Traffic Accidents

A blinding snow squall caused a 68-vehicle pileup on an interstate in northeastern Pennsylvania, killing at least one motorist, authorities said. A woman died when her car became wedged under a tractor-trailer, and about 35 people were injured in the midafternoon pileup on Interstate 81 near Hazleton.

A suspected robber discovered Thursday that karma can arrive on the front bumper of a Chevy pickup. According to police, one of two men suspected of robbing a motorist in Anaheim was accidentally run over by the victim as the suspect tried to elude police. "It was bad timing on the suspect's part," said Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez.

More than 10 years after the deaths of Britain's "people's princess" and her lover in a Paris car crash, the few who believe Princess Diana was deliberately killed continue to press their case in a coroner's inquest now in its fifth month. The inquiry, highlighted by a series of new details about Diana's loves and the last minutes of her life, has riveted a nation that after a decade had seemingly sated itself on Diana headlines.

An out-of-control sport utility vehicle plowed into crowds at a suburban Chicago auto auction, injuring 15 people. Five were hurt critically. An employee driving a Range Rover into the Tri-State Auto Auction building lost control of the vehicle. It sped up, hit a group of bystanders and struck a minivan before going through a doorway and hitting another group.

A herd of horses trotted onto the 91 Freeway in Corona early Monday, causing two collisions that killed one of the animals, forced authorities to close the road for roughly five hours and left three motorists with minor injuries. The horses, about a dozen in all, escaped from Hart Ranch and a neighboring property and bolted several hundred yards in the predawn darkness to the freeway, near Green River Road, said Donna Hart, co-owner of the ranch.

The Golden Gate Bridge was closed in both directions for more than 90 minutes Wednesday after a multi-vehicle crash that injured at least seven people. Traffic on the bridge came to a halt about 2:40 p.m. when a northbound station wagon veered into the southbound lanes and caused crashes involving about 10 cars, according to the California Highway Patrol. The pileup caused traffic backups on both sides of the bridge, which connects San Francisco to Marin County. All six lanes were open to traffic by 4:20 p.m. cutline> ##me-samboa27#jycycrnc#T41L8EDG#Laguna Beach Police Department##Richie Sambora

A 28-year-old U.S. Border Patrol agent died early Sunday after a single-vehicle crash in rural eastern San Diego County, authorities said. The County Medical Examiner's Office identified the agent as Jarod Dittman. The Border Patrol wouldn't confirm his name, saying only that the victim was married with a child and had been an agent for more than a year. Officials say the agent had started his shift at midnight and drove a Jeep on Otay Lakes Road to his patrol area near Jamul. An hour later a second agent came upon the wreck and called emergency crews.

In a strange discovery Sunday morning, California Highway Patrol officers who were investigating what they thought was a wild car crash instead found a homicide. About 8:15 a.m., officers were called to the Ventura Freeway just east of Van Nuys Boulevard, where a sedan had crashed into the sound wall and flipped several times. When officers looked in the car, they found a man who had been shot in the head. "It's very odd," said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Cecil Manresa.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld narrowly avoided crashing into a busy intersection when the brakes of his vintage Fiat failed, leading him to grasp for his emergency brake and sending the car into a roll. Seinfeld was driving his 1967 two-door Fiat at a slow speed in the Long Island millionaires' enclave of the Hamptons on Saturday when his brakes failed as he approached a busy intersection, East Hampton Town Police Chief Todd Sarris said Thursday. Sarris praised Seinfeld's actions in pulling his emergency break and avoiding the intersection.

Two 13-year-old girls were critically injured Wednesday after they were struck by a vehicle on the way home from school in San Pedro, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman said. The accident occurred shortly after 3 p.m. in a crosswalk in the 1400 block of North Ronan Avenue as the girls were crossing the street, said Fire Department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies. The victims, who were not immediately identified, were taken by ambulance to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Davies said.