An Amtrak worker uses yellow caution tape to cordon off a work zone Sunday beneath Penn Station. A massive two-month repair project begins today.

,h3>Work to hinder N.Y. rail travelers[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — The day of reckoning has come for rail commuters in New York City.

Amtrak is beginning extensive repairs today to tracks and signals in Penn Station, which it owns and operates. The work was initially scheduled to be done over a few years on nights and weekends, but two recent derailments and other problems that spotlighted the station’s aging infrastructure convinced Amtrak to accelerate the work.

For several hundred thousand commuters on the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit — as well as Amtrak passengers who ride between Boston and Washington, D.C. — that means fewer trains during peak periods, the result of track closures to accommodate the repairs.

The work is to last through the end of August.

[naviga:h3]Camper awakes as bear bites head[/naviga:h3]

WARD, Colo. — A teen staffer at a Colorado camp fought off a bear after waking up Sunday to find the animal biting his head and trying to drag him away.

The 19-year-old woke up at around 4 a.m. to a “crunching sound” with his head inside the mouth of the bear, which was trying to pull him out of his sleeping bag as he slept outside at Glacier View Ranch 48 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Jennifer Churchill said. The teen punched it and other staffers yelled and swatted at the bear, which eventually left, she said.

The staffer, identified only as Dylan, was treated briefly at a hospital and released. The teen told KMGH-TV that the bear dragged him 10 to 12 feet before he was able to free himself.

“The crunching noise, I guess, was the teeth scraping against the skull as it dug in,” said the teen, who teaches wilderness survival at the camp owned by the Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh Day Adventists.

Dylan and the other staffers were near teepees where 12- and 13-year-old campers were sleeping. None of them were hurt.

Black bears have attacked several people in the West in recent weeks.

[naviga:h3]Episcopal priest charged in rage[/naviga:h3]

STUART, Fla. — The rector of an Episcopal church in North Carolina is facing criminal charges in Florida after police say he pointed a gun at another vehicle in an apparent road rage incident.

Media reports said 35-year-old Rev. William Rian Adams is charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Martin County, Florida records show he was released from jail on $15,000 bail.

State troopers say a pickup truck driver was closely following a Corvette on Florida’s Turnpike and tried to pass the car when its driver pointed a handgun at him. Troopers then stopped Adams in the Corvette.

Records show Adams is rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Fletcher, N.C. Church officials didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment and no attorney was listed for Adams.