—From Franklin, Tenn.

Nation: The Amtrak liner that crashed in Philadelphia Tuesday night was going twice the speed limit, according to investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.

The body of a seventh victim was found in the wreckage yesterday. At least 200 people were injured and some are unaccounted for.

The speed information was taken from the train’s data recorder. The train was going 106 mph in a 50 zone when the engineer hit the emergency brakes moments before the train derailed on a curve. The stretch of track does not have a system called Positive Train Control that would have automatically reduced speed.

Coincidentally yesterday, Congressional Republicans shot down increased spending on Amtrak after passionate argument by Democrats, who were accused by the other side of trying to capitalize on the accident.

Hang Up: The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to stop the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone data. That puts the heat on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell who wants the NSA to keep collecting.

Fast Track: The Senate reached a compromise yesterday to advance President Obama’s request for “fast track” authority to approve the Pacific trade deal without Congressional tinkering. But the bill still faces trouble in the House where Democrats and a large number of Republicans are opposed.

World: The Vatican has decided to recognize Palestine as a state, a symbolic but important decision that puts pressure on other countries, including the US, that so far will not do the same. Israel’s foreign ministry said it was “disappointed.”

>The death toll in yesterday’s Philippine factory fire has risen to 72. Some reports say the workers were trapped by iron bars on the windows.

The Obit Page: Ed Fouhy, a former news producer who worked with Walter Cronkite and went on to be a producer and executive at all three major networks, has died in Massachusetts at 80. He was revered as one of the best from the golden age of television news.

Hermit Kingdom: The second highest defense official in North Korea was executed as a traitor for being disrespectful to supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, the South Korean intelligence agency told its government. They say Gen. Hyon Yong-chol was shot with an anti-aircraft gun. That’ll do it.

Hyon was accused of falling asleep during military events and questioning Kim’s orders.

There seems to be little doubt that Kim occasionally purges high officials, but sometimes the accounts are fantastic. An anti-aircraft gun? A report that Kim threw his uncle to a pack of hungry dogs didn’t hold up to scrutiny. But the uncle is dead.

Jacksons Tubmans: Abolitionist Harriet Tubman has won the non-binding vote to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. In a split vote of 600,000 ballots, Tubman won 118,328, just beating Eleanor Roosevelt by a few thousand. The organization “Women On 20s” says it will present the results to President Obama and ask him to get Tubman on the bill.

Fence Country: The horse farms of Tennessee are cordoned off by fences painted black with a mixture of tar. It looks subtly beautiful against the rolling green pastures. The old estates have dry-laid stone walls in a distinctive local style in which the top row is flat stones laid at an angle like tilted books on a shelf. Many of the old walls were built by slaves and a local friend who used to live in Los Angeles indelicately refers to them as “slave walls,” which offends the sensibilities of the natives.

When you buy alcohol here you have to show your ID no matter how old you are. You could be a wrinkled 90 year old and have to prove you are not a teenager. But they don’t have mandatory recycling.

   And this is anti-Obamacare Country. But the Nashville Tennessean newspaper discovered that a prominent local politician who has consistently voted against Obamacare put his adult son on his government health policy, a privilege made possible by Obamacare.

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