instruction:
In this task, you are given news articles and you need to generate a highlight, i.e., a short summary, with a maximum length of 10 lines.
question:
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN)  -- The operator of a trolley that rear-ended another trolley should have been able to see the other vehicle was stopped 480 feet ahead, a federal investigator said Monday. Passengers walk past firefighters at a Green Line station in Boston after the trolley collision Friday evening. The trolley driver has told investigators he was text messaging during Friday night's collision, which injured 20 people. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which previously had banned operators from using cell phones and other portable devices, now has told employees to leave the devices at home while on duty, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said Monday. Hersman also noted investigators have determined that the operator may have missed some crucial indications of a stopped trolley ahead on the tracks.  Watch new transit rule on cell phones » . "There were several signals -- two green signals, a yellow signal and a red signal -- coming out of the station, and the point of collision occurred 80 feet past that red signal," Hersman said. "We did a site-distance test, and we know that the operator had the ability to see the trolley stopped in front of him 480 feet in advance of the collision." Boston officials said over the weekend that the trolley operator was using his cell phone. Numerous media outlets, including CNN's Boston affiliates, have identified the driver as 24-year-old Aiden Quinn. "The operator of the striking train was interviewed at the hospital by two detectives," said MBTA general manager Daniel Grabauskas. "He admitted that he was texting at the time of the accident." The operator told detectives that, when he looked up, "it was too late as he applied the brake and the train struck the other trolley," Grabauskas said. He described himself as "outraged." "We have reinforced for a number of years that the use of cell phones or any other kinds of electronic devices while operating a train or a bus is absolutely prohibited," Grabauskas said. Though the investigation is ongoing, he said, the two-year employee will be fired if his version of events is confirmed. None of the injuries was considered life-threatening, the MBTA said. The collision happened at 7:18 p.m. ET Friday as the Green Line trains were traveling between the Park Street and Government Center stations in downtown Boston. Both trains were traveling westbound when one train rear-ended the second, an MBTA official said. A train operator also was text messaging last year in a California train crash that killed 25 people. CNN's Rob Frehse and Gary Bender contributed to this report.
answer:
Federal investigator says Boston trolley crashed 80 feet past a red light .
Trolley driver told investigators he was texting during wreck that injured 20 people .
Drivers already banned from using phones; authority now says keep them at home .


question:
President Barack Obama signed an executive order Monday banning federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite calls from religious leaders, faith-based groups will not be exempt. "Thanks to your passion and advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government -- a government of the people, by the people and for the people -- will become just a little bit fairer," Obama said. Gay federal workers are already protected from workplace discrimination by a Clinton-era order and Obama's action extended the protections to shield workers from gender identity-based discrimination. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which joined a coalition of nearly 100 civil rights and LGBT groups urging Obama to reject calls for a religious exemption, thanked him for taking action. It said he made the "right call" for not tagging any religious exemptions to the document. "Faith-based groups that tap the public purse should play by the same rules as everyone else and not expect special treatment," the group's executive director, Rev. Barry Lynn, said in a statement. "No forms of discrimination should be supported with the taxpayer dime, period." Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was in the room as Obama signed the order and said it was an emotional moment. "There are now millions of LGBT people and their families who are just going to sleep a little bit easier tonight knowing that they can't be fired from their jobs as federal contractors," she said. During the ceremony, which comes 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Obama also recalled the history of executive actions and legislation to ban discrimination in the workplace and "make sure we the people applies to all the people." Senate passes LGBT anti-discrimination bill . But Obama's signature on Monday did not touch a 2002 executive order signed by President George W. Bush that allows religious groups to weigh prospective employees' faith in hiring decisions. This gave some opponents of the order hope that they could continue to consider sexual orientation in hiring decisions. One of those opponents, Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, said he was disappointed by Obama's decision regarding the religious exemption. But he suggested that religious groups could still rely on the 2002 order. "I believe the administration has left open a path that religious groups can work with," Schneck said. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, had stronger words for Obama and worried that the Bush-era executive order would leave out some faith-based groups. "While we don't know the full implications of this executive order, I am disappointed that this administration persistently violates the freedom of conscience for religious organizations that provide necessary relief for the poor and endangered," Moore said. "The ones hurt will be the most vulnerable in our society." Obama's executive action extends protections against sexual-based discrimination to employees of federal contractors operating outside of the 21 states and the District of Columbia that enacted their own non-discrimination legislation. Obama also noted that a majority of Fortune 500 companies have policies in place against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The action is not the first time Obama has used his presidential powers to benefit the LGBT community. In 2010, he signed an order extending benefits to same-sex partners of executive branch employees already provided to opposite-sex partners. But on the federal legislative level, LGBT groups have struggled to enact similar legislation. The Senate passed a bill barring LGBT discrimination in the fall. But the measure, which exempted religious groups from the would-be-law, did not make it to the House floor where Republicans opposed it. And attendees greeted Obama's call to continue applying pressure to "resolve this problem once and for all" with one resounding word: "Amen." Supreme Court rules against Obama in contraception case .
answer:
Executive order bars contractors covers LGBT employees; Religious groups not exempt .
It did not touch a previous order allowing religious groups to weigh faith in hiring decisions .
Opponents disappointed on decision involving religious groups .


