They were giddy after a weekend of high school graduation parties, still reminiscing about their triumph at a national cheerleading contest, and were lining up a farewell summer of pool parties and sleep-overs before heading off to college.Five teens, on their way to a vacation home Tuesday night, were in a sport utility vehicle that had just passed a van on a two-lane highway when it swerved back into oncoming traffic and hit a tractor-trailer. All were killed in the fiery crash, which four friends traveling in another car witnessed.

”We cheerleaded together and we were all best friends,” said Keisha Koneski, 18. ”In our car, we could see the truck coming, and we all started screaming.”

The tragedy in western New York’s Finger Lakes region happened just five days after the teens graduated from Fairport High School, triggering an outpouring of emotion in this Erie Canal village of 6,000 near Rochester.

”It could be any five that were lost; we would grieve the same,” said Debra Tandoi, a town official who works in the village’s schools. ”Our hearts just explode.”

Killed were Bailey Goodman and Meredith McClure, both 17, and 18-year-olds Sara Monnat, Hannah Congdon and Katherine ”Katie” Shirley. All five were cheerleaders on Fairport High’s varsity team, but Shirley left the squad in her freshman year.

In March, the cheerleading team took first place in its category at the American Open National Cheer and Dance Championship in Orlando, Fla. McClure placed second in solo cheering in the 16-to-18-year-old bracket. The team also placed in several regional and state competitions this year.

Ontario County Sheriff Phil Povero said the driver of the SUV may have overcorrected after going too far to the right.

The SUV and the truck careered into a roadside fence next to a bed-and-breakfast outside the village of East Bloomfield and caught fire, shooting flames at least 20 feet into the air. The SUV ended up crushed and charred in a shallow ditch partially underneath the truck.

An overhanging maple tree was scorched, and blackened debris littered the road Wednesday morning. The crash knocked down a utility line and cut phone service in the western half of Ontario County. The truck driver, Dave Laverty, 50, was not injured.

”It’s a community nightmare,” school Principal Dave Paddock said. ”Our hearts are broken. We love our kids and are crying.”

Scores of students, teachers and parents, many of them hugging and weeping, gathered on a grassy hillside overlooking the school on Wednesday morning. A giant ”’07” had been painted on the hill by senior pranksters two weeks ago.

The nine women were planning a sleep-over at a cottage along Keuka Lake owned by Bailey Goodman’s parents, said Koneski, who befriended her when she moved to Fairport from a nearby suburb four years ago.

”She made me her best friend in eighth grade when I moved to Fairport High,” Koneski said. ”She helped me make friends and she was always there for me, no matter what. All of us have just been best friends since then.

”We took pictures of each other; we used to just hang out in other people’s houses,” she said. ”Especially when it’s warm, we always have pool parties and stuff and have all our friends over.”

Goodman, who was driving the SUV, had been trying for a few minutes to pass a van that was going only about 40 mph, Koneski said. ”When Bailey started passing, it looked like the van was speeding up because she was next to the van for a really long time,” she said.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation, but Povero said no witnesses had given any indication the van sped up ”to avoid being passed.”

”We’ll certainly take this into consideration and follow this up,” he said. The van driver was interviewed, and no one was ticketed, police said.

Autopsies were being conducted, including routine tests for the presence of drugs or alcohol, Povero said.

A train tore a tractor-trailer in two at a railroad crossing in a town northeast of Pittsburgh this morning; but amazingly, no one was injured in the accident.

The crash happened around 9a.m. EDT in O’Hara Township and the impact literally ripped the trailer from its cab, reports CBS station KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.

Officials say the driver of the tractor-trailer was out of the vehicle and walking around at the scene after the accident.

“The trailer is laying here on the side - it was taken off right behind the cab of the tractor,” O’Hara Township Police Superintendent James R. Farringer said. “There’s considerable amount of damage that was done to the train to the front engines.”

