By ROXANA HEGEMAN,

Authorities would not say whether they believed Adam, who would now be 21, is alive.  "We are working it as if it is a death but we are not leaning one way or the other," Murphy said.

The family's attorney, Warner Eisenbise, said his clients did not harm the child. He said the Herrmans are innocent of any wrongdoing other than not reporting their son missing, which is against Kansas law.

Doug and Valerie Herrman adopted Adam at 2 1/2 years old, and he had been in foster care before that. The parents have not been arrested or charged with any crime, and Murphy said no charges would be filed while investigators focused on the search.

"He was a problem child. He ran away frequently to the point of exasperation," Eisenbise said. "My clients feel very guilty that the last time he left they didn't make an attempt to locate him. Every other time, the police were called or he wandered back. They assumed he found one of his siblings or went back to his biological parents."

Murphy said investigators have not confirmed whether Adam had a history of running away. The family has cooperated with investigators, he said.

.

Adam was homeschooled when he disappeared, Eisenbise said.

Murphy said a search of the empty lot where the family's mobile home once stood gave investigators one answer they sought, but he did not elaborate other than to say no human remains were found.

Murphy's office did not receive a missing persons report until contacted recently by Sedgwick County's exploited and missing children's unit. He declined to say who tipped them off. It was not clear exactly when they learned of the boy's disappearance.

Investigators have not found any confirmed data on Adam's whereabouts since 1999.

Murphy asked the public for help and issued a plea to the missing boy himself: "If Adam Herrman is alive out there — and he would see this — I would ask him to

contact us immediately

                                        "AGE ENHANCED PHOTO!!!!"

The Associated Press

1:27 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 6, 2009

WICOMICO CHURCH, Va. - Having missed his bus, a 6-year-old Virginia boy tried to drive to school in his family's sedan — and crashed.

State police say the boy suffered only minor injuries and eventually arrived at school after being evaluated at a local hospital. Police did not immediately return a call Tuesday asking who brought him there.

It happened around 7:40 a.m. Monday on Route 360, about 61 miles east of Richmond.

Police say the boy, who wasn't identified, missed the bus, took the keys to his family's 2005 Ford Taurus and started toward school while his mother was asleep.

He ran off the road several times before hitting an embankment and utility pole. Police say he wasn't wearing a safety belt.

The incident remains under investigation.

Sunday was the first day Floridians could buy tickets for Powerball, the multistate lottery with bigger jackpots than Florida's own games.

MiamiHerald

Sunday, 01.04.09

BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ AND JENNIFER LEBOVICH

LEAD STORY: How can four people (or in another case, six) confess in detail to a murder even though they had nothing to do with it?

Aggressive police questioning of a weak-willed suspect can produce an occasional false confession, but experts now believe that six men in a single case, and four in another, confessed to group crimes they did not commit, even though some described their roles in vivid detail.

Recent DNA evidence in a 1989 Beatrice, Neb., murder case implicated only a seventh man, and similar evidence in a 1997 Norfolk, Va., murder case implicated only a fifth man, who insists he acted alone. (Governors in both states are currently mulling pardons for the men.)

 It is still possible that the six, or the four, are guilty as charged and that the DNA was left in completely separate attacks on the victims, but the more likely explanation, say psychologists, is that people with low self-esteem or mental problems, or who are drug- or alcohol-addled, are more easily convinced of fantasy.

[Omaha World-Herald, 11-28- 08; Washington Post, 12-15-08]

The Associated Press

Sat, Jan. 03, 2009 08:07 AM

James Howarth is a little confused by two letters he has received from the Internal Revenue Service.

The Detroit defense lawyer received one letter in November that said he owed the IRS money - five cents.

He was warned that he should pay "to avoid additional penalty and/or interest," the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.

Howarth says he then received a second letter telling him the government owes him money - four cents.

He was told he would have to request the refund since it's less than $1.

"When I owe them a nickel, I must pay them. It's not optional," he said. "But when they owe me, I have to ask for it."

Howarth says he's not sure if there is a connection between the two notices, or if the refund represents a recalculation of the original bill.

The perplexed lawyer says he called an IRS 800 telephone number but gave up after spending a long time on hold.

IRS spokesman Luis D. Garcia says the agency doesn't comment on individual accounts.

