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U.S. Traffic Fatalities Continued to Surge in First Half of 2016 Deaths rose 9%, extending a trend that began two years ago as the economy improved and travel increased Traffic fatalities were up 9% in the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year. By Beckie Strum Traffic fatalities rose 9% in the first six months of 2016, compared with a year earlier, as a stronger economy and falling gas prices encouraged Americans to spend more time behind the wheel, the National Safety Council said on Tuesday. Traffic fatalities have been trending upward since 2014,...

CENTER CITY, Pa., A couple traveling on a stretch of Pennsylvania freeway captured video of a woman steering her car with her feet while using both hands to text. Sarah and Shawn Delong captured video of the woman using her feet to steady the steering wheel while traveling on the Schuylkill Expressway in Center City. "Someone is going to get killed, that's why I was so mad. You see people on their phones all the time, but that took the cake," Sarah Delong told WPVI-TV. "For a good 20 minutes we were in her vicinity whether it was beside her...

Motorists in Pima County will have to wait to respond to that text message after a ban on texting while driving went into effect this week, giving law enforcement another tool to curb what one Sierra Vista police commander called the most prevalent of the many distractions within a vehicle these days. For years, texting while driving has been one of the most common forms of driver distraction, said Cmdr. Lawrence Boutte of the Sierra Vista Police Department. “We’ve not done any official studies, but every last one of us knows that it takes attention from the road and is...

Texting on mobile devices while driving is a growing "global killer" and not enough attention is being paid to the dangers of distracted drivers, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday. The U.N. General Assembly said on Friday it had asked the secretary general to consider establishing a voluntarily funded Road Safety Trust Fund to support efforts to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from traffic accidents. Road crashes kill more than 1.25 million people and injure as many as 50 million people a year globally, according to the world body. It has urged...

Apple Phishing scam doing the rounds Phishing is a technique used by cybercriminals that ‘fishes’ for sensitive information via email – and now mobile. Apple users should be on high alert after a fresh SMS phishing scam was exposed that uses sophisticated online trickery in an attempt to compromise Apple ID credentials. Commenters on social media first reported the issue in early April after receiving a suspicious text message that read: "The Apple ID associated with this number is due to be terminated. To prevent this, please confirm your details at supportatapple.com – Apple Inc." Screenshot of the Apple phishing...

A proposed “distracted walking” bill in New Jersey would ban pedestrians from walking and texting simultaneously, with the possibility of a $50 fine or even a short jail sentence. The measure, which has been proposed by New Jersey Assembly Congresswoman Pamela Lampitt, is to try and reduce pedestrian deaths as a result of distraction from mobile devices. The law would ban people from walking while texting on any form of electronic communication device unless it is totally hands free. Those caught could face fines of up to $50, 15 days imprisonment, or both, which is the same penalty as jaywalking.

A hilarious text mix-up about a newborn led to a sweet moment between strangers. A woman who intended to text family members about the birth of her baby accidentally texted a complete stranger. ... Williams congratulated the family and told them they had the wrong number, but the texts kept coming. ... Instead of just ignoring the texts, Williams replied: “Well I don’t know y’all but me and the boys will be thru to take (a) picture with the baby.” ... Williams came through on the promise. He and his brother showed up at the hospital to see the family...

The 20ft tall (6m) sculpture, called The Kiss, was positioned at Salisbury Cathedral, inviting people to walk in-between the wrists. But it has been shifted off North Walk as a decision was taken that it was not well enough illuminated in the dark. Artist Sophie Ryder wrote online that people were "walking through texting". Some had "bumped their heads", she said.

When Ronald Jackson found a text he thought was rude and inappropriate on his then-12-year-old daughter's phone in September 2013, he took the cell away. But the child's mother, Michelle Steppe, balked at his action -- and she called the police. Steppe and Jackson have not been a couple for years, and Steppe is now married to a Grand Prairie, Texas, police officer. When the police showed up at Jackson's door later that day and asked for the iPhone 4 back, Jackson refused. "At that point I decided the police don't interfere with my ability to parent my daughter," he...

[Top 21 of the] Top 50 Most Popular Text Terms: 1. 2moro - Tomorrow 2. 2nite - Tonight 3. BRB - Be Right Back 4. BTW - By The Way -or- Bring The Wheelchair 5. B4N - Bye For Now 6. BCNU - Be Seeing You 7. BFF - Best Friends Forever -or- Best Friend's Funeral 8. CYA - Cover Your Ass -or- See Ya 9. DBEYR - Don't Believe Everything You Read 10. DILLIGAS - Do I Look Like I Give A Sh** 11. FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Disinformation 12. FWIW - For What It's Worth -or- Forgot...

