Free Republic

YNDON, Kan. – A packed motor home headed from Texas to Minnesota crashed Sunday morning in northeast Kansas, killing five people and sending 13 others to hospitals. The Kansas Highway Patrol said the northbound vehicle was filled with 18 people and pulling a trailer when the driver lost control at 9 a.m. on Interstate 35.

GENEVA — A bus smashed into a tunnel wall in the Swiss Alps, killing 22 Belgian 12-year-olds returning from a ski vacation and the six adults who were accompanying them, police said Wednesday. Another 24 students were hospitalized with injuries, Valais cantonal (state) police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet told The Associated Press. The bus carrying 52 people, including young students from two different Belgian schools, hit the tunnel wall shortly after 9 p.m. local time Tuesday on the A9 highway near Sierre, Switzerland, in the southern Swiss canton of Valais, an area of popular ski resorts. Authorities were still identifying all...

Allegations of faulty car design are at the center of a lawsuit by an injured Fresno teen against Ford Motor Co. Shaela Warkentin, 16, suffered serious head and facial injuries a year ago when the 2000 Ford Mustang she was riding in was rear-ended by a pickup. Shaela's head was pinned against the rear edge of the car's roof, and rescuers had to cut the roof from the car to free her. The injuries cost the girl her eyesight and left her hospitalized for weeks. Fresno attorney Warren Paboojian filed the suit Friday on behalf of Shaela and her sister,...

Bonus Stupidity: teasing your African Bullfrog FAIL: [YouTube] Those things tip the scales at 4-5 lbs! Video/more at Reaganite Republican h/t Robert

Columnist O. Ricardo Pimentel doesn’t seem to like guns very much. Oh, he’s willing to admit that they have their moments, citing this incident in San Antonio where a homeowner shot at two armed men (killing one, wounding the other) coming into his house through his garage. But Ricardo almost immediately goes into damning-with-faint-praise mode saying, “and this, of course, is the type of incident that seemingly undercuts the arguments of even the most ardent supporters of reasonable gun control and bolsters those of folks in the opposing, see-that’s-what-I-mean camp.” Okay, just for starters Ricardo, how is it that a...

One of the two people killed on a slippery road in Superior was facing prison time after pleading guilty in federal court to charges in a widespread identity theft ring. Forty-one-year-old Frances Jones was a passenger in an SUV that collided with another vehicle last Friday. The driver of the SUV, 49-year-old Harry Wilson, was also killed. The U.S. Attorney's Office says 12 people were indicted in the plot that defrauded banks and retail businesses, primarily in the Midwest, of more than $2 million. Jones faced up to 32 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit...

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado man who was killed when a 3-foot tree branch flew through his windshield and impaled him in the chest was able to steer the car to safety before losing consciousness. The wife of 61-year-old James Baker-Jarvis told the Daily Camera (http://goo.gl/WsaHg ) that her husband was able to pull the Subaru Outback over to the roadside, saving her from any injury. Baker-Jarvis died later at a hospital.

OK, he was 24...  and it happened in Switzerland. But it seems that this Mustang GT 5.0 owner -like many others- had a little bit of trouble getting used to the car's 6-speed stick and it's  troublesome reverse-gear 'safety' lockout feature: add to that a few hundred horsepower and no parking garage can contain her.A miracle nobody got hurt, with a car falling out of the sky in a Swiss town center like that- just a bruised young ego, totalled 'stang, and a whole bunch of mooshed-up bikes down dere.Chalk-up another one for hyperlegislative government and blood-sucking trail attorneys...

US Nuclear Expert Raises Concerns Over Safety of N. Korea's LWRs The safety of North Korea's light water reactor under construction has been questioned by a renowned US nuclear expert, who first revealed the North's uranium enrichment facility to the world last year. In Seoul to talk about his visit to North Korea last year, Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker, indicated how important it is for a country to choose the right materials and construction methodology when building such reactors. He added that lessons should be learned from past nuclear-related accidents, like the recent nuclear meltdown at Japan's Fukushima plant.

NEWARK — An out-of-control SUV was launched several feet into the air last night and plunged into the second floor of a Newark home, leaving structural damage but no injuries, officials said.