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com

Kansas City Star

Fri, Jan. 02, 2009 10:15 PM

Muoi Van Nguyen, 31, was arrested in Spokane Valley, Wash., in November, charged with breaking a window with a hammer at a state liquor store and grabbing a bottle of wine valued at $9.

Earlier, Van Nguyen had tried unsuccessfully to break the window with a rock but decided he needed a hammer to do the job and went to a nearby store, where he purchased one for $11.

JOHN SHARP

GateHouse News Service

January 2, 2009 7:15 EST

PEORIA – Gov. Rod Bla­go­jevich might deny selling the state’s U. S. Senate seat, but “Al the Jeweler” is hopeful the public will want to buy plenty from him.

Brad Pettet, owner of Pettet Jewelry Designs in Peoria, is selling three-quarter-inch tall charms for necklaces and bracelets shaped as a U.S. Senate seat.

“The whole point of this is to have a little bit of fun,” Pettet said Tuesday. “People say they are embarrassed to be from Illinois. I’m not embarrassed. It’s Chicago politics. You ought to be used to it by now.”

Pettet is selling the charms in three forms: sterling silver for $35 each, 14-karat gold for $175, and in platinum, which will go at market prices.

Proceeds from the sales are being referred to as “donations,” which will go toward the Al the Jeweler’s retirement fund, Pettet said.

Pettet, who turns 60 in February, said he came up with idea of the unique charms after he saw an advertisement before Christmas simply stating, “We Sell Everything but Senate Seats.”

This got Pettet thinking, and on Christmas Day, he came up with the idea of selling a Senate seat charm.

On Friday, Pettet returned to work and started on his idea. A jewelry craftsman for 25 years, Pettet designed the chair, but the first rendition didn’t look so much like a Senate seat as it did a bar stool.

After some refinement, a more visually accurate Senate seat was created out of wax. He has several of the wax creations at the jewelry store; they are no bigger than a “Monopoly” game piece.

With the prototype design completed, Pettet said he was ready to mass produce the charms. He was unsure how many he would sell in the coming days, but he has the capability to make five to 10 charms from each mold.

“One caller said, ‘Will you limit it to 100 pieces?’” said Pettet, describing the callers’ reference to the U.S. Senate’s 100 seats. “I said, ‘No, this is Illinois politics. We can oversell.’”

On Friday, employee Charity Schierer took three orders for the charms to be done in silver. One call came from Canada. Another was from a radio station in St. Louis wanting more information.

And what if U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald finds out Pettet is selling Senate seats?

“I could be in big trouble,” he joked, adding that some of the proceeds could go to a local charity. “But I will be collecting sales tax on each one of these.”

EDINBURGH, Scotland, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A man who dressed as the Norse god Thor for a costume party in Scotland said he returned home and scared off a burglar who had entered his house.

Torvald Alexander, 38, a construction firm manager who stands at 6 feet tall, said he ran after the burglar with his red cape and silver-winged helmet still in place, making for an intimidating sight, The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

"As soon as he saw me his eyes went wide with terror," Alexander said of the burglar. "He looked like he had had a few drinks and decided to do a late night break in, but he hadn't counted on the God of Thunder living here."

"I had just got back from a fancy dress New Year's party and because I have a Norwegian name I decided to go as Thor," he said.

Alexander said the burglar did not have time to steal anything from the house and fled from a ground floor window without his shoes. He said the shoes will be turned over to police to help them attempt to identify a suspect.

SETTLE, England, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- An English shopkeeper who wanted the day after Christmas off kept his store open with a sign telling customers to take what they needed and leave the money.

Tom Algie, who owns Practically Everything, a store catering to do-it-yourselfers in the village of Settle in Yorkshire, told The Daily Mail that he used a funnel and cereal box to create a container for payments. The next day, he found 187 pounds ($270) in the box.

The day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day, is a major holiday in England. Algie said that he wanted to spend the day with his family and to give his employees the day off as well.

"Settle is a lovely quiet rural town and there's never any trouble here. I put my faith in my customers and I wasn't disappointed," he said. "It was a spur of the moment decision, I just wanted to spend the holidays with my family but thought it would be quite nice to open up the shop, so this seemed like a good solution."

 United Press International, Inc.