Only in America: Beware the library cop
A man is jailed for an overdue library book — and more in our collection of strange revelations about the nation


A Texas man was jailed for failing to return a library book he checked out in 2010. Copperas Cove law allows police to arrest anyone who has not returned an overdue book within 90 days. "Nobody wants to get arrested over a library book," said Municipal Court Judge Bill Price. "[But] people that go to our library and can't have these materials, they're put out too."
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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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