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Two Waco crime scene technicians recently helped the FBI apprehend a serial bank robber suspect.

Crime scene technicians Joyce Marek and Laura Teamer assisted in apprehending Bradley Craig Kilmer, who has been charged with numerous bank robberies in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said the technicians worked together to find and identify a partial palm print on a napkin used as a demand note in a bank robbery.

A Dallas woman who super-glued her 2-year-old daughter’s hands to a wall also beat the girl so badly that she suffered bleeding on her brain, a doctor testified Monday during the mother’s sentencing hearing.

Elizabeth Escalona faces up to life in prison after pleading guilty in July to attacking her daughter, Jocelyn Cedillo, last September. Police say the 23-year-old mother attacked the toddler due to potty training problems.

Army veteran Don Matyja was getting by all right on the streets of this city tucked in Southern California suburbia until he got ticketed for smoking in the park.

Matyja, who has been homeless since he was evicted nearly two years ago, had trouble paying the fine and getting to court — and now a $25 penalty has ballooned to $600.

Two scientists from different generations won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for the groundbreaking discovery that cells in the body can be reprogrammed into completely different kinds, work that reflects the mechanism behind cloning and offers an alternative to using embryonic stem cells.

Sometimes the stress of school and life can be more than students can bear.

The third annual More Than We Can Bear forum will be held at 6:30 p.m. today in D110 Baylor Sciences Building. It is free and open to the public.

Baylor offers more than 120 majors within its eight undergraduate colleges, ranging from aviation sciences to interior design.
With all of these options, it’s easy for students to get overwhelmed.

Donated blood in the Central Texas area has tested positive for the West Nile Virus since the recent outbreak this past summer.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, humans can contract West Nile through mosquito bites. It is most often spread to humans when a mosquito feeds on an infected bird, then bites a human. CDC statistics show approximately 80 percent, or four out of five people, infected with the virus will not show any symptoms at all.

TