That's one expensive car crash: Hapless blonde crashes her £250,000 Bentley into a Merc, Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin.

It was a line-up of the finest supercars in one of the world's wealthiest hotspots.

But what started as a parade of high-priced horsepower turned into an impromptu game of demolition derby - when a hapless blonde scraped her £250,000 Bentley Azure down the side of a £75,000 Mercedes S Class.

What followed in the Monte Carlo's Place du Casino was every insurance company's nightmare.

Smashing: The hapless blonde (pictured in the car on the left) scraped her Bentley Azure down the side of a Mercedes S Class, crashed into a Ferrari F430, then went head on into a Porsche 911 and Aston Martin Rapide

Her 2.7 tonne beast then crashed into a £140,000 black Ferrari F430, before going head on into an £80,000 Porsche 911 and a £140,000 Aston Martin Rapide.

The driver, and her two passengers, then had the humiliation of watching hundreds of tourists circle the scene as they were unable to open the doors of the British-built convertible.

It is estimated the crash will cost more than £40,000 with the Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin requiring new front wings and bumpers. The Bentley will need the same repairs, plus a new door.

Mailonline | 27 July 2011 :  read full post

Stepping Hill Hospital: Nurse Rebecca Leighton in court

Rebecca Leighton is accused of tampering with medical products

A nurse has appeared in court in connection with the deaths of five patients at a Stockport hospital.

Rebecca Leighton is accused of six counts of causing damage with intent to endanger life or being reckless as to whether life was being endangered.

She is alleged to have tampered with medical products, saline ampoules and saline bags at Stepping Hill Hospital.

The 27-year-old, of Heaviley in Stockport, was remanded in custody at Manchester magistrates' court.

Ms Leighton also faces one count of theft of medicine from the hospital.

She was arrested on Wednesday by police investigating the deaths of Tracey Arden, 44, Arnold Lancaster, 71, George Keep, 84, Derek Weaver, 83, and Vera Pearson, 84.


BBC | 23July2011 - read full report

 

July 16, 2011

By MJ Rosenberg

A longtime CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East is predicting that Israel will bomb Iran this fall, dragging the United States into another major war and endangering U.S. military and civilian personnel (and other interests) throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Robert Baer made his prediction on the provocative KPFK Los Angeles show Background Briefing, hosted by Ian Masters.

Baer has had a storied career, including a stint in Iraq in the 1990s where he organized opposition to Saddam Hussein. (He was recalled after being accused of trying to organize Saddam’s assassination). Upon his retirement, he received a top decoration for meritorious service. Incidentally, George Clooney won an Oscar for playing a character based on Baer in the filmSyriana (Baer also wrote the book).

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James Ridgeway, “Mass Psychosis in the U.S.”

“Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry's development of a new class of medications known as "atypical antipsychotics." Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs - in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

James Ridgeway,  Fri Jul 15 2011 | Read Full Report: