Eric Williams ericwphoto.com

The eyes and ears of Burque

A lonely woman used to call 311, the city's information hotline, in the dead of night. She said her husband was a doctor, that she was home alone and just wanted to say hi. Operators got to know her on a personal level, says Esther Tenenbaum, division manager. "That's great, but that's not why we're here."

Charles Reuben

Carl Baum, trestle-maker

I was shocked and awed when UNM offered me the job of assistant to Dr. Carl E. Baum. What could I possibly offer the most famous electromagnetic theoretician in the world? I was just a local poet and burned-out newspaper man who couldn’t even grasp the fundamentals of elementary calculus.

There was something blue lurking in the shadows of the Monday, Jan. 3 City Council meeting. A large turnout of police was expected to comment on the end of the take-home car perk, but no officers came to speak at the meeting. Instead, police union president Joey Sigala and a few others paced in and out of the room.

Dateline: Connecticut—A would-be robber has been accused of taking a cell phone to a knife fight. Police in New London say Jerome Taylor, 20, wore a mask as he entered the Northern Indian Restaurant on State Street, pulled out what looked like a gun and demanded money. Several of the restaurant’s cooks snatched up knives and meat cleavers and refused to comply. At that point, the masked man told the cooks he was only kidding and fled the scene. Taylor was gone by the time police arrived, but they caught up with him a short time later. Officers said Taylor confessed to the crime, but told them he didn’t have a gun—only an iPhone.

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