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CARROLL, Iowa -- Police said they had no trouble identifying two men accused of trying to break into a Carroll apartment. Police were responding to a call about an attempted burglary when they pulled over a car matching the alleged suspects' vehicle. Inside the car, officers found two men with their faces blackened with permanent marker. Police said the caller described two men with painted faces attempting to break into an apartment Friday night before driving off. Twenty-three-year-old Matthew McNelly and 20-year-old Joey Miller were arrested at gunpoint after officers were told they might be armed. Neither man had a...

A man was unconscious at Highland Hospital on Tuesday evening after he was beaten with a tire iron and a metal pipe in a dispute over burritos at Juan's Place restaurant in west Berkeley, police said. Berkeley Police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said two Juan's Place employees were arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the 4:30 p.m. incident. Police did not release the name of the victim or those suspected of beating him. Kusmiss said the incident started when three men who had been drinking entered Juan's Place and inquired about free food, which they often...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_3835.html Travel Alert U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs This information is current as of today, Wed Dec 10 2008 14:45:20 GMT-0800 (PST). Mali December 10, 2008 Travel Alert is being issued to warn U.S. citizens of security concerns in Mali. This replaces the Travel Alert for Mali issued on February 12, 2008, expires on March 31, 2009, updates information on security incidents and areas of concern, including Essakane, and strongly urges U.S. citizens against travel to northern Mali. Due to recent armed conflicts, kidnappings, armed robberies, and the continued presence...

Brightly colored women's thong underwear disguised the identities of two men during the robbery of an Arvada Diamond Shamrock earlier this month. Arvada police believe two Latinos entered the gas station at 6802 Wadsworth Blvd. just before 5 a.m. on May 16, donning the underwear over their faces and demanding cash from the clerk on duty.

Enter the Shooter Alley strip club in Doraville, Ga., and you'll find plenty of naked young women entertaining their male clients, writhing and shaking only inches away from their faces. It was there that two dancers, Ashley Miller (known as "Adrienne") and Heather Johnston (who went by "Charlie"), met recently and became fast friends. The pairing proved ill-fated. Both were reportedly on a destructive tear. Johnston, 19, was heavily using drugs, according to a fellow stripper at the club. And Miller, 18, had struck up with a reputed drug dealer. The two reached a nadir last week when they robbed...

Female duo, bank teller nabbed after surveillance photos see light MARCH 1--Police tonight arrested two young women, a bank teller, and a fourth accomplice in connection with Tuesday's robbery of a Bank of America branch in Acworth, Georgia.....

When oursupposedly compassionate federal government pokes its nose into areas that, under our principle of federalism, should be none of its business, the result is often unintended consequences, gross injustices, and of course massive costs. A prime example is the 1986 federal Bradley Amendment, which mandates that a child support debt cannot be retroactively reduced or forgiven even if the debtor is unemployed, hospitalized, in prison, sent to war, dead, proved to not be the father, never allowed to see his children, or loses his job or suffers a pay cut.

Bank robberies might be down in Los Angeles, but holdups by lone pistol-packing men with nicknames like "The Armed Old Man Bandit" and "The Big Belly Bandit" have helped preserve the region's reputation as the nation's bank-heist capital. Violent bank takeovers by large gangs - typically made up of 18- to 30-year-olds - have declined since their peak in the early 1990s, largely because many gangs have been rounded up and because of tougher security measures, officials said. The trend is toward "note job" heists - about 75 percent of all holdups this year - often committed by middle-age and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the interior ministry to conduct preventive strikes against terrorists. "[The Interior Ministry's] measures in this area must have a preventive nature," the president said at a meeting Wednesday with high-ranking interior ministry officials in the Kremlin. "We realize how serious the tasks facing security-related agencies in Russia are, especially the law enforcement bodies and interior ministry troops," Putin said. He also said the latest events in the world confirm that terrorism remains a major global threat. "The recent blasts in London; the terrorist acts in Iraq, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt; and the assaults on government...