TEHRAN: A massive explosion at a military arms depot near the Iranian capital Tehran killed 27 elite Revolutionary Guards on Saturday and wounded 16 others, state broadcaster IRIB said. Officials said it was an accident which happened as troops were moving ammunition at a base in Bidganeh, near the town of Shahriar, some 45 km (28 miles) west of Tehran. While there was no indication of any attack, the explosion shook homes and rattled windows for miles around at a time of mounting tensions with Israel over Iran's nuclear programme. "So far, 27 personnel of Revolutionary Guards have been martyred...

The family of a Texas man killed when a racing aircraft crashed into spectators in the National Championship Air Races in Reno filed a $25 million lawsuit Tuesday against the pilot's family, a mechanic on the World War II-era aircraft and the Nevada organization that hosted the event.

A Chinese toddler was run over twice and ignored by nearly 20 passers-by in Guangdong Province in a case that has caused outrage around the world. It is a story that has deeply unsettled millions in China, posing troubling questions about whether three decades of headlong economic development has left nothing but a moral vacuum in its wake. It begins last Thursday when a two-year-old girl totters into a narrow lane in a wholesale market in the thriving industrial city of Foshan in Guangdong Province and is hit by a small, white van. The driver pauses, and then pulls away,...

LAS VEGAS (CBS Sports.com) – IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon has been seriously injured in a massive 15-car wreck has sent cars flying through the air early in Sunday’s Las Vegas Indy 300. Paul Tracy, who was involved in the wreck, said a team of doctors were working on Wheldon, but there was no word of his injuries. A helicopter lifted off from the speedway, but there was no indication if Wheldon was onboard. Pippa Mann also appeared to be shaky as she was helped to an ambulance. The wreck coming out of Turn 2 on the 12th lap left Townsend...

NESCOPECK – A truck driver survived a crash down a steep embankment Tuesday, only to be struck and killed by another vehicle after climbing back to the roadway. The crash occurred Tuesday morning in the eastbound lane of Interstate 80 near exit 256, Conyngham/Nescopeck. It shut down the highway’s eastbound lane for several hours as investigators pieced together the scene and recovered the truck. State police at Hazleton said the driver lost control of the tractor-trailer and traveled off the shoulder of the highway and down an embankment, coming to a rest on its side at the bottom of the...

David Lavau, age 67, missing for six days, was found alive and well by his grown children who formed their own search party to find their father. They reported him missing to the authorities after he'd been missing for five days and on the sixth day formed their own search party. The children drove the desolate stretch of road they suspected their father had driven, stopping at the dropoffs calling their father's name, and at one place they heard a faint, "Help, help," and amazingly, it was their father! The state of his car after plunging so many feet was...

Reese Witherspoon is recovering after being struck by a car while jogging in Santa Monica on Wednesday morning. The 35-year-old Oscar-winning actress was running across an unmarked crosswalk around 11 a.m. when an 84-year-old woman failed to slow down and struck her. According to NBC L.A., Santa Monica Police spokesman Sgt. Richard Lewis said Witherspoon, "suffered minor injuries and was transported by ambulance to a local hospital for medical treatment." The "Water for Elephants" star was discharged a short time later and spent the night at home recovering from the incident. Lewis said the unidentified driver of the vehicle, who...

A New York television reporter returned home to a horrible scene Thursday night when he found his 5-week-old infant son and babysitter both dead. Authorities said 39-year-old Teresa Coffey likely suffered a fatal medical condition while she was holding the baby and collapsed on top of him.

China `unaware` of reported radioactive leak from nuke sub AUGUST 05, 2011 08:21 China is known to have told Korea that it does not know about a reported leak of radioactive materials to the Yellow Sea from a Chinese nuclear submarine moored in the Chinese port of Dalian in Liaoning Province. The Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry told a regular news briefing Thursday that it has asked Beijing to confirm reports about the rumored leak. “We`re waiting for China’s answer,” said a ministry official. Another ministry official said, however, that the ministry asked China through a diplomatic channel Tuesday...

TAMPICO, Ill.—A summer rite of passage for tens of thousands of Midwestern teenagers turned to a time of mourning for two 14-year-old girls—neighbors and best friends—who were electrocuted in a muddy field as they removed tassels from corn. The teenagers, Hannah Kendall and Jade Garza, were killed Monday after they came in contact with irrigation equipment or a nearby puddle conducting high voltage. Authorities said the incident was under investigation, but local farmers blamed irrigation system damage caused by a weekend lightning strike. "It's one of those one-in-a-billion things," said Doug Mitchell, a farmer whose property abuts the field where...