New Jersey: Car drives into crowd leaving church assembly

A car accelerated out of control and plowed into a crowd exiting a Jehovah’s Witnesses assembly on Saturday, injuring 13 people, police said. Three were seriously hurt.

The accident happened when a man waiting for his wife to exit the gathering was asked to move his car, said Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham.

Henry Clax, 78, began to move his vehicle, but did not realize he had the car in reverse and backed into a car parked behind him. Cunningham said the Jersey City man apparently panicked, put his car in drive and accelerated, striking three lampposts and then the crowd.

Clax then swerved across lanes of traffic before hitting a tree, above.

Cunningham said the injured included five children.

The driver suffered a broken hip and was in surgery Saturday night.

California: Rare cars and trucks destroyed in fire

A fire at a storage yard destroyed five rare cars and trucks, including a 1916 electric vehicle that might have been one of only a handful left in the world.

The 1916 Rauch and Lang Electric, a boxy car that resembled a horse-drawn buggy, was lost when a blaze broke out early Friday at the L&N Uniform Supply Co. storage yard in Santa Ana.

The fire caused more than $1 million in damage, fire Capt. Tony Espinosa said. The cause was under investigation.

Leonard Nowakowski, 83, believes the Electric, which he spent eight years restoring, was one of only three or four remaining. The value of the car couldn’t be determined.

Besides the Electric, the fire destroyed a 1906 International Harvester Hi-Wheel, a 1923 Ford panel truck, a 1952 Studebaker and a 1972 Volvo Sportwagon.

“The cream of the crop was destroyed,” Nowakowski said.

Pennsylvania: Borough mulls jail for ‘loiterering’ groups

Borough officials are considering an ordinance that would make it illegal for groups of people to gather anywhere from public sidewalks to parks, with the threat of jail time for loiterers — and, in the case of juvenile repeat offenders, their parents.

Local leaders say the loitering ordinance is needed to address what they say is a growing incidence of vandalism and other misbehavior.

But the proposal has raised the ire of civil libertarians, not to mention local teenagers who say this community of 6,700 outside Philadelphia is trying to make “hanging out” a crime.

The proposed ordinance would ban loitering, defined as two or more people congregating in a place without permission and causing “discomfort or danger.”

If violators ignore an initial warning from police, they could be hit with a fine of up to $1,000 or imprisonment for up to 30 days. Parents or guardians of juvenile violators also could face those penalties, although officials said that option would be reserved only for repeated offenses.

New York: Harlem asthma rate alarms researchers

One in four children in the city’s Harlem section has asthma — double the rate researchers expected and one of the highest neighborhood rates in the nation, a study found.

Asthma researchers have said they did not know of anywhere in the country where the rate of the disease was well documented at above 20 percent.

About 6 percent of all Americans have asthma and about 5,000 people die of it each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Asthma occurs when the airways become inflamed and constricted, making breathing difficult. Scientists think the condition may be genetic, but that environmental factors like pollen, dust, animal dander, air pollution and cold air can contribute to attacks.

The Harlem study also found asthmatic children are about 50 percent more likely to live with a smoker than children who are not afflicted.