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BERLIN (Reuters) - Three hundred chickens died in panic early on Sunday when a drunken German teenager on a joyride crashed a van into their shed, police said. "Apparently some of the chickens were so desperate to get away that they ran into the wall and died," the spokesman said. "Others suffered heart attacks." The 17-year-old from the western city of Kassel crashed the van through the wall of a shed containing around 1,000 birds and then returned to a nearby fairground where he was staying, according to a spokesman for the local police. The youth was arrested.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A drunken man who fell under a train after being jolted out of a nap at a railway station emerged unscathed from beneath the locomotive. The 19-year-old had fallen asleep on the station platform in Cologne but was startled by the incoming train. Losing his balance, he fell in front of the locomotive, police said. "According to the man he fell exactly between the two tracks and just felt a light knock on the head," Cologne police said in a statement. The shocked train driver pulled the emergency brakes only to see the man emerge unaided from...

A 29-year-old man who was apparently horsing around with some friends crashed through a window and fell 16 stories at the downtown Minneapolis Hyatt Regency early Saturday morning. His most severe injury? A broken leg. The man must have "an angel on his shoulder or something," said Minneapolis police Lt. Dale Barsness. "He's a lucky guy." The man, identified by a police report as Joshua S. Hanson, landed on a roof overhang near the hotel's main entrance along the Nicollet Mall, police said.

FORT HUACHUCA — Slightly more than three years ago Chief Warrant Officer Corey Lefebvre was heading to Fort Rucker, Ala. He wasn’t going on duty. He was heading on post to pick up some milk and put gas in his vehicle. Around 7:30 p.m. — BAM — his life changed. He was hit by a drunken driver doing 75 mph. After the wreck, Lefebvre saw his military career take a different path as the result of the crash. Just a week away from graduation at the Army Aviation Center, the former enlisted soldier was heading toward a career as an...

ST. PAUL - Despite a tough law designed to get chronic drunken drivers off the roads, more than 40 percent of felony DWI offenders avoid prison time and instead get sent to county jails for a year or less, according to court records. Prosecutors say judges aren't handing down tough enough sentences, as they had hoped when the law took effect in 2002. In 2004, 43 percent of 222 DWI felons got a year or less in jail, according to statewide court data. From the start of the law through mid-2005, 41 percent got less than three years in prison,...

Hawaii residents paid more state taxes in 2004 than residents of any other state in the country... Hawaii residents paid an average of $3,050 per person in 2004, while Texans paid the least — an average of $1,368. Every state but one collected more taxes per person in 2004 than it did a decade earlier... State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004. Only Alaska saw the amount it collects per person decline. Even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, the individual tax burdens increased in 43 states. Rising education and Medicaid costs...

Taxes were up in the past 10 years for Maryland and Virginia residents, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, disappointing both lawmakers and anti-tax advocates. The tax burden in Virginia increased by 55 percent in that period, with a per capita amount of $1,903 in 2004. In Maryland, the tax burden increased by 46 percent, with an individual tax burden of $2,214 in 2004. The District's tax statistics are computed with cities' and local governments' financial data, which won't be available until April, the Census Bureau said.

Rookie officer's training helped foil carjacking Holly Mong was just six months into her career as a police officer when she shot two armed men who tried to hijack her car outside her Jersey Village apartment. Police said Mong, 22, a Richmond Police Department rookie, was wearing civilian clothes about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday when two suspects climbed into her Jeep Liberty and pointed guns at her head as she was starting the vehicle. "It was her training that helped her react in that situation," said detective Sgt. C.J. Harper of the Jersey Village Police Department. On her off day, she...

Slate's Democratic Debate Drinking Game Get drunk on political discourse! By June Thomas Posted Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003, at 10:08 AM PT This Thursday evening, the nine remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination will meet in Phoenix for the fourth debate of the year. If these events have started to blend together, why not grab a bottle or two of your favorite tipple and bring on the blurriness by playing Slate's debate drinking game. Cheers! Take one drink if: A candidate mentions an ordinary American by name A candidate mentions Bill Clinton A candidate mentions John Ashcroft A candidate...

