Free Republic

WEST HILLS (CBSLA) — The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office has identified the man involved in the horrific motorcycle accident that made waves across the Southland on Thursday. The incident took place on Thursday afternoon, when undercover officers with the Los Angeles Police Department began tailing the motorcycle after witnessing something that caused suspicion. After running the license plates through their system, it was determined that the vehicle was stolen. When they attempted to pull the suspect over, now identified as Ruben Contreras Jr., 30-years-old, he fled. Aerial footage from CBS LA’s Sky2 Chopper showed Contreras traveling at speeds well over...

Vito Montanaro, director general of the Bari heath authority, said 20 people had died and 35 were injured in the crash on single-track near the town of Andria in southern Italy. Local authorities had earlier put the death toll at 12. Eighteen of the 35 reported to be injured are in a critical condition. Hospitals have issued an urgent call for blood donors. "We need blood group 0," Giuseppe Corrado, president of Barletta-Andria-Trani province, said. The injured have been taken to hospitals in Andria, Barletta and Bisceglie. People are still trapped in the wreckage of the crash, which was caused...

Worrying about teen drinking and drug use has kept many a parent up at night. With marijuana becoming increasingly available and legal in some parts of the country, the question has taken on new urgency: If teens are going to experiment, which is safer, booze or pot? "The first answer always has to be neither," Dr. Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, told CBS News. But then he acknowledges they're not exactly equivalent -- and he considers alcohol much more dangerous. Carroll wrote a provocative piece for the New York Times exploring what's known...

AbortOn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nhYsF-1Zfw&feature=related

"Head On - Apply Directly To The Forehead." This commercial drives me crazy! Tell me I'm not alone!

They are eerie sensations, more common than one might think: A man describes feeling a shadowy figure standing behind him, then turning around to find no one there. A woman feels herself leaving her body and floating in space, looking down on her corporeal self. Such experiences are often attributed by those who have them to paranormal forces. But according to recent work by neuroscientists, they can be induced by delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that...

2 killed in wreck on I-74 in Surry CountyElderly Mount Airy driver was in wrong lanes, patrol says By Patrick Wilson JOURNAL REPORTER MOUNT AIRY A woman from Mount Airy drove the wrong way on Interstate 74 last night and collided with an oncoming car, killing both her and a man from Ohio driving the other vehicle, authorities said. It was the second fatal collision involving a car traveling the wrong way on a four-lane way highway in northwestern North Carolina this week. The woman killed last night, who was in her 80s, was driving west in the eastbound lanes...

Mike Poulos is a man on a mission. When he was hired in mid-2005 as warden of the California Institution for Men, Poulos' marching orders were clear: Fix the prison. So far, he hasn't shied away from the challenge. "This institution has had a really strong transition into a whole new way of doing things," Poulos, 53, said during a tour of the prison in June. "We are changing the culture at CIM." It's a task simply stated, yet breathtakingly difficult. A yearlong investigation by the Daily Bulletin found that decades of mismanagement and indifference have made CIM one of...