Student sent chilling text before crash

The Texas man typed this message to a friend while driving house from college earlier this year, "I need to quit texting because I could die in a car accident and then how would you feel ..."

Only some seconds later, Bothe's pickup veered off a bridge and dropped down a 35-foot-deep ravine.

KHOU-TV reports he suffered wide injuries including a broken neck, a punctured lung, and a fractured face, which would later require extensive reconstruction. He had to learn to walk once more, the station reports.

"I'm very lucky that I'm not gone forever," Bothe, 21, told KHOU-TV on his final day of a six-month rehabilitation in Houston. "I still have things to do in this world."

One of the primary things he's doing is spreading the word of the dangers of texting and driving.

"They just need to realize, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth losing your life," he said. "I went to my grandmother's funeral not long ago. And I kept thinking, it kept jumping into my head: 'I'm surprised that's not me in that casket.' I came very close to that. To being gone forever."

Texting while driving is banned in 39 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. Texas does not have a statewide ban on texting while driving. However texting while driving is banned in a few municipalities and school zones in the state.

Bothe promised to spread the word about the dangers of texting while behind the wheel so that others can learn from his fault.

"What people have told me is the cause God didn't keep you away from this Earth is because you have something special to do," he told KHOU. And I believe what is special is that I should tell everyone not to text message and drive."

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Teen finds WWII-era mortar in backyard

Teen finds WWII-era mortar in backyard: Fourteen-year-old Tyler Varvel was doing some backyard work when something caught his eye.

"Like it seemed shiny, so I flicked it with my shoe," Varvel told local TV station WGAL. "It was a bomb or mortar, or something."

The Lebanon County, Penn., teenager called his mother who in turn called police force.

Bomb specialists arrived and closed a close by street for hours. They later determined Varvel stumbled upon a World War II-era mortar. It was found to be still and was likely a practice round left behind by somebody decades ago.

Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer

Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with an assured relish over what he declared to be the ending of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his house in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86.

The reason was complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said by phone.

Mr. Vidal was, at the end of his life, an Augustan figure who supposed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was possibly right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their ability. He published some 25 novels, two memoirs and some volumes of stylish, magisterial essays. He also wrote plays, television dramas and screenplays. For a while, he was even a contract writer at MGM. And he could always be counted on for a spur-of-the-moment aphorism, putdown or sharply worded analysis of American foreign policy.