In January, while the Texas Legislature debated budget cuts that would almost certainly cost Allen High School at least $18 million and require layoffs of teachers and other school personnel, construction continued on the school's new $60 million football stadium. Noted a New York Times report on the...

Dozens of people live in flood tunnels beneath luxury hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, according to a September dispatch for London’s The Sun. Some of them search for leftover change in casino slot machines, while others work odd jobs as they become available. The correspondent gained the trust of a...

A 20-something man was being sought as the robber of the Black Diamond Equipment store in Salt Lake City in June—even though the man didn’t exactly get what he wanted from the crime. He made off with some gear from the ski and climbing accessory store, but had originally...

In March, when retired NYPD officer John Comparetto was approached at gunpoint in a men’s room at a Holiday Inn near Harrisburg, Pa., he quietly handed over his wallet. But once the robber left, Comparetto summoned some of the 300 narcotics officers attending a convention...

In April, policeman Kristopher Weston apprehended a murder suspect about 20 minutes after the crime in East St. Louis, Ill. Weston’s feat was such a nice piece of police work that the mayor called Weston before the city council to commend him. Five minutes after Weston left...

In April, police in Copley Township, Ohio, were called to a restaurant where Erik Salmons, 39, was allegedly intoxicated and annoying customers. Officers declined to arrest him but did insist that he leave his truck in the parking lot and call someone for a ride home. Salmons complied; however, at home, Salmons decided that...

In January, police arrested John West, 20, and Ashley Sorensen, 20, in Auburn, Calif., after the twosome allegedly swiped the tires and rims off of a woman’s car. The pair supposedly placed the tires and rims inside their car and drove off, before violating a cardinal rule by returning to the crime scene to see if the...

In November, Joseph Goetz, 48, was charged with trying to rob the Susquehanna Bank in Springettsbury Township, Pa., even though he had to leave empty-handed. The bank had just opened for the day, and cash hadn’t yet been delivered to tellers' stations. Employees said that Goetz was highly irritated...

Legendary banjo player Eddie Adcock, 70, had been suffering from hand tremors that failed to respond to medication, so he volunteered for a revolutionary neurosurgery in August. Adcock finger-picked tunes while his brain was exposed so that Vanderbilt University Medical Center surgeons could try to locate the defective area. In “deep brain...

David Norris never knew his father, who left home when Norris was 5 months old. Now 22, Norris is serving a minimum-12-year sentence for killing a man after an earlier rape conviction and is housed in Peterhead Prison, which is the primary lockup for Scotland’s sex criminals. Soon after his arrival, according to a...