Investigators believe the truck driver stopped on the railroad tracks and couldn’t get out of the way of the oncoming train before it was too late.

“Our investigation has showed so far that the tractor trailer was stopped on the tracks,” Superintendent Farringer added. “He was lost - and didn’t move in time.”

Police say they believe that the tracks will be cleared early this afternoon after investigators have had a chance to take a closer look at the damage.

Cameras onboard the Norfolk-Southern train are expected to help investigators determine exactly what caused the crash.

Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, said it’s offering three-year, no-interest loans on all 2007 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles to start making room at dealerships for next year’s models.

The financing incentives run from today through July 9, spokeswoman Lydia Cisaruk said in an interview. On some models, customers can take cash rebates of $500 to $2,500 instead. The Dearborn, Michigan-based company also is offering an additional $2,007 rebate on 2007 pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

Ford is getting an early start on lot-clearing efforts after a 12 percent drop in its U.S. sales through May, while the industrywide total fell 1.2 percent. Automakers usually begin such offers closer to August, when many of the new models begin to arrive.

“Sometimes you need that shot in the arm,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. “You need to get some of that inventory out.”

Ford shares rose 33 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $9.61 at 12:49 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have gained 28 percent this year.

The $2,007 rebate for pickups and SUVs doesn’t apply to so- called crossover wagons such as the Edge, Cisaruk said.

Ford’s sales have declined in part because of its plan to sell fewer vehicles to car-rental companies, which get discounts for buying in bulk. Ford in October stopped making the original Taurus sedan, sold almost exclusively for rentals, as it closed a plant in Atlanta. Taurus has since been revived as the new name for the Five Hundred sedan, produced at a Chicago factory.

The company also has been hurt by a 13 percent slide through May in sales of F-Series pickups, which account for about a quarter of Ford’s U.S. total.

GM Offers
General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, said on June 25 that it would offer no-interest loans of as long as three years, as well as $1,000 discounts on some 2006 and 2007 models. Those offers also run through July 9 and are tied to the July 4 U.S. holiday.

GM had a 3.2 percent U.S. sales decline in the first five months. The Detroit-based automaker reported an unexpected increase of 9.6 percent in car and light-truck sales in May.

GM also is reducing sales to rental-car customers. The automaker had a 2.1 percent increase in sales to individual buyers in the first five months of the year, spokesman John McDonald said in an e-mail. Such sales generally are more profitable than sales to rental-car companies.

Potential organized crime links are among the areas authorities are investigating in the case of a missing Hightstown woman whose 11-month-old son turned up alone in a hospital parking lot in Delaware.

“It’s one of the many aspects of this case that we’re investigating,” said Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Angelo Onofri, who would not elaborate further.

Amy Giordano, 27, of Hightstown, was last seen on June 7 at an East Windsor ShopRite supermarket where surveillance video shows her with her married boyfriend, 32-year-old Rosario Digirolamo, and their son 11-month-old Michael Digirolamo.

Just two days later, the baby boy was found abandoned outside a Newark, Del., hospital.

On June 14, the same day authorities identified the baby, Rosario Digirolamo flew from Newark Liberty International Airport to Milan, Italy, according prosecutors.

Authorities Wednesday still were not classifying Giordano’s disappearance as a criminal investigation, just a search for a missing person, Onofri said.

However, prosecutors are calling Rosario Digirolamo a “person of interest” and on Wednesday authorities searched the Monmouth County home he shares with his wife and their 1-year-old son. Several items were removed, including Digirolamo’s home computer.

Digirolamo’s Millstone Township house used to belong to Stefano “Steve the Truck Driver” Vitabile, the reputed consigliere of New Jersey’s DeCavalcantes, believed to be one of the state’s major crime families, according to property records obtained by The Times.

The DeCavalcantes’ criminal enterprises have been considered an inspiration for the hit HBO mob drama “The Sopranos.”

Digirolamo’s wife, who reportedly never knew about her husband’s second family in Hightstown, has been cooperating with investigators, prosecutors said.

