Drunkenness

UC San Francisco researchers found a gene responsible for drunkenness in worms after plying thousands of the tiny creatures with booze. The discovery could boost the fight against alcoholism. Because it is believed that alcohol affects all animals similarly, humans, like worms, may also possess a single gene responsible for drunkenness. "Our end goal is to find a way to cure alcoholism and drug abuse," Steven McIntire said.

The state where revelers get blitzed during Mardi Gras and daiquiris are dispensed at drive-through windows held out about as long as it could before lowering its drunken-driving threshold. As of midnight Monday, the legal limit for a motorist's blood-alcohol content was lowered from 0.10% to 0.08% -- a change approved reluctantly by Louisiana lawmakers who did not want to lose about $6 million a year in federal highway construction money.

A judge facing six criminal charges stemming from an alleged drunken confrontation with her domestic partner should be found guilty on all counts to show that "nobody is above the law," a prosecutor told jurors on Tuesday. But a defense lawyer countered that Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Diana R. Hall was the real victim in the case, and he appealed to the jury for an acquittal. In her closing argument, Assistant Dist. Atty.

A rookie Ventura County sheriff's deputy recklessly shot an innocent man in the back three years ago as the man attempted to disarm his drunken son and should be held liable for battery, negligence and civil rights violations, a lawyer told jurors Tuesday. Launching a trial in U.S.

MACHA, Bolivia -- A bus loaded with tourists pulls into this desolate pueblo on Bolivia's high plains to watch 6,000 men get drunk and beat themselves to a pulp in a three-day festival known as Tinku. Tinku, an ancestral ritual that predates the Spanish conquest, consists of rival villages engaging in sometimes deadly hand-to-hand combat that tradition says will secure richer, more prosperous crops in the coming year.

Bahman Ghobadi vowed last fall he would never come to the United States again. He even went so far as to return a prize he received in October at the Chicago Film Festival for his latest movie, "Marooned in Iraq," after U.S. authorities refused to grant Iran's most prominent Kurdish director a visa to pick up the honor. "I waited five months for a visa but wasn't granted one," says the 35-year-old director through an interpreter. "I had already been to the U.S. three times.

Two New York police officers rebutted claims by a black man that he was drunk the night he allegedly stabbed a rabbinical student to death during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. "He wasn't intoxicated," Lt. Richard Sanossian testified at the retrial of 27-year-old Lemrick Nelson in federal court. Another officer also said Nelson was sober. The testimony came after Nelson's new lawyer -- in a shift from two previous trials -- did not deny Nelson stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum.

A man who went on a drunken rampage and destroyed much of the city's downtown holiday display has pleaded guilty to felony vandalism. Brian Halstead, 22, of Aptos, was sentenced Friday to 60 days in jail for cutting down strings of lights, and ordered to pay about $3,500 in restitution. He will also attend alcohol counseling.

A woman celebrating her 27th birthday plummets from the balcony of a hotel room to her death more than 100 feet below. Was it a tragic accident that ended a night of heavy drinking and clumsy romance with her married boss, or was it a flat-out case of murder? A Southland jury reached its decision in November, but you have an opportunity to assess the evidence for yourself tonight at 10 as CBS' "48 Hours Investigates" rehashes the details of the well-publicized 1996 death of Sandra Orellana.

Alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. that resulted in death have fallen significantly in the last 20 years, with the largest decreases involving drivers under age 21, federal health officials said Thursday. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fatal crashes in which drivers had blood alcohol levels of 0.01% or greater fell 46% among all ages from 1982 to 2001. The agency credited stricter drunken driving laws and driver licensing programs, among other factors.