By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists

Federal authorities are mulling recommendations that states drop the threshold that determines drunken driving from .08 to .05.

A rusted 5-foot-tall piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the hijacked planes destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks has been discovered near the World Trade Center wedged between a luxury apartment building and a mosque site that once prompted virulent national debate about Islam and free speech.

Federal regulators let Boeing write the safety conditions for the problematic battery system in its beleaguered 787 "Dreamliner," prescribe how to test it and carry out those tests itself, according to testimony and documents released at a hearing Tuesday.

The pilot of a medical helicopter that ran out of fuel and crashed, killing all four people aboard, was distracted by text messages when he should have been conducting pre-flight checks, accident investigators said Tuesday.

A little over five years ago at the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge, competing teams of autonomous vehicles were creeping along at a 14-mph pace as they attempted to finish a 60-mile road course. Fast forward to the present day, and Google’s driverless cars have traveled over 300,000 road miles at traffic speeds without a single accident resulting from its advanced software. The pace at which the technology has reached the threshold of functionality and commercialization is astonishing.

An investigation of a battery fire aboard a Boeing 787 shows that mechanics and firefighters made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to put out the blaze through smoke so thick they couldn't see the battery.
Investigators found no evidence of mechanical failure to explain why a pilot lost control of a small plane that nosedived into an Arkansas ridge, killing the Oklahoma State women's basketball coach and three others, according to a federal report.
A helicopter that crashed during a reality TV production this month suddenly pitched down and hit the ground about a minute after taking off in early morning darkness, a preliminary report said.
A preliminary report on a fatal helicopter crash during production of a reality TV show north of Los Angeles says the craft suddenly pitched down and hit the ground about a minute after taking off in early morning darkness on Feb. 10.

Despite a battery fire in one Boeing 787 Dreamliner and smoke in another, the batteries used to power the plane's electrical systems aren't necessarily unsafe — manufacturers just need to build in reliable safeguards, the nation's top aviation safety investigator said Wednesday.

A runaway bus careened down a mountain road without brakes and the driver called out to passengers to phone 911 before a violent crash with two other vehicles that killed eight people and injured dozens of others, a surviving passenger said Monday.

At the same time the government certified Boeing's 787 Dreamliners as safe, federal rules barred the type of batteries used to power the airliner's electrical systems from being carried as cargo on passenger planes because of the fire risk.

Obama administration officials struggled Wednesday to defend their initial statements that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is safe, while promising a transparent probe of mishaps involving the aircraft's batteries.

The battery that caught fire in the Japan Airlines 787 Dreamliner in Boston was not overcharged, but government investigators said Sunday there could still be problems with wiring or other charging components.
A plane carrying two Oklahoma State University basketball coaches and a couple ferrying them to Arkansas for a recruiting trip was inspected and its muffler repaired about a week before it crashed, killing all four people on board, according to a report released this week.