Free Republic

Some people on the Koko Head Crater Trail got an unexpected thrill Tuesday morning as they met President Obama while on a hike. Earlier in the morning, President Obama returned to the Marine Corps Base Hawaii gym for a second consecutive day for a hour’s workout.

A bank clerk fell five storeys to his death down an office stairwell seconds after being seen using his mobile phone, an inquest heard yesterday. Investigators are trying to establish if Richard Pow, 26, slipped and fell over the railing while distracted by the handset. Mr Pow, whose fiance Eleanor Sharman is pregnant with his child, had cycled to work at the HBOS building in Leeds on Monday last week and had just used the office changing rooms on the fifth floor. Deputy coroner Richard Manning said: 'He was standing on the fifth floor stairwell landing, apparently either texting or...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Unlucky for some? Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday. A study published on Thursday by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays. "I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th," CVS statistician Alex...

BALTIMORE - Twenty-four day laborers in the country illegally were arrested Tuesday when they asked for work from federal immigration agents who had gathered in a parking lot after an unsuccessful undercover operation, authorities said. The agents had regrouped at a 7-Eleven parking lot after a search for illegal immigrants who had been ordered to leave the country, said Marc Raimondi, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency spokesman. The day laborers admitted they were in the country illegally after they asked the ICE agents whether they needed workers and the agents responded by asking them, in Spanish, where they were...

Burst bag costs bikers £10,500 Motorists on a busy motorway could not believe their eyes when they drove into a cloud of money. Two unlucky motorcyclists lost £10,500 in cash when their rucksack burst on the M3, near Winchester. Drivers stopped on the hard shoulder to help the distraught motorcyclists gather the £20 notes, reports the Guardian. But strong winds quickly blew them across both carriageways and only £500 of the £11,000 was recovered. Judy Mizen, who was driving a car behind the motorbike when the bag burst open, said: "It started off as a few notes, but the bag...