Train

What I saw in East Palestine, Ohio

When I arrived in East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, the quaint Main Street was a red, white and blue sea of people waiting in chilly, drizzly weather for Donald Trump to arrive. I met up with Brian and Samantha, who live three miles from the site of the Norfolk Southern train derailment. They were acting as Tulsi Gabbard’s tour guide and graciously invited me to tag along. The East Palestine area is a typical rural community. Villages with little more than a volunteer fire department and a basic convenience-style store are scattered across the countryside. People enjoy their space and peace and quiet, but they’re also close-knit and neighborly.

Was the maskless man in my carriage dying of Covid?

From our UK edition

A man without a mask appeared to be dying of Covid, or something quite like it, on the London to Guildford train. Hunched double in his seat across the aisle, he groaned as he coughed, gasped as he sneezed, and sniffed as a way of clearing the mess because he hadn’t got a tissue. Sans mask, sans handkerchief he spluttered and spattered. His capacity to ignore my stare was magnificent. I’m not a tolerant person, and when someone is sneezing at me during what is supposed to be a pandemic I cannot muster generosity. Sitting on the worn, red upholstery of the 1453 South Western train service from Waterloo, I looked daggers at this fellow to no avail.