Free Republic

GAINESVILLE — The North Central Texas College softball team lined up on the third-base line Friday afternoon, each player resting her hand on the shoulder of the teammate in front of her. They stood like so, heads of ponytails and braids bowed, their red jerseys bold against the January gray, in a public moment of silence. The sting of grief has become familiar for this team since an 18-wheeler plowed into the Lady Lions’ team bus last September, killing four players, none yet 21. All 15 of the players riding in the bus and coach Van Hedrick, who started the...

French Media reported Wednesday that a car explosion outside of a synagogue near Paris was not related to the terror attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices, which left 12 people dead and several others injured. A car caught fire in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles on Wednesday near a synagogue, an event the city's mayor, François Pupponi, called an "accident, not an attack," according to Metronews.

The pilot of AirAsia Flight 8501 may have landed the doomed plane on the ocean surface, only to have it sink in high seas, according to aviation experts, who cited the intact condition of several bodies as possible evidence for the theory. "The emergency locator transmitter (ELT) would work on impact, be that land, sea or the sides of a mountain, and my analysis is it didn't work because there was no major impact during landing," Dudi Sudibyo, a senior editor of aviation magazine Angkasa, told the AFP. "The pilot managed to land it on the sea's surface." The theory...

Nasty weather conditions have sparked accidents on I-93 in New Hampshire: Injuries have been reported:

A festive partygoer owes her life to the skintight £35 ‘bodycon’ dress she squeezed into before going out, after it stopped her bones piercing her organs in a horrific car accident. Zoe Turner’s dress acted ‘like a corset’ and stopped bones popping out and causing fatal internal injuries after her taxi was hit by a cement mixer. Doctors told the 21-year-old that the dress almost certainly saved her life, after Ms Turner and three friends were left badly hurt in the crash. She said: ‘I couldn’t believe my dress saved my life. That’s the best £35 I’ve ever spent. ‘Although...

Tamir Rice's father should be absolutely ashamed of himself for not teaching his son that playing with guns (which have been doctored to look real) in public and not listening to policemen with real weapons will get you killed. I realize that his father, Leonard Warner, has a criminal history, but that should only make him more ashamed that he hadn't taught his son simple survival skills, and what a mistake it is to play chicken with the cops. Someone should do a quick anecdotal study about how many of these kids involved in these high-profile shootings (Trayvon Martin, Michael...

FULL TITLE: Video shows Satsuma cop running over fleeing suspect, footage jurors will weigh to determine if 2008 act was intentional ---- MOBILE, Alabama -- Sam Commins, then an officer with the Satsuma Police Department was not even on duty on July 29, 2008, when he joined in a high-speed chase that began on Interstate 65 in Baldwin County and zigzagged through northern Mobile County. When the silver Dodge Charger driven by Hillary Bernard Baldwin finally stopped on the Interstate 165 connector in Prichard, he and passenger Jermaine Gaillard got out of the car and began to run. The dashboard...

LAKEWOOD - Police in Lakewood say several people attacked and severely beat a driver whose SUV hit and killed a woman Monday night. Investigators say 41-year-old Chandra Martin was crossing Route 88 when she was hit and killed. Martin's brother witnessed the crash, which happened near her home. Several other people who witnessed the crash allegedly attacked the SUV driver. The 26-year-old Lakewood man was flown to a trauma center. Police have not made any arrests at this time.

A British tourist had the tops of two of his fingers sliced off while riding on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney World in Florida. The victim lost the tip of his ring and little finger after apparently dangling them outside the log fume ride which inspired the Johnny Depp movies. Disney officials in Orlando, Florida, immediately shut down the ride in the Magic Kingdom park following the incident.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Workers are preparing to enter one of the most dangerous rooms on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation — the site of a 1976 blast that exposed a technician to a massive dose of radiation, leading to him being nicknamed the "Atomic Man." Harold McCluskey was working in the room when a chemical reaction caused a glass glove box to explode. He was exposed to the highest dose of radiation from the chemical element americium ever recorded — 500 times the occupational standard. Hanford, located in central Washington state, made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades. The room...

BOSTON —Two Allston residents are said to be facing charges in connection with a fatal crash in Boston's Back Bay that claimed the lives of a young couple walking on the sidewalk. Ghuzlan Alghazali, 26, is facing two counts of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation, Boston police said. Alghazali does not have a driver's license, according to the Department of Transportation.

The two drivers who were killed in a recent head-on collision in North Texas were reportedly husband and wife. The victims were identified as Nicolas Cruz, 31, and Kristina Munoz, 26. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the crash happened midmorning on Wednesday, three miles west of Odell on County Road 87. Both Cruz and Munoz worked on a farm nearby. Trooper Tony Fulton said that after one of the cars hit a curve in the road it “collided head-on with unit number two, which was travelling south on County Road 87. “This is a very narrow, blacktop...

A two-vehicle wreck involving a Varnell police officer Wednesday evening resulted in one man being airlifted to Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga. The wreck happened in front of North Whitfield Middle School on Cleveland Highway and involved a Varnell patrol car driven by an officer identified by officials as Patrick Hayes and a Jeep Cherokee, according to the Georgia State Patrol (GSP) public information office. The driver of the Cherokee, David Gambrell, was not wearing his seat belt and was ejected from the vehicle. No further information was available late Thursday. Varnell Police Chief Lyle Grant said both vehicles were...

Another major derailment of a train carrying oil through a town in the U.S. has caused the evacuation of 300 people, with oil washing into the James River in Virginia, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.

LA Times Story via Drudge since I can't link to a story directly.

The family of Ethan Couch, the teenager who fatally struck a disabled motorist and three good Samaritans last summer while driving drunk near Burleson, has settled lawsuits with some of the victims’ families. The Couch family agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the families of Breanna Mitchell and Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby. The family of youth pastor Brian Jennings has not reached a settlement with Couch’s family. Jennings and the Boyleses had pulled over to help Mitchell, who had stopped after a tire blowout late June 15 in the 1500 block of Burleson-Retta Road. The pickup Couch...

It happens...     More at Reaganite Republican...    

"When walking in open space, collision avoidance with other pedestrians is a process that successfully takes place many times."

SEATTLE — Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in critical-but-stable condition in Seattle-Tacoma General Hospital after a tragic accident in his home kitchen left him brutally stabbed multiple times, sources confirmed this morning. Gates’ wife Becky found him lying on the floor of the family kitchen and called 911, according to a family spokesperson. Investigators believe Gates, 70, slipped on an orange peel while preparing breakfast and fell onto a paring knife 68 times. Paramedics confirmed that while grabbing for a handhold to stabilize himself, he also accidentally discharged a 20-gauge shotgun into the back of his own head three...

The Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the Czech Republic has died of wounds sustained in an explosion which rocked his house in the capital Prague. Jamal al-Jamal was rushed to hospital in a serious condition following the explosion, which apparently occurred as he was opening a safe or container of some kind. Contrary to initial reports that his family were unharmed despite being in the building at the time, it has been confirmed that al-Jamal's wife was also hurt in the blast. A spokeswoman for Prague Emergency Services told CNN that the 57 year-old ambassador has been taken to Prague military...