Amtrak service disrupted after fire near tracks in New York City

NEW YORK (AP) — Amtrak service in parts of the Northeast was disrupted or delayed Tuesday after a fire broke out near a train route in New York City.

Amtrak said initial reports indicated a brush fire stemming from a transformer at an Amtrak substation in the Bronx caused power losses for trains in the area, affecting travel.

Service was suspended for the day between New York Penn Station and New Haven, Connecticut. There also were delays between New York and Washington and between Boston and New Haven.

Trains approaching Penn Station in Manhattan were being moved out of the area at reduced speeds using diesel engines.

There was no estimate for when normal operations would resume.

Most of the East Coast has seen little rainfall since September, and dozens of wildfires are burning across the region. Experts say the fires will persist until significant precipitation or frosts occur.

A new typhoon barreled across an agricultural region in the northeastern Philippines on Monday after thousands were evacuated to safety while still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by three successive storms in the last three weeks. Typhoon Toraji slammed into northeastern Aurora province and was forecast to blow over the mountainous Luzon region, where President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — just the day before — inspected the damage from the last storm and led the distribution of food packs to residents in Cagayan and Ilocos provinces. Marcos skipped this week's Asia-Pacific Cooperation forum in Peru to oversee recovery efforts from back-to-back storms.

An area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean Sea has a 40 percent chance of developing into a tropical system sometime in the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center. If the storm develops, it would be named "Sara", and most likely drift over Central America before dying off next week. However, at least one computer model has the storm strengthening and moving northward, eventually arriving in Florida in a week's time. At this point, it is too far out to say with any real certainty, but it's a feature in the atmosphere worth keeping an eye on.