Free Republic

SOMERS, N.Y. -- An 82-year-old man died following a three car accident on Route 118 in the town of Somers Tuesday, police said. Dimitrios Caratzas succumbed to injuries sustained in the fatal accident that occurred at around 2 p.m. Tuesday on Route 118. Patterson resident Tomas Salguera-Ramirez, who was driving a Toyota Tundra pickup truck, was headed southbound on Route 118 when he swerved and clipped a 2012 Hyundai Sonata and struck a Hyundai Santa Fe in the northbound lane head-on, state police in Somers reported. Salguera-Ramirez, Santa Fe driver Elaine Mazzeo, of Somers, and Caratzas were transported to Putnam...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The state Labor Department is looking into employment practices at Oklahoma Democratic Party after a teenager was killed and one was seriously injured in a traffic accident. The father of 16-year-old Jackalyn Pearson says the girl remains in a coma after the accident, which occurred while she was canvassing door-to-door for the Oklahoma Democratic Party. Fifteen-year-old Dallas Horn was killed in the wreck. State Labor Commissioner Brenda Reneau Wynn says her office is looking into whether the teens were working when the accident occurred. Federal labor laws prohibit teens under 18 from operating a vehicle in...

PHOENIX (AP) - Bishop Thomas O'Brien, who has admitted he concealed sex abuse allegations against priests and now has been charged in a fatal hit-and-run accident, resigned Wednesday. The Vatican appointed Santa Fe, N.M., Archbishop Michael Sheehan as interim administrator of the diocese. As apostolic administrator, Sheehan has been granted full authority over the Diocese of Phoenix until the Vatican appoints a new bishop, the Santa Fe archdiocese said. He also will remain archbishop of New Mexico's largest diocese. In a two-line announcement Wednesday, the Vatican said Pope John Paul II accepted O'Brien's resignation as the spiritual leader of Arizona's...