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - On Sunday, an estimated 40,000 pilgrims crowded onto the rocky trail up Mount Cristo Rey to pray at the feet of Jesus as armed deputies scanned the desert scrub for bandits.On Cristo Rey's 4,675-foot peak is a 30-foot-tall sandstone statue of Christ that has attracted hundreds of thousands of worshippers over the past six decades. This years pilgrims are making the 820-foot vertical climb to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the statue's completion in 1939.On a cloudy day in mid-September about 2,000 people made the 2 1/2-mile trek for a mass at the base of the...

Police in Munich say a gang dubbed the 'boob bandits' has been robbing people at this year's Oktoberfest.

 Public Affairs May 17, 2004 Sgt. 1st Class Charles Adcock, Task Force 1-37 Armor assistant operations sergeant, walks down the convoy telling Soldiers to mount up after a brief stop just south of Baghdad. Task Force 1-37 Armor convoyed to Camp Lima southeast of Baghdad in support of Operation Rapier Thrust. TF 1-37 Armor moves out to missions Story and photo by Spc. Andrew Meissner, 1st AD Public Affairs With Task Force 1-37, Iraq -- Many of the Solders of the 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, “Bandits,” are closing in on their first year of deployment during...

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahoma police are looking for grease bandits who made off with 5,000 pounds (2268 kg) of used cooking oil and grease from three restaurants.

<p>That's a scenario the FBI has seen unfold in financial institutions across the country. Bank robberies rose 64 percent last year in New York City. Massachusetts saw a 30 percent rise - to 303 robberies. Heists were also up statewide in Utah, Oregon, and Oklahoma.</p>

SAN VALENTIN, Mexico - Laws barring the killing of protected sea turtles and the sale of their eggs have been as effective as anti-drug trafficking programs: driving the practice underground but failing to stop it. The latest threat is a horseback-riding gang whose members wield Kalashnikov rifles to drive away police and unarmed environmental activists. Centuries-old traditions make the turtles, and especially their eggs, highly prized in Mexico, where officials have spent decades trying to protect the sea creatures. Turtle eggs can still be found at rural markets and restaurants in many parts of southern Mexico, though they are sometimes...

BANGKOK - Violent attacks in the Muslim-majority south of Thailand have some observers worried - not for the first time - that the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is in denial about the scope of the terrorist threat in the area. Just one day after attackers killed four Thai soldiers, set fire to schools and police checkposts and stole weapons near the Malaysian border, explosions killed at least three police in the south on Monday. The violence occurred despite massive security in the troublesome region, and martial law has been declared in three provinces. Yet some authorities continued to...

Oct. 10, 2003, 9:18PM Mexican army deserters join violent border gangs By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Members of an elite Mexican army unit have deserted and formed a drug gang, using their military training to launch a violent battle for control of this border city, Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor said in an interview with the Associated Press. The war for Nuevo Laredo is unlike other recent drug conflicts -- it's a turf war involving most of Mexico's major cartels in broad alliances not seen in a decade. It has the Mexican army fighting an organized unit...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A team of house burglars dubbed the "Underwear Gang" by Malaysian police has struck for the fifth time this year, local media reported. The three-man gang, armed with bolt-cutters and screwdrivers but wearing only T-shirts and underpants, broke into a house in Malacca by prising open a sliding door, police spokesman Gemon Ishak told the New Straits Times. The owner of the house, a 29-year-old woman, was awakened by the noise and went to investigate, surprising the scantily-clad burglars who bundled her and two maids into a room before fleeing with 30,000 ringgit (7,895 dollars) in...

WASHINGTON, March 29 (KUNA) -- Banditry and lawlessness appear to be spreading through some parts of southern Iraq as British troops sweep the countryside for remnants of Iraqi forces and remain at a stalemate with fighters in Basra, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. Villagers in the area near Basra International Airport told the Post that roving bands of armed men steal tractors, hijack trucks, loot factories and terrorize residents with near impunity. In Mushirij, villagers told the Post on Friday that while British troops confiscate weapons from ordinary villagers, the thieves, many of whom are deserters from Iraqi...