silver and gold silver and gold silver and gold silver and gold everyone wishes abc news is getting some action because of a report we first brought you during the summer. you might remember when we told you about all the unused dollar coins minted by our government. abc s john carl tells us now the production has practically ground to a halt. reporter: the government has been sitting on more than a billion unused and unwanted dollar coins. so what have they ve been doing about it? they ve been making more of them as we found when we visited the u.s. mint over the summer. a million and a half every day at a cost of 32 cents a pop. now treasury secretary timothy geithner says enough is enough. we shouldn t be wasting money on money. reporter: virtually nobody uses the coins, they go right to storage. a boondoggle that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars since 2005. here at the federal reserve in baltimore the coins are stacked into bags all
recommendation by the national transportation safety board. a drastic idea that could actually save thousands of lives every year. abc s tahman bradley has the details. reporter: warning that too many drivers that talk or text end up in these [ screams ] reporter: the ntsb wants drivers to turn off all electronic devices while driving. it s an unprecedented recommendation. that every person ban personal devices in cars. no hands-free devices. no bluetooth. only technology that helps a driver, such as gps navigation. you need full focus, i think to operate a car, to navigate. especially in the city. reporter: distracted driving causes 600,000 crashes and 3,000 deaths each year. shelly forney lost her 9-year-old daughter to a distracted driver. erica hit the windshield. she slipped backwards. and she landed on her neck. reporter: the ntsb issued its recommendation after several investigations found texting to be the cause of deadly accidents. like this one in mi
of violence like nothing seen before. a man threw hand grenades into crowd of shoppers. in the end he killed four people and injured more than 120 before take his own life. police say the gunman had a history of drug and weapons convicti convictions. but it is still not clear what motivated this rampage. now to a christmas controversy in california where nativity scenes have been a tra dings one city for decades until now. messages from atheists are take the place of traditional holiday displays. reporter: santa monica churches have most of the 21 spots for holiday displays at palisades parks. it s been that way for 60 years. atheist groups applied for and received most of the spots through a lottery held by the city. that left three spots for nativity scenes and a menorah display. the rest are signs displaying atheists beliefs. an atheist helped put up the spots. not to be used to promote religion. it is promoting religion and has been, even though the city is not dire
is dying to send a message really worth it. it s all next on larry king it s all next on larry king live. captions by vitac www.vitac.com larry: we begin with nita hanson who is with us from denver, colorado, it was during her phone call to the dr. laura show last week that the radio host used the n word 11 times. she called in asking forred adve about dealing with resentment she felt about comments made by her white husband s friends and family. listen to some of what happened, and we ll talk with nita. how about the n word? the n word has been thrown black guys use it all the time. turn on hbo, listen to a black comic and all you hear is [ bleep ]. i don t get it. if anybody without enough melanin says it, it s a horrible thing. but when black people say it, it s affectionate. it s very confusing. larry: nita, thanks for joining us. what s gone on with you since all of this ruckus? how have you reacted? it has been really crazy, but i have been ge
some drastic measures. with details on all of this, here is abc s lisa stark. reporter: the board calls it a full-fledged crisis on the nation s roads. [ screams ] reporter: talking while driving. and even more dangerous, texting while driving. text and your eyes leave the road for an average of nearly 5 seconds. at 55 miles an hour you will have driven the length of a football field. essentially blind. shelly forney lost her 9-year-old to a distracted driver. she hit my daughter head on with her 5,000-pound suv. reporter: jaycee good, her parents. both my parents were dead instantly. i wasn t breathing. no one really expected that i would live past the first 36 hours. reporter: right now laws all over the map. texting while driving is banned in 35 states and washington, d.c. handheld cell phone use outlawed in ten states and d.c. but the ntsb wants a ban on the