When Carlos Bello takes his medication, no one questions his mental competence. ...more

September 27, 2008

Prosecutors were unable to persuade Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta today to proceed with imposing punishment on Carlos Bello for killing a Tampa policeman, continuing more than 20 years of legal yo-yoing. ...more

September 26, 2008

"Hit and Run," by Lawrence Block (William Morrow, $24.95) ...more

September 21, 2008

Nick Barnett was devastated when he heard about the traffic deaths of two close friends this month. He left work to spend a few hours with their families. Then he went to the tattoo parlor. Barnett, an 18-year-old Bloomingdale High graduate, became part of a growing number of young people who are memorializing lost friends and family in permanent body ink. Teens and young adults mostly are the ones doing this, tattoo artists say. ...more

August 28, 2008

Joseph Valdez used narcotics for more than a decade before he died of an overdose in April 2007. He was 32. Here are selected dates from a timeline of his quest for drugs in the months before his death. ...more

August 3, 2008

Answers to one of the nation's highest profile unsolved crimes are in documents that could be released as early as this week - and help explain how the government chased the wrong suspect for years, officials said. ...more

August 3, 2008

For just about as long as man has recorded history, each generation believes that past times were better. ...more

July 12, 2008

Dear Annie: My 30-year-old stepson, "Dan," has had problems with drugs and alcohol for years. Last year, he went through a rehab program, but shortly after got back into drugs, had a horrible fight with his wife and said he was going to kill himself. She called us saying, "Just thought you should know." We live four hours away and were scared to death. We called the sheriff, who found him and brought him to the hospital. He was kept in the psychiatric ward for 24 hours. ...more

July 10, 2008

After 13 months of retired bliss, I had enough of my golden years and sought employment. ...more

July 4, 2008

Circuit Judge William Fuente sentenced a man to death Friday morning for the 2002 slayings of the man's wife and stepdaughter. ...more

May 31, 2008