Free Republic

An 18-year-old motorist is facing homicide charges for the deaths of a Washington state mother and three of the kids she was ushering around after he allegedly drove his Audi A4 more than 100 miles per hour into their minivan, prosecutors said. Chase Daniel Jones is accused of killing the 38-year-old mom Andrea Hudson as well as Boyd Buster Brown, 12, and sisters Matilda Wilcoxson, 13, and Eloise Wilcoxson, 12, when he barreled into their vehicle, pushing it into another two cars on the road, officials said. Two of Hudson’s children who were also in the minivan were hospitalized and...

In the weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, many thousands of Americans took to the roads and highways in lieu of flight. Some opted to drive because their vacation or business air travel was cancelled; others because they were understandably afraid of subsequent hijackings. Some years later, a group of Cornell University economists determined that after the terror attacks, in the last three months of [2001] fear of flying revved up car use and caused a second toll of lives in US roads. In addition, the inconvenience of tighter airport security after 9/11 may have further encouraged substitution...

Those who lollygag in the left lane of highways and interstates could be ticketed under legislation approved in the state House on Wednesday. House Bill 459, by Rep. Bill Hitchens, R-Rincon, was approved 162-9. The bill makes it a misdemeanor for any driver on a divided highway who does not move to the right when a car going faster approaches from behind.

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (AP) - Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said. Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said. The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, he said.

GEORGE W. BUSH – AN EPIPHANY © by Norman Liebmann One of the most notorious episodes of World War ll occurred when a one time famous football hero, as an American bomber pilot, did one of the most reprehensible acts a commanding officer can do under fire. His plane took some flak and he bailed out on his crew. It seems a perfect analogy for our lame duck President who will soon be bailing out on America. Indeed, no President ever seemed more poised to leave his country higher and dryer. We need teams of semanticists to determine whether the...

Gov. Bill Richardson is at the center of another speeding controversy. According to a report Monday by KRQE’s Larry Barker, a state police driver for the governo r refused to stop June 2 for an Albuquerque police officer who noticed the governor’s white Cadillac sport-utility vehicle “speeding and driving erratically” on an interstat e frontage road in Albuquerque. Barker’s report showed footage of the chase and a recording of the Albuquerque police officer. The report didn’t say how fast the governor& #8217;s driver was going. A spokesman for Richardson referred questions about the incident to the state Public Safety Department,...

People who do not want to wait for old age to shrink their brains and bring on memory loss now have a quicker alternative - abuse methamphetamine for a decade or so and watch the brain cells vanish into the night. The first high-resolution M.R.I. study of methamphetamine addicts shows "a forest fire of brain damage," said Dr. Paul Thompson, an expert on brain mapping at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We expected some brain changes but didn't expect so much tissue to be destroyed." The image, published in the June 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, shows...

A state lawmaker from Houston wants to change the punishment for possession of marijuana. Right now it's a Class B misdemeanor in Texas, punishable by a fine not to exceed $2,000 and/or confinement for a maximum of 180 days. Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston has written a bill that makes possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a Class C misdemeanor. It would also be the equivalent of a traffic ticket. "You wouldn't lose your drivers license, you don't lose any of these other things that you do in a Class B setting," Dutton said. Dutton doesn't condone marijuana use,...

Sons of drowned family members sue county for negligence The surviving sons of a family that drowned in Lake Isabella last summer are suing the county. The Bakersfield Californian reports that Jeremy and Cody Skaggs, and their grandparents, filed a claim late last month against the county. It claims the county negligently built, operated and maintained the lake. The suit is asking for $1 million dollars per victim. Last July, six members of the Skaggs family drowned, including four children. An autopsy revealed the two parents, Martin Skaggs and Charlotte Whittington, were under the influence of methamphetamine when they...