The windshield of the Amtrak train was shattered in the accident but one area of glass had a breakage pat- tern that could be consis- tent with being hit by an object and the FBI is inves- tigating, he said. Sumwalt declined to speculate about the exact significance of a projectile, but the idea raised the pos- sibility that the engineer might have been distracted, panicked or even wounded in the moments before the train left the rails. The Southeastern Penn- sylvania Transportation Authority does not yet know what caused the damage to its train that night, said Jerri Williams, a spokeswoman for the agency. SEPTA trains traveling through the area — includ- ing one of the poorest and most violent parts of Phila- delphia — have had projec- tiles thrown at them in the past, whether by vandals or teenagers, she said. It was unusual that the SEPTA train was forced to stop on Tuesday night. NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said the board was seeking more infor- mation about a third re- port of damage that night, this one involving a differ- ent Amtrak train. Not long before the de- railment, two passengers on a southbound Amtrak told The Philadelphia In- quirer that something shat- tered a window on their train as it passed through the same area. They said Amtrak police boarded the train at 30th Street station in Philadelphia to docu- ment the incident. The derailment has made it clear that despite the train industry's wide- spread use of electronic sig- nals, sensors and warning systems, safety still some- times comes down to the knowledge and experience of the engineer. Those skills would have been critical on the curve where the New York-bound train derailed, killing eight and injuring more than 200 in the deadliest U.S. train accident in nearly six years. Instead of high-tech sig- nals or automatic controls, engineers on that stretch of track have to rely on their familiarity with the route and a printed timetable they carry with them, not unlike engineers a century ago. "We're depending heav- ily on the human engineer to correctly obey and in- terpret the signals that he sees and also speed lim- its and other operating re- quirements," said David B. Clarke, a railroad expert at the University of Ten- nessee. The engineer, who had been working that route for several weeks, told in- vestigators that he does not recall anything after ring- ing the train's bell as he passed by the North Phil- adelphia station a couple of minutes before Tuesday night's crash. In the minute before the derailment, the Am- trak train accelerated from 70 mph to more than 100 mph, even though the curve where it came off the tracks has a maximum speed of 50 mph. It's not clear whether Bostian manually acceler- ated, Sumwalt said, though a data recorder shows that he did engage a braking system seconds before the derailment. Experts say the railroad's signaling system would have slowed the train au- tomatically if it had hit the maximum speed allowed on the line, but older cab- signal and train-control systems do not respond to localized speed restrictions. Investigators are also conducting drug tests. Bostian's lawyer has said he was not using drugs or alcohol. AMTRAK New mystery in train crash: Was it hit by a flying object? JULIO CORTEZ — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Workers labor on the site where a deadly train derailment occurred earlier in the week, on Friday in Philadelphia. By Tom Hays and Larry Neumeister The Associated Press NEW YORK A former top aide to Osama bin Laden was given life in prison for the 1998 bombings of two embassies in Africa, a sen- tence handed down Friday in a U.S. courtroom where he was confronted by a woman who was blinded in one of the attacks and oth- ers who lost loved ones. "I worship the same God as you," said Ellen Karas, directly addressing Khaled al-Fawwaz. "But he is not an angry God. He is not a vengeful God." Edith Bartley, whose fa- ther and brother were killed in the same attack in Kenya that scarred Karas, told the judge al-Fawwaz deserved a life term. Al-Fawwaz, 52, was ar- rested in London weeks af- ter the August 1998 attacks but was not extradited from Great Britain until 2012. He was convicted in February of terror charges accusing him of supporting the at- tacks in Kenya and Tanza- nia that killed 224 people, including a dozen Ameri- cans. At trial, prosecutors pre- sented evidence the Saudi Arabia-born defendant was an al-Qaida leader who di- rected a military training camp in Afghanistan in 1991, led a terror cell in Nai- robi, Kenya, in 1993, and en- sured bin Laden's 1996 dec- laration of war against the U.S. reached the world. The evidence included a list of al-Qaida members — with al-Fawwaz at No. 9 — that was recovered by U.S. spe- cial forces from an al-Qa- ida leader's home after the Sept. 11 attacks. The defense accused the government of exaggerat- ing al-Fawwaz's role in the conspiracy and had sought a sentence less than life. On Friday, he got permis- sion from the judge to turn and face about two dozen victims sitting in the audi- ence. To carry out a global ji- had against the U.S., al-Qa- ida relied on people like al- Fawwaz to train and over- see killers, to publicize and glorify deadly acts, to vet reporters and media, and to supply al-Qaida with tech- nology, information and equipment, prosecutors said in court papers. 1998 EMBASSY BOMBINGS Bin Laden top aide sentenced to life For ads starting May 30 or earlier! ONLY available by phone to our Nor-Cal Classified Call Center 1-800-855-667-2255 JustaskforNo-ClipCouponpricing! CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS ONLY! Sorry, no refunds for early ad cancellation at this pricing! The aMAYzing NO-CLIP COUPON Private Party Classified Liner Ads Minimum 3 lines, 5 days Rental liner ads Minimum 3 lines, 5 days Garage and Yard Sale ads Minimum 2-day run Print edition + e-edition + website www.redbluffdailynews.com 50% OFF REGULAR PRICING SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2015 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 9 A