At press time, Melinda Arnold, 34, was waiting to hear whether her mother would be accepted as an organ donor for her daughter -- with the organ being the mom's womb. Melinda (a nurse from Melbourne, Australia) was born without one (though with healthy ovaries and eggs), and if the transplant by Swedish surgeon Mats Brannstrom of Gothenburg University is successful, and Melinda later conceives, her baby will be nurtured in the very same uterus in which Melinda, herself, was nurtured. Womb transplants have been performed in rats and, with limited success, from a deceased human donor.
   
Government in Action    
In what a cement company executive said is "one of those bureaucratic things that doesn't make any sense," the city of Detroit recently built wheelchair ramps at 13 intersections along Grandy Street, despite knowing that those ramps are either not connected to sidewalks or connected to seldom-used, badly crumbling sidewalks. The ramps were required by a 2006 lawsuit settlement in which Detroit pledged to build ramps on any street that gets re-paved, as Grandy was. (No one in city government thought, apparently, to attempt a trade of these 13 intersections for paving 13 more-widely used ones in the city.)
• A Chicago Tribune/ WGN-TV investigation revealed in September and October the astonishing result that Illinois laws passed in 1997 and 2007 at the behest of organized labor have given at least three former union leaders lifetime government pensions as if they had been city or state employees, totaling an estimated drain on public budgets of about $7 million. Two teachers' union officials were allowed to teach exactly one day to qualify, and an engineers' union official was hired for exactly one day, with the remainder of the service of the three having been on the payroll of the respective unions. A September Tribune report estimated perhaps 20 other union officials might have been eligible under similar provisions.
   
Police Report
Milestone: Joseph Wilson, 50, was chased by police and arrested in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in October and charged with shoplifting from a Beall's department store. It was his 100th arrest -- although prosecutors are batting only .353 against him (35-for-99). Wilson's getaway was delayed when he jumped into the passenger seat of an idling SUV and ordered the driver to "Take off!" but the driver did not.
• Theresa Mejia, held in the Burlington, Wash., police station on kidnapping charges, climbed through a ceiling vent in a dramatic escape attempt, traversing the entire length of the building before officers knew where she was. (However, that put her directly over the police chief's office, and she crashed through to the floor.)
   
Least Competent Criminals
Brent Morgan, 20, was arrested in Prince George, British Columbia, in October on three counts related to the attempted theft of a Corvette. Morgan had seen the car in a driveway, jumped in and locked the doors. However, the owner had been in the process of charging the battery, which was still too weak for the car to start and for the door locks to continue working. Feeling trapped and sensing that the owner had called the police, Morgan panicked and began using any available tool inside the car to smash the window. According to the police report, officers arrived just as Morgan had broken open the driver's side window, but too late for Morgan to realize that he could have exited the car by manually lifting the door lock with his fingers.

Recent Alarming Headlines
"Maine Woman Loses Lawsuit Over Removal of Husband's Brain." "Condoms Rushed to Thai Flood Victims." "Killer Sharks Invade Golf Course in Australia." "Lingerie Football League Wants to Start a Youth League."