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(CNN) -- Joe Marshall was cruising across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge when a piece of steel and a giant cable crashed down. He was just 50 yards away. The iReporter was just far enough away that he didn't see the debris as it fell. But he did see cars quickly move to the right lanes to avoid the mess. The falling debris forced the closure of the bridge and snarled traffic between Oakland and San Francisco, California, as commuters look for alternate ways to get to and from the cities. It's also forcing structural engineers to look at key questions around the nation's infrastructure: Has the nation done enough to address crucial bridges two years after the tragic collapse of a bridge in Minnesota that killed 13 people? The answer, experts say, is no. The pieces that fell this week raise even more troubling issues because repairs had just been made in September to the same section of the 73-year-old bridge, which spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average of 280,000 vehicles daily. Over Labor Day weekend, crews worked to repair a damaged steel beam. "The bridge has been inspected, and it is now safer than when we closed it," Randell Iwasaki, the director of the California Department of Transportation, said at the time. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a structural engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says he's concerned that authorities took a "Band-Aid" approach in September. "It failed," he said. He's worried about what he calls "fracture-critical" bridges: roughly 460 bridges across the country that are in dire need of repairs. "Following the Minnesota bridge collapse, there was a lot of discussion because of emotions," he said. "I didn't really see a sustained effort that says, 'We are going to replace these fracture-critical bridges.' " Federal regulators said support plates that were about half as thick as they should have been were the likely cause of the August 1, 2007, bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people and injured 145. The gusset plates -- metal plates that are meant to strengthen joists -- are believed to have failed on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. A new bridge has since opened in Minnesota, what the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials hailed as one of the nation's Top 10 transportation feats this year. "It is critical that our transportation systems receive the funding necessary to keep America moving. But even more important is that our state and local governments use that money to deliver projects that quickly meet the needs of our communities," John Horsley, the group's executive director, said in a recent report. But engineers say that's the problem: Repairs aren't happening quick enough. If a tragedy like the Minnesota collapse doesn't get people's attention, they wonder, what will? "I have seen some lip service, but I have not seen a lot of momentum and action," said William Ibbs, a professor of civil engineering at UC-Berkeley. "Part of that is due to the economic recession. When California has a budget deficit of $25 billion, they don't worry about bridges. They worry about closing the budget gap." Fari Barzegar, a civil engineering consultant based out of Oakland, says the Minnesota collapse put critical bridge problems front and center before the American public. "In the engineering community, we knew these things many years ago, and there were requests for money, which wasn't coming," Barzegar said. But he says funding hasn't kept up post-Minnesota. According to a 2009 American Society of Civil Engineers report, more than 26 percent of the nation's bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimated in 2008 that it would cost roughly $140 billion to repair every deficient bridge in the country. Bridges are typically inspected every two years. "If we don't start making substantial progress in five years, we will have more collapses," Ibbs said. The Bay Bridge opened in 1936 and spans 8.4 miles. It was the largest and most expensive bridge -- $77 million -- of its time. The bridge is best known to most Americans from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A 50-foot section of the bridge collapsed during the quake, killing one person and prompting efforts to make it quake-tolerant. Part of the bridge, the West Span, is a suspension bridge. The other portion of the bridge, known as the East Span, is a truss-cantilever design. This week's falling debris happened on the East Span, which is in the process of being replaced.
answer:

Falling debris on Bay Bridge raises questions about repairs after Minnesota collapse .
Bridge remains shut, snarling traffic across San Francisco Bay area .
"I have seen some lip service, but I have not seen a lot of momentum," expert says .