POSTED // Mar 7,2012 - Rigging pay phones in the Washington, D.C., area to make phantom calls to toll-free numbers so he could collect a fee for each call.

POSTED // Feb 27,2012 - The Los Angeles Police Department warned city real-estate agents to stop using unmanned aircraft to take aerial photos and videos of homes for sale.

POSTED // Feb 20,2012 - He admitted setting the fire and writing the note, hoping to frighten her so she wouldn’t divorce him.

POSTED // Feb 13,2012 - Controlling wildfires in Australia by introducing elephants and rhinoceroses Down Under.

POSTED // Feb 6,2012 - The Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing the companies that supply motor fuel about $6.8 million for failing to comply with the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act,

POSTED // Jan 30,2012 - A federal court in Brazil sentenced politician Talvane de Albuquerque to 103 years in prison for ordering four of his aides to kill congresswoman Ceci Cunha so he could replace her in the Chamber of Deputies. Albuquerque was Cunha’s alternate and would have assumed her seat. Albuquerque was also convicted of ordering the murders of Cunha’s husband and two of her relatives. (Associated Press)

POSTED // Jan 23,2012 - Scott Bennett, 45, published a newspaper obituary for his mother, even though she was still alive. Brookville, Pa., police Chief Ken Dworek said Bennett submitted the bogus notice to The Jeffersonian Democrat

POSTED // Jan 16,2012 - After an internal review of the metropolitan Washington, D.C., transit authority showed 645 items missing from one branch, investigators found 74 items in the home of a branch employee.

POSTED // Jan 9,2012 - Andri Lynn Jeffers, 26, admitted trying to rob a gas station in Yavapai County, Ariz., by threatening the clerk with a toy penguin. Authorities said Jeffers told the clerk that the object, which she concealed under her sweater, was a bomb. (The Arizona Republic)

POSTED // Jan 2,2012 - Upset that the news media were devoting too much coverage to crime, Mayor Mike Winder of West Valley City, Utah, began writing upbeat articles using an alias.