Free Republic

<p>HAVELOCK, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man is dead after police say he accidentally drank from a jar of gasoline and then smoked a cigarette.</p> <p>Havelock police received a 911 call about 9:55 p.m. Monday after 43-year-old Gary Allen Banning set himself on fire. Banning was transported to UNC Burn Center in Chapel Hill, where he died early Tuesday morning.</p>

A bungling Iranian bomber blew off his own legs when he hurled a grenade at Thai police outside a Bangkok school - which bounced off a tree and then exploded at his feet. It came after he had blown up his own home and then hurled a grenade at a taxi driver who would not accept him as a passenger, the Bangkok Post reports. Police allegedly found an Iranian ID card in a satchel close to the blast in the Thai capital, and unconfirmed reports suggest he is called Saeid Moradi. Four people, three men and one woman, were injured...

A person dressed as Gumby walked into a Southern California convenience store, claiming to have a gun and demanding money, but costume trouble and a skeptical clerk thwarted the would-be robber. Gumby demanded money, but the store clerk thought it was a joke and ignored the life-size Claymation character, telling him he was cleaning up and didn’t have time to waste. "You don’t think this is a robbery? I have a gun," the costumed man said, fumbling inside his costume as if trying to retrieve a weapon. But the green-gloves seemed to get in the way, and rather than pull...

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A 23-year-old American activist stands in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. The bulldozer drives over her, crushing her to death. These are the facts. Rachel Corrie, along with colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement, was trying to prevent Israel from bulldozing homes in Rafah, close to the Egyptian border. Her activism cost her her life in March 2003. A colleague said at the time, "Many times the bulldozer came up to us and buried us with dirt, but they always stopped." Corrie's parents want to know the truth about their daughter's death, whether the killing...

CHATTANOOGA — With children and other onlookers holding umbrellas, Sylvester Kitchens stood in the flooded street, laughing and bragging he could swim an overflowing Chattanooga storm ditch outside their house. Wearing shorts and shirtless, the 46-year-old Kitchens dared onlookers to bet him $5 he couldn't do it. Even when nobody showed any money, Kitchens jumped in. After bobbing along in the gushing water about 150 feet late Sunday afternoon and grabbing a chain link fence above the ditch, Kitchens lost his grip as family members tried to toss him the end of a water hose. He washed away into an...

An Iraqi man who witnesses said shouted abuse before throwing a shoe at a US army vehicle was shot dead on Wednesday in what the American military said was a suspected grenade attack

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Police say a man is dead after slipping from the roof of a car while joyriding. The man was one of two male passengers riding on the roof of a Toyota Camry in Sunnyvale Saturday night, police say. The car was traveling between 30 and 40 miles per hour. The victim slipped off the car's roof, holding on while being dragged an undetermined distance and then falling onto the road.

DUANESBURG, N.Y. - A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet with a camera but no parachute Saturday. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said. Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing on the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said. Police said they did not suspect foul play but would not elaborate. Robert Rawlins, pilot and owner of the Duanesburg Skydiving Club, said he was flying the single-engine plane and had begun to close the door when Carafello jumped. His...

"A 2-year-old boy was killed in Charles County over the weekend when the child-size all-terrain vehicle he was operating overturned on him, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office said the boy was operating a Baja Wilderness 50 four-wheeler, which is designed for children 6 to 12 years old and equipped with a remote cutoff switch. When the boy's mother turned the ATV off by the remote, the vehicle stopped but the front wheels turned, causing it to overturn on the boy, sheriff's deputies said. He was wearing a helmet." "According to the company's Web site, the...

KOLKATA: A 15-year-old girl from Kharda district hanged herself in response to the execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on Thursday. "She said they had hanged a patriot.' 'We didn't take her seriously when she told us that she wanted to feel the pain Saddam did during the execution," the girl's father, Manmohan Karmakar, said. He said his daughter, Moon Moon, had become extremely depressed after watching Saddam's execution on television. "She kept watching the scene over and again and didn't take food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging," he said. Police superintendent Pravin Kumar confirmed the suicide,...

Rashawn Brown As a motorcycle lies in the middle of Foothill Blvd. San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputes look over a fatal accident involving a motorcycle and a pickup truck near Day Creek Blvd. in Rancho Cucamonga. The driver of the motorcycle was dead at the scene. Friends described a 28-year-old motorcyclist who died Wednesday as a great rider who was not at fault in the accident that claimed his life. Rashawn Mykal Brown, of Rancho Cucamonga, was performing a wheelie on his 2003 Yamaha motorcycle right before he struck a truck, which was turning into a parking lot near...

