Lead Story

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Jeffrey Pederson and Laurie McDonald were arguing so loudly at a Toronto hotel in March that the clerk called the police. When Constable Andy Hickerson arrived, he demanded identification from the two, and Pederson produced credit cards and a driver’s license belonging to Hickerson, who had reported his wallet missing several days before.

South Dakota newspaper editor Ward Bushee, who had written critical editorials about Air National Guard flyovers during patriotic ceremonies because they were noisy and dangerous (“What if a jet crashed?” he wrote), was invited in May to ride in an A-7 fighter jet in such a ceremony and accepted out of journalistic curiosity. His jet collided with another, and both pilots and Bushee were forced to eject.

A bridge collapsed near Oklahoma City in May when a 24-year-old truck driver failed to heed the sign that warned of the 5-ton weight limit. He was carrying over 41 tons of gravel.

Police in Bridgeport, Connecticut, uncovered a plot last November in which a 29-year-old woman made herself up to look pregnant, reported to a local hospital, and then allowed her bed to be taken by a nearly due pregnant 18-year-old. The older woman then returned to her bed after the birth and claimed the child.

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.