A Maryland police officer went undercover and dressed as a homeless man to catch people who were using their phones while driving. Cpl. Patrick Robinson went undercover Tuesday morning equipped with a police radio and a body camera. He held a sign that read, "I am not homeless. I am a Montgomery County police officer looking for cell phone texting violations."

Father moved family to Sacramento amid security concerns in Afghanistan CHP: Driver, looking at text message, drifted into bike lane and struck dad and son ‘Charges are pending,’ spokeswoman says After risking his life working as an electrical engineer on U.S. military projects in northern Afghanistan, Mustafa Rafi believed he had found a safe haven for his family in Sacramento County. But less than two weeks after settling his family into a modest apartment, the 33-year-old was killed Sunday morning and his 8-year-old son suffered life-threatening injuries after a driver suspected of texting while at the wheel swerved into the...

Lost in Cyberspace – As Seen in a Commercial By: Msgr. Charles PopeFor most people, the word virtual has come to mean the Internet or the computer world, as in “occurring or existing primarily online.”  But the word virtual has an original meaning that is actually quite descriptive of a modern problem.Prior to its application to the computer world, the word virtual meant “being something in effect, though not actually or expressly being such.” In other words, if something is virtual it has aspects of the real thing but is not the real thing. In the sentence “The man is a virtual goldmine...

A reporter is under fire for texting during the National Anthem and refusing to apologize. Helena Andrews, who writes the Reliable Source gossip column for The Washington Post, was caught on video using her cell phone as the "Star Spangled Banner" played Saturday at the 2015 White House Correspondents dinner. Andrews appeared to be typing with her head down, glued to her smartphone's screen, while other attendees stood solemnly with their hands over their hearts until the patriotic song finished.... "Apparently someone saw me on TV 'texting' during the dinner. FTR (For The Record) I was taking notes. On my...

Several eyewitnesses say the accident was caused when Bruce rear ended the white car and that car then went into oncoming traffic and was struck by the Hummer. Eyewitnesses say the driver of the white car -- a female -- died.

MALIBU, Calif. — Gender-bender reality-TV star Bruce Jenner rear-ended a car Saturday, causing an accident that killed a woman motorist. Seven other people were injured in the accident, which happened shortly after noon on the Pacific Coast Highway near its intersection with Corral Canyon Road. Jenner’s dark blue Cadillac Escalade was towing a dune buggy in a trailer when he rear-ended a white Lexus sedan being driven by an ­elderly woman.

This Instagram photo shows a man missing a humpback whale surface two feet away from him because he was glued to his phone. The moment was caught during a whale watch in Redondo Beach, California, professional photographer Eric Smith told ABC News today.

Over lunch one day, a co-worker grumbled about something being "v. annoying." It took a second for me to understand what the quick, consonant blip pre-adjective was, and when my brain processed it, I realized something: Yet again, we'd contextualized Internet slang into a colloquialism. Or was it as new-fangled as it seemed? OMG, after all, the classic abbreviation—used by squealing pre-teens, shocked parents, and everyone in between to evoke a three-syllabic exclamation of emotions ranging from surprise to ironic excitement—was one of the original text acronyms to be translated from cellphone screen to language (remember those "scandalous" Gossip Girl...

Parent involvement key to keeping kids safe online. These days, kids let their fingers do the talking, instant messaging or texting their "BFF's" at any time of the day or night. BFF is "best friend forever" in Internet shorthand. ... Do you know what "POS" means in kid lingo? That's "parent over shoulder." Don't worry, the three dads we asked didn't know either. We stumped another mom with "ASL." That's "age-sex-location," a phrase swapped liberally throughout the Internet when strangers meet.

1. The panhandler on the corner Canadian cops dress up as panhandlers in order to get up close and personal with drivers. Officers in Ontario and British Columbia have slipped on hoodies, donned baseball caps and clutched tattered cardboard signs (complete with misspellings) before hitting busy street corners. Their cardboard signs offer an upbeat message on one side and a clear warning on the other. One read, "My name is Constable Mike Cairns. If you are reading this sign you are about to get a cell phone ticket." 2. The trucker in the next lane Last year, New York Gov....