Maybe it was karma. Three men attempted to kidnap a teenager in a dispute over stereo speakers shortly before 4:45 p.m. Monday, Wichita police reported. One of the three pulled out a gun and fired it at the teen in the 1000 block of South Wichita. The shot missed the teen. The shooter jammed the gun back into the waistband of his pants... and it went off. The bullet struck the 23-year-old man in his left testicle, causing him to cringe -- which caused the gun to fire again. The second shot struck him in the left calf. He walked...

Brothers Die In Crashes On Same Road, Same NightPOSTED: 10:44 am EDT August 7, 2006 BUTLER, Pa. -- A double tragedy has impacted a Pennsylvania family. Two brothers were killed in separate motorcycle accidents on the same road within two hours of each other on Saturday, authorities said. One was headed to the scene of his brother's accident. Steven Kerr, 37, died shortly before 9 p.m. when his motorcycle crashed into a speed limit sign on state Route 38, state police said. Less than two hours later and about 100 yards away, 29-year-old Jeremy Kerr, was fatally injured when his...

Safety catches do not always prevent firearm accidents and even newfangled biometric guns, which check the identity of a user by their fingerprint, cannot stop thieves from using stolen ammunition in other weapons. The way to make firearms really safe, says Hebert Meyerle of Germany, is to password-protect the ammunition itself. Meyerle is patenting a design for a modified cartridge that would be fired by a burst of high-frequency radio energy. But the energy would only ignite the charge if a solid-state switch within the cartridge had been activated. This would only happen if a password entered into the gun...

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said. "A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery." The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction. Lions and tigers...

If the bell tolls for the demise of the evil or the stupid, it is the voice of God's Law, evolution. Forms which are fit, survive. The others are -- we'll call it -- recycled. March, 2006 -- It was on the evening of February 25th. One of the Dish network channels aired it. The L.A. Film Criitics and Robert Redford’s Sundance festival raved, as did Ebert and whoever replaced Gene Siskel. Two thumbs way up, they said about this piece of videographic crap. Remember that word. Crap. We’ll get beyond the metaphor later. Timothy Treadwell, not his real name,...

<p>MT. PROSPECT -- A Mt. Prospect man died Tuesday after he fell from a second-story balcony during a spitting contest, police said.</p> <p>Bartosz Drobek, 23, of the 1700 block of West Palm Drive was on the balcony of his apartment smoking cigarettes with his brother and a friend about 12:30 a.m. Monday. As Drobek was getting ready to spit, he lost his balance and fell about 20 feet, hitting his head on the pavement, said Mt. Prospect Police Officer Dirk Ollech.</p>

Pedestrian Run Over After Allegedly Trying To Kick Moving Semi's Tire POSTED: 12:18 pm EDT October 27, 2005 ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating a bizarre accident. Troopers said a semi was traveling northbound on Orange Blossom Trail near Lancaster Road around 3:30 Thursday morning when a man walking in the roadway flagged him down and asked for a ride. The driver refused and started to drive away. That's when, troopers said, the pedestrian tried to kick one of the semi's tires and was run over. "This gentleman had no business being in the roadway at...

A schizophrenic artist who died after handcuffing himself to a tree after throwing away the key, may have tried to free himself, an inquest has heard. The skeleton of Richard Sumner - 47 when he went missing three years ago - was found in a remote area of Clocaenog Forest, Denbighshire, in April 2005. Mr Sumner, from Crosby, Merseyside, may have changed his mind about killing himself but could not reach the keys, the Denbigh inquest was told. The coroner recorded an open verdict. Mr Sumner, at one time a scenic artist for opera productions at Glyndebourne, had suffered from...

NEW YORK -- A body part apparently fell from the wheel well of a plane coming in for a landing on Tuesday at John F. Kennedy Airport and landed in a suburban backyard, authorities said. More remains were found on a South African Airways flight after it landed at Kennedy, said Tony Ciavolella, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Police suspect the remains were that of a male stowaway, the spokesman said. He would not confirm that the incidents at the airport and Long Island were related, saying, "It's still under investigation." Messages left...

PARIS, France (AP) -- A Norwegian man was killed after jumping from the Eiffel Tower when a parachute he was wearing got stuck on an upper deck of the monument, officials said Tuesday. Preliminary investigations indicated that the man planned to film his jump as part of publicity for a Norwegian clothing brand, police said.

