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ByDavidPorterand Karen Matthews The Associated Press HOBOKEN,N.J. Arush-hour commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and in- juring more than 100 oth- ers in a grisly wreck that renewed questions about whether long-delayed au- tomated safety technology could have prevented trag- edy. People pulled chunks of concrete off pinned and bleeding victims, passen- gers kicked out windows and crawled to safety, and cries and screams could be heard in the wreckage at the station just across the Hudson River from New York City as emergency workers rushed to reach commuters in the tangle of twisted metal and dangling wires. The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of its track as was pulling into the station, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, the train ap- parently knocked out pil- lars, collapsing a section of the roof. "All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion" as the roof fell, said Ross Bauer, who was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train entered the historic 109-year-old station, a bustling hub for commuters heading to New York City. "I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned." The train's engineer was pulled from the mangled first car and hospitalized, but officials said he had been released by evening. He was cooperating with investigators, Gov. Chris Christie said. A woman standing on the platform — identified as Fa- biola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken — was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, Christie said. Seventy-four of them were hospitalized, some in serious condition, with injuries that included broken bones, bumps and gashes. "The train came in at much too high rate of speed, and the question is: 'Why is that?'" Christie said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will de- termine whether the expla- nation was equipment fail- ure, an incapacitated engi- neer or something else. Some witnesses said they didn't hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities gave no estimate of how fast the train was going. But the speed limit heading into the station is 10 mph. The National Transpor- tation Safety Board planned to pull one of the black-box event recorders Thursday evening from the locomo- tive at the back of the train. The device contains infor- mation on the train's speed and braking. But it wasn't safe enough yet for investigators to pull the second recorder in the engineer's compartment be- cause of the collapsed roof and the possibility of as- bestos in the old building, NTSB Vice Chairwoman Bella Dinh-Zarr said. Investigators will exam- ine the engineer's perfor- mance and the condition of the train, track and sig- nals, among other issues, she said. They also plan to look into whether posi- tive train control — a safety system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast — could have helped. None of NJ Transit's trains is fully equipped with positive train con- trol, which relies on radio and GPS signals to monitor trains' positions and speed. NEW JERSEY 1 dead, over 100 hurt in train crash at station WILLIAMSUN People examine the wreckage of a New Jersey Transit commuter train that crashed into the train station during the morning rush hour in Hoboken, N.J., on Thursday. By Erica Werner The Associated Press WASHINGTON A bitterly divided Congress ad- journed Thursday for the election, having accom- plished little more than the bare minimum, with lawmakers looking ahead to a lame-duck session and a weighty to-do list already piling up for next year. A must-pass spending bill, agreed to after an unnecessarily protracted struggle and repeated rounds of partisan finger- pointing, extends govern- ment funding until Dec. 9 and addresses the Zika cri- sis with $1.1 billion months after President Barack Obama initially requested federal aid. Lawmakers ad- vanced spending for flood victims in Louisiana and a compromise to help vic- tims of lead-tainted water in Flint, Michigan. Obama swiftly signed the spending bill into law. When they return to Washington after the election, lawmakers will have to complete the an- nual appropriations pro- cess, which fell apart this year even though getting it on track was a top priority for the leaders of Congress' GOP majorities, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis- consin and Senate Major- ity Leader Mitch McCon- nell of Kentucky. Only one of the 12 must-pass annual spending bills has been completed. "This is what divided government gets you," Ryan said Thursday. "You don't always get what you want in divided govern- ment." Yet next year is likely to herald still more divisions. Even if Republicans hold the House as expected, manage to win the White House with Donald Trump and hang onto their frag- ile Senate majority, minor- ity Democrats would still exercise significant power in the Senate. Republican control would be incom- plete under the most op- timistic scenarios for the GOP. If Democrats win the White House or the Sen- ate, it would usher in an- other era of divided gov- ernment, perhaps even more fraught. At the same time, Con- gress and the next presi- dent, whether Trump or Democrat Hillary Clin- ton, will confront a series of daunting tasks pushed off into 2017 by a catch- all budget deal negotiated under the former House speaker, John Boehner, on his way out the door last year. Perhaps most monu- mental, the debt limit will need to be raised by around midsummer, some- thing that has provoked intense battles in recent years. Failure to raise it would lead to a disas- trous, first-ever default on U.S. obligations like inter- est payments. Lawmakers will need to revisit major programs, including the Children's Health Insurance Pro- gram, and expiring tax credits for a range of in- dustries. The annual bud- geting process will be greatly complicated by the return of tight spending caps on the Pentagon and domestic agencies after two years of hard-fought relief. There will be a Su- preme Court vacancy to fill along with less headline- grabbing but still complex and necessary chores, such as reauthorizing the Fed- eral Aviation Administra- tion. "Given the heavy weight of some those issues, some of them are not going to be delicate by any stretch of the imagination," said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. WASHINGTON Gridlock in Congress may presage more of the same to come next year FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2016 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 5 B