LONDON — Britain's new government announced Thursday that its first major legislation will be a bill to scrap a controversial and costly plan to introduce national identification cards.

"ID cards will be gone in 100 days," Home Secretary Theresa May said at a news conference.

May said the government will save over $1 billion in the next decade by canceling the cards and the corresponding national registry. The cards contain biometric data, photographs and fingerprints.

"But this isn't just about saving money," May said, "It's also about principle. ... We did believe there was a liberties argument for not enforcing ID cards on the British people."

Railway blast, crash kills 15 in India

CALCUTTA, India — An overnight passenger train was derailed by an explosion and then hit by another train early Friday as it traveled through a rebel stronghold of eastern India, a railway official said. A government official said at least 15 people had been killed and 150 injured.

The railway official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said 13 passenger cars on a train out of Calcutta were derailed by the explosion in a rural area about 90 miles south of the city. At least some of those coaches were then hit by a cargo train coming from the other direction.

The blast occurred in an isolated, rural stronghold of India's Maoist rebels, known as Naxalites, who have stepped up their attacks in recent months.