Taiwanese police buy a gift for a thief, and more

Taiwanese police buy a gift for a thief

Instead of jail time, some Taiwanese police have given a bike thief a gift. A man identified only as Mr. Huang stole a bike from outside a school and gave it to his teenage daughter, whose school commute included a six-mile walk to a bus stop. Police caught him, but when they learned of his straits—he is unemployed and has chronic health problems, and the family lives in a shipping container—they released him and chipped in to buy the family a bike. The school the girl attends has now pledged to provide aid so she can complete her education.

Team USA wins world basketball championship

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Perhaps now cynics will stop calling them the “B-Team.” Team USA this week won its first world basketball championship since 1994, knocking off Turkey 81–64 in Istanbul. With superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James absent, the U.S. team—with six players under the age of 22—was widely disparaged as second-rate. “I think that was extra motivation,” said Kevin Durant, who scored 28 points in the final, setting the record for most points scored in the tournament by a U.S. player. “It was exciting to come out here and win and also to prove people wrong.” With the win, the team qualifies for the 2012 Olympics.

Owner of lost brief case traced twenty years later

In 1990, 8-year-old Amanda Parker-Wolery was vacationing in Washington, D.C., with her family when they discovered a briefcase near the Lincoln Memorial. It contained maps of Europe, faded pictures, and French and English love letters dating from World War II. The family spent a year searching fruitlessly for the owner before stashing the briefcase away in storage. Twenty years later, Parker-Wolery rediscovered the case while cleaning her father’s shed. Using the Internet, it took less than an hour to locate Deborah Dean of Texas, the daughter of the briefcase’s deceased owner. “I am just ecstatic,” said Dean, who is eager to use the contents to learn more about her father.