As of Thursday, the prosecutor’s office hadn’t contacted Italian law enforcement, Onofri said.

Giordano’s child has been placed in foster care by the Delaware Division of Family Services.

“He’s going to remain in foster care until we locate or get more information on the parents,” said Kelly Bachman, a spokeswoman for the division.

Even if the parents are found, the boy will remain in foster care, pending a court hearing on the parents’ fitness to care for him, Bachman said.

A woman has died after being run over by two trucks on the NSW Mid-North Coast, police say.

The woman is yet to be identified.

Police were unable to give a reason for the incident, but both truck drivers were released without charge.

“It could be a number of things; they haven’t ruled anything out,” a police spokesman said. “It could have been a mental condition, she could have been drunk, we don’t know.

“They have taken a statement from both the drivers, but where it goes from here it depends.”

Police said the death appeared to be suicide, but were unable to confirm this.

The woman was hit about 70 metres south of the bridge as two trucks crossed the Harwood Bridge on the Pacific Highway at Maclean.

The first truck, a prime mover driven by a 42-year-old Victorian man, ran over the woman  about 7.30pm.

A second truck, a B-double, ran over the woman a short time later.

Both drivers were taken to Maclean police station for questioning and were offered counselling, the police spokesman said.

Police, ambulance and State Emergency Services crews attended the road, closing it while crime scene officers inspected the crash site.

A witness from the Harwood Hotel, near the bridge, said the woman did not looked distressed or intoxicated.

“I came home from the club and she was sitting on the road, by herself, crouched down.

“She just looked cold, crouched down by the side of the road.”

The highway was opened several hours later and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

Investigators say the driver of a semi truck could face criminal charges after an accident left two people dead Friday night.

Diagnosing your fuel system can be frustrating enough, but turn the irritation level up a few notches if you’ve been through it from top to bottom and still don’t know where the problem lies! If you suspect a fuel pressure regulator isn’t holding its own but can’t find anything wrong with it, try checking out the vacuum line. A leak can appear in the vacuum port of the FPR (mechanic speak for fuel pressure regulator) and cause it to lose fuel and pressure through the vacuum hose.

An easy way to test for an FPR leak in the vacuum side is to replace the vacuum line going into the FPR with a length of clear tubing. Now you’ll be able to see leak as it happens. IT will most likely show failure when your vacuum is at its lowest point, as in during acceleration.

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Spark plug wires are pretty durable. They aren’t a moving part so they don’t wear out too often. A careful inspection of your plug wires can avoid any problems.

The only thing that can really go wrong with a plug wire is a break in the insulation. The insulation (the rubber on the outside of the wire) keeps the electricity where it needs to be so it sparks on the inside of your engine, not someplace else before it gets there. If the insulation is cracked, the spark will jump off the wire, or arc, onto something metal under the hood.

An arcing plug wire can cause a weak spark or no spark at all in the cylinder with the bad wire. This makes your car run rough and can affect your gas mileage. It can also cause unburned fuel to pass into the exhaust system where it can harm your catalytic convertor.

There have even been stories that involve both a fuel leak and an arcing plug wire, resulting in a fire! It can happen.
A good time to check your wires would be while you change your spark plugs. So do a quick inspection and save yourself some headache.

Here’s how:
With your engine off, start at the distributor end of the plug wire and work your way toward the plug end. You’re looking for anything that is not smooth, pliable rubber. Bend the wires slightly to be sure no cracks appear. Check the boots at the distributor end of the wires to be sure they are not torn or cracked. Finally, check the wires at the spark plug end one at a time by pulling it off the plug and inspecting the end for any tears or cracks. Also look to be sure there is no burning or darkening of the end.

If you find any damage, it’s time to buy a new set. They can be as little as $20 or as much as $100+ for a set depending on your application. It’s worth the cost, though. A bad plug wire can be a little monster, it can even trigger your Check Engine Light.