Subject: Mary Jo Kopechne Hello My name is Mary Jo Kopechne. I would have been 65 years of age this year. Read about me and my killer below. When Sen. Ted Kennedy was merely just another Democrat bloating on Capitol Hill on behalf of liberal causes, it was perhaps excusable to ignore his deplorable past. But now that he's become Sen. John Kerry's leading campaign attack dog, positioning himself as Washington's leading arbiter of truth and integrity, the days for such indulgence are now over. It's time for the GOP to stand up and remind America why Sen. Kerry's chief...

Drunken police raid US students LUKE MORFESSE - CRIME REPORTER A group of drunken off-duty police officers forced American students to kneel on the ground at their Fremantle dormitory while taunting and humiliating them about the United States involvement in Iraq. The incident is one of several being investigated by police internal affairs after a wild night in two of the port city's popular night spots involving seven WA police and two NSW officers. Some of the worst behaviour was inflicted on patrons at the Orient Hotel, where one of the officers vomited across the bar after the drunken group...

ORCHARDS, Clark County — A man who stopped by State Patrol headquarters to ask about a job didn't get what he wanted — but he did find out how a handheld alcohol tester works. Robert Gulley, an unemployed radio technician, was ticketed for alleged drunken driving as he drove away from the patrol office in this suburb east of Vancouver. He had asked for a job application. "I guess it was a bad time to go there," Gulley, 25, of nearby Sifton, told The Columbian newspaper. "It was a bad judgment call." When Gulley walked into patrol headquarters Wednesday afternoon,...

Drunk Finn crashes with 10 cars in eight minutes Tue Feb 17,12:29 PM ET HELSINKI (AFP) - A drunk Finnish driver was arrested after colliding with no fewer than 10 cars in the space of eight minutes before driving head-on into a wall, it was reported. When tested, the 40-year-old was found to have about 2.0 grammes of alcohol per litre in his blood, far in excess of the national drink-drive limit of 0.5 grammes, Finnish news agency FNB quoted police as saying. The man had not actually endangered anybody's life during his one-kilometre drive down a Helsinki street since...

Drunk senator forced to quit By Lincoln Wright December 7, 2003 AUSTRALIAN Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett has been forced to quit over allegations that he assaulted and verbally abused a female Liberal Senator. Senator Bartlett has been told to put his political career on hold until he sorts out his drinking problem. Victorian Democrat Lyn Allison became the Democrats' acting leader yesterday, after Senator Bartlett drunkenly manhandled and abused Liberal senator Jeannie Ferris on Thursday night. Democrats say it is now unlikely that Senator Bartlett will return to the job until his drinking bouts come to an end. Senator Bartlett...

<p>PITTSBURGH — A drunken college student fell 25 feet to his death from a church catwalk after drinking at a cookout at the church.</p> <p>Police are investigating whether charges should be filed in the death of 19-year-old Billy Gaines.</p> <p>The pastor of the Roman Catholic (search) church — who was the only person of drinking age at the cookout and who had provided beer to a minor in the past — has been relieved of his duties, authorities said.</p>

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German father and son lost their driving licences within hours of each other for being drunk at the wheel, after the son got caught and the inebriated father went to pick him up, police have said. "First the son came off the road under the influence, so police took his licence. Then the father set off for the scene of the accident, got stopped and was also found to be over the limit, so he had his taken too," said a police spokesman in the southern town of Hildesheim on Monday.

At least six people were trampled to death by wild elephants that went amok after getting drunk on rice beer in Assam, an official said Tuesday. The forest official said the herd went on the rampage on Monday, looking for their favourite tipple, in Tinsukia district, 550 kilometers from Guwahati. "They smashed huts and plundered granaries and broke open casks to drink rice beer. The herd then went berserk killing six persons," the official told AFP by telephone from Tinsukia. Wild elephants have been targeting areas where people brew large volumes of rice beer. "We have come across devastating drunken...