Iraq: an Imam, encircled by forces of safety, killed by one of its grenades BAQUBA (Iraq) - an Imam of Baquba, in the North-East of Baghdad, whose mosque was encircled by Iraqi and American forces of safety, died in the explosion of its own grenade whereas it tried to be defended, affirmed an Iraqi military source with AFP. "A 14h30 (18h30 GMT), of the police force Iraqi and American soldiers excavated the district of Mafraq and they tried to penetrate in mosque Al-Aqsa of sheik Abdel Razzak", affirmed the General Adel Maoulane. According to him, the Imam sunnite left...

Teens Leaping For Thrills In 'Garage Jumping' Trend POSTED: 2:52 pm EST February 28, 2005 UPDATED: 11:02 am EST March 1, 2005 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Teenagers in Orlando, Fla., are leaping between 80-foot high public parking garages in a new trend called "garage jumping," according to a Local 6 News investigation. Local 6 News reported that the thrill seekers are vaulting themselves between garages in downtown Orlando. Tim Bargfrede told Local 6 News that he was following friends when he attempted to garage jump and did not make it to the other side. Bargfrede fell six stories and was knocked...

Amtrak train hits suspected Chicago burglar CHICAGO, Ill. – Amtrak’s “Southwest Chief” was instrumental in stopping a burglary in progress Wednesday afternoon near the boundary with suburban Cicero when its lead locomotive struck and killed one of two alleged thieves standing in its path as they were allegedly loading stolen goods into a pickup truck parked next to the tracks, according to a story citing police and Amtrak officials in today’s Chicago Tribune. The train, Amtrak No. 3, operates from Chicago to Los Angeles on Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks. The incident occurred 6 miles out from Union Station on...

Breaking...

Man Jailed for Shooting Off His Testicles 48 minutes ago Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! LONDON - A British man who accidentally shot himself in the testicles after drinking 15 pints of beer was jailed for five years on Tuesday for possessing an illegal firearm, a court spokesman said. David Walker, 28, was arguing with a friend at a pub in South Yorkshire, northern England, when he went home to get his sawed-off shotgun, which he jammed into his trousers. But as he walked back to the pub, the gun went off, blasting pellets into his testicles....

<p>CHICAGO -- Caterpillar Inc.'s first-quarter profit more than tripled due to strong sales of mining and construction equipment, causing the industry leader to dramatically increase its profit and sales guidance for the year.</p> <p>Caterpillar's results reflect the upsurge in earnings by many manufacturing and machinery companies in the first quarter. Volume and orders have been up throughout the sector.</p>

<p>On March 16, 2004, one year after the death of my cousin Rachel Corrie, James Taranto, in his Best of the Web Today column, called Rachel's nonviolent efforts to protest the Israeli military's actions in the occupied Palestinian territories an encouragement of a "culture of hate." Mr. Taranto referred to an op- ed piece by Ruhama Shattan, originally published in the Jerusalem Post and reprinted on this Web site, as a "clearheaded tribute" to Rachel.</p>

I have been searching and find nothing. Apparently, there was a body hanging from the overpass on the Spur 408 to I-20 Westbound, and had traffic all snarled up. This did come from the Bone, but it was too ad-lib to be a setup, and the TxDOT cams are shut down there, so I can't see anything. If anyone has heard anything, or was there, I'd appreciate any info. I won't go into why, but I'm curious if this was really a suicide.

A bear-lover who would creep up to grizzlies in the wild chanting "I love you" to prove that they posed no danger has been killed by them. What remained of Timothy Treadwell, 46 - author, filmmaker and celebrity for his unorthodox views on the animals - was recovered from the Katmai National Park in Alaska this week. His bear attacker had buried part of him in a so-called food cache. "This is unfortunate, but I'm not surprised," said Deb Liggett, the park's superintendent. "It really wasn't a matter of if, it was just a matter of when." Mr Treadwell's girlfriend,...

Rachel Corrie Spotted with Che and Mumia By Jawad Ali The Mission District in San Francisco is my new home. There are murals blossoming everywhere in this neighborhood that depict uplifting images of global struggles. The walls are covered with breathtaking images of nature, triumphant women of color, ancient cultures, community pride and all the modern heroes of social change.Courtesy of precitaeyes.org It came to me as no surprise that a freshly painted Rachel Corrie had joined the ranks of Caesar Chavez and Malcolm X as the young hero of the downtrodden. In this mural she is seen lending...