Free Republic

Kaitlyn Strom was attending the Winstock Music Festival in Winsted, near Minneapolis, and having fun with friends. As it turns out, this also implied having one drink too many – enough to get her thinking sticking her head in a large truck’s exhaust pipe would be the most awesome thing she could do. Said and done. Seconds later, Kaitlyn realized she couldn’t pull her head out, so she was stuck there for almost an hour, until firefighters came and power-sawed her free. “We were just all having fun and I saw this big exhaust pipe and I was like, ‘Hey,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sensors and video cameras on Southern California freeways could begin recording pollutants spewing from tailpipes by early next year as part of a program to reduce smog levels in the nation's smoggiest region. The program, perhaps the largest of its kind, would measure vehicles entering freeways in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside. The sensors measure pollutants as vehicles accelerate and the cameras snap an image of the license plates. There's even an incentive to getting caught. Owners of smoky clunkers would receive letters informing them that the government would help pay...