Nicole Santa Cruz

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A father who threw his 7-year-old son off a harbor cruise boat into Newport Harbor was convicted Monday of felony child abuse and a misdemeanor count of resisting an officer.

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- After more than two days of deliberation, an Orange County jury on Friday found 10 Muslim students guilty of two misdemeanors to conspire and then disrupt a February 2010 speech at the University of California, Irvine, last year by the Israeli ambassador to the United States.

LOS ANGELES -- Ryan Ramos' 6 a.m. routine used to consist of the usual: a shower, breakfast, then a walk to the bus stop.

But now, the 14-year-old eighth-grader has another activity: punching an identification code into a cell phone-size GPS device.

Five times a day -- when he wakes up, when he gets to school, after lunch, after school and at 8 p.m. -- Ramos is required to enter his code into the machine. If he's not where he's supposed to be, the GPS provides a way to find him.

Ramos and 31 other students in the Anaheim Union High School District are participating voluntarily in what some consider a cutting-edge solution to the age-old problem of truancy. Backers of the program hope that by giving parents and school officials a better idea of where students are -- and by giving students a visible incentive to resist peer pressure to skip classes -- the GPS can succeed where curfews, strict punishments and even fines for parents have failed.

COWTOWN KEEYLOCKO, Ariz. -- Ed Keeylocko sauntered into the Blue Dog Saloon, took a seat and gestured toward the bartender.

"Let me have a little tequila, sugar."

Today it was just Keeylocko and the bartender. But often visitors walk into this bar, sit next to Keeylocko, 79, and whisper in his ear, asking where they can find Ed Keeylocko. They want to see the cowboy they've heard so much about.

"Some people think I'm mythical," he smirked, while his weathered fingers cupped the tiny glass of tequila -- neat, with no salt.

Keeylocko is the founder of Cowtown Keeylocko, an 80-acre spread with handmade buildings of wood and tin. Founded in December of 1974 and located about 40 miles southwest of Tucson, it lies at the end of a bumpy dirt road where a sign greets visitors: "Population 5 -- most of the time."