It should be of no surprise

that I fell asleep for awhile. Then YKWIA called and we had a great talk for over an hour. So now for a bit of blogging before bed. Here are some stories I've been following:

Standoff in Alabama Ends in Boy’s Rescue and Kidnapper’s Death
FBI: Bombs found in Alabama kidnapper's bunker

Yay! I'm so glad that he's freed. I wish him and his family well. Thank goodness he made it through this, and just in time for his sixth birthday.

Brain infection, not scarlet fever, may have caused Mary Ingalls' blindness

The Real Richard III: 3D reconstruction and linguistic research reveal English king’s face, voice

Astronomers finally crack mystery of solar system’s strange ‘ribbon of energy’

New York Times Revises Ed Koch Obit To Include AIDS

and then there's this--not news, but something that I saw on Facebook, proving the folks at BBCAmerica have a sense of humour:

Speaking of the Superbowl, did you see this?

San Francisco, Baltimore libraries place friendly wager on Super Bowl -- so I guess it'll be Poe that's recited. I do love 'The Raven'. :)

Okay, good night!

Still praying this will work out

Alabama bunker suspect faced court date, neighbors say

Investigators have communicated with the suspect through a length of PVC pipe that extends out of the bunker. They've sent down coloring books and crayons for the child, state Rep. Steve Clouse said. They've also sent prescription medicine for the boy, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he said.

The boy's family is "holding on by a thread," Clouse said. They do not know Dykes, according to Clouse, who has been speaking with the family. Investigators are still communicating with the suspect and "have no reason to believe that the child has been harmed," Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said Wednesday evening.

"Pray, pray," Olson told reporters.

Tense Negotiations in Alabama Kidnapping

A man with a history of violent behavior and a 5-year-old boy he abducted from a school bus on Tuesday remained holed up in the man’s homemade underground bunker in rural Alabama on Thursday morning.

The negotiations, described as tense and delicate, began Tuesday afternoon, when local law enforcement officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and SWAT teams surrounded the bunker off a dirt road in Midland City, a small town in southern Alabama peanut country, near the Florida and Georgia borders.

I have gotten quite a bit done, although not as much as I would like

So much bending has my back hurting, so I'm taking a break. The bedroom is in good shape; I've done pretty well with the bathroom, living area, and dining area. The kitchen's still a mess; I need to run a load of dishes and do some hand washables as well. I have one bag of trash and seven bags of recyclables plus several cardboard boxes that need to go (all the time I was laid up, I had one hamper of recyclables that went out--otherwise they've piled up). (They're not huge bags, but it's still a lot.)

I've been following a news story all day, and apparently it still hasn't been resolved. It is very scary. I hope things will work out so the little boy is saved and the gunman can never menace anyone again. I'm amazed he was free and still had guns after some of the stuff he has been doing: Suspected Alabama gunman holed up with boy in bunker after school bus shooting

A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage kept law officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities said.

SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The standoff along a red dirt road began on Tuesday afternoon, after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the small town of Midland City, population 2,300. Sheriff Wally Olson said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-year-old child. The gunman then took the kindergartener away.

"As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation," said Michael Senn, a church pastor who helped comfort the traumatized children after the attack.