Accidental Death

A 16-year-old youth shot himself to death, apparently by accident, while toying with a loaded handgun in front of his friends, police said Tuesday. Jose Montoya, a junior at Valle Lindo Continuation High School, died shortly after 8 p.m. Monday from a gunshot wound to the head, officials said. "He pulls out a .38-caliber revolver from his waistband and points it at his temple, saying, 'Look at me,' and laughing," said El Monte Police Det. David Lazzarini. "At this point we think it is an accidental death.

Accidental death has not been ruled out in the disappearance of an Alabama honors student in Aruba, despite the arrest of two men, authorities said. Police and the FBI kept up a search for 18-year-old Natalee Holloway. Officials said the two suspects had not been charged, contrary to previous reports. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said authorities initially had misspoken while trying to explain the situation to reporters in English, a second language in the Dutch territory.

Odwalla Inc.'s apple juice was responsible for the death of a 16-month-old girl last week, Colorado health officials said. Blood tests performed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show that the E. coli that caused the toddler's food poisoning was the same strain found in Odwalla apple juice, said Richard Hoffman, epidemiologist for the state's Department of Public Health and Environment. Half Moon Bay, Calif.-based Odwalla recalled 16 of its 25 juices Oct.

Yet another cinematic slice of suburban dysfunction, "The Family Tree" works better as a serious look at a family's second chance at happiness than when it pushes its darkly comic agenda about an Ohio community's various peccadilloes. Director Vivi Friedman's inability to successfully reconcile the film's duality undercuts an eclectic cast gamely committed to Mark Lisson's thematically ambitious, if scattered, script. An ill-gotten clonk on the head gives bitter, two-timing wife Bunnie Burnett (Hope Davis)

The Department of Public Works issued a report Wednesday that outlined procedural changes for the use of heavy-construction machinery in the Skid Row area, after the accidental death of a homeless man run over by a street sweeper in September. An investigation found that police and city escorts did not warn the driver of a city skip loader that the victim, Michael Steriotti, was sleeping uncovered in the path of the sweeper, the report stated.

Nearly two months after they began a controversial new investigation into Natalie Wood's death while sailing off Santa Catalina Island in 1981, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detectives have found no evidence to suggest that the cause was anything but accidental. Although the case has not been closed, a top Sheriff's Department official said it's highly unlikely any new ground will be broken on how the actress died. "At this point, it is an accidental death," said William McSweeney, the sheriff's chief of detectives.

President Obama has vowed to do everything in his power to prevent another Sandy Hook. "Because what choice do we have?" he asked. "We can't accept events like this as routine. " Unfortunately, such events are far more random than they are routine. They are what the statistician Nassim Taleb calls "Black Swan events": improbable, rare and unpredictable. We will never be able to prevent them. But that does not mean we can do nothing in response. We should start by understanding the distinction between murder and mass murder.

The California Supreme Court held Monday that the Orange County survivors of a man who voluntarily ingested cocaine and died of an overdose cannot collect life insurance benefits intended to cover deaths by "accidental means." In a 5-2 decision, the court said that the death was not caused by "accidental means" because the deceased could have reasonably anticipated that death or great bodily injury would occur from ingesting a hazardous, illegal drug.