national

SAN FRANCISCO - A lone wolverine discovered in California almost 90 years after the species supposedly went extinct here is apparently searching for a mate that he might never find.

The muscular carnivore with dark fur and a telltale almond-colored stripe was first photographed in 2008 roaming the Tahoe National Forest.

PLUMAS LAKE, Calif. - Louis Braille was 12 when he began inventing a system of reading and writing by raised dots.

Thomas Alva Edison was a teenager when he invented a telegraphic repeating instrument.

Tharon Trujillo of Plumas Lake was just 10 years old when he invented a safety gate that helps keep children and pets from falling through sliding screen doors.

PALM CITY FARMS, Fla. - Susan Beatty can't believe there is no law against keeping wild hogs penned up on a wooded lot on Savage Street so they can be fattened and slaughtered.

LAKE OF THE PINES, Calif. - From a crowded orphanage in Haiti, Claire Marie Bryditzki seems to have landed in a little girl's dream world.

Her bedroom is on the second floor of an elegant home overlooking a lake. She sleeps in a queen-sized bed with her name painted above the headboard, and she has discovered the joys of pizza, yogurt and McDonald's french fries.

The U.S. boss of a violent Mexican drug cartel who admitted ordering a hit on someone who ran afoul of him has been a busy man since authorities nabbed him and 34 kilograms of his cocaine at the border.

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When Phil Velez was growing up in Pico Rivera, Calif., his school was overwhelmingly Latino, but almost every Cub Scout and Boy Scout was white.

"We just thought it wasn't for us," Velez said. "There's still an image of the scouts as a middle-class, white organization."

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Most of the time, Roland Genesy is a bodybuilder and trainer.

But twice a week or so, he dons a bulletproof vest, badge and gun and hunts down fugitives.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Each day brings him closer to his last day on the job.

His supervisor, Shelby County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ricky McCoy, says the officer still does great work, but that he has lost a step.

His partner, Detective Troy Simmons, prays for him each morning before their shift starts and is saddened at the thought of retirement later this year.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd class Bryan Pantazo wants to quit smoking, but it's tough when you're deployed at sea, he said.

"It's just so easy to smoke when you're on an aircraft carrier," said the 30-year-old Missouri native. "You're cooped up on an aircraft carrier for 45 days, working 14 hours a day, with no social life. The smoke deck, it's the only social environment."

TAMPA, Fla. - After years in a Tampa woman's possession, Davy Crockett's marriage license is back home in Tennessee.

For now, at least.

Locked up in a vault behind Jefferson County clerk Rick Farrar's desk, the license sits safely with other historic Crockett documents, Farrar said.