Lead Story
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In August an Illinois school district comprising parts of Cook, Kane, and Du Page counties decided that it could not afford to operate four new schools it had just built; though the buildings (which cost a total of $40 million) are ready for students, they’ll stay locked up for the entire school year, if not longer. And a September report by the federal government’s General Accounting Office described how undercover agents in seven states acquired driver’s licenses using fake birth certificates or forged out-of-state licenses; most clerks didn’t recognize the forgeries, and when they did, they sometimes returned them, helpfully instructing applicants on how to correct the “errors.”
Latest Religious Messages
In August in Florida’s Ocala National Forest, wildlife officials cited Israel A. Cervantes for illegally shooting a deer from his car at night, then asked to search his home freezer for deer meat. Professing his innocence, Cervantes agreed, apparently forgetting about the pound of marijuana in the freezer; the officials found no venison, but he was arrested anyway.
On September 1 in Denver, a 20-year-old man was killed when he threw himself out of a car going about 40 mph. According to the two friends who were riding with him (who hadn’t believed he would really jump), the man hadn’t intended to die; he’d believed he had to endure a “traumatic incident” to earn the right to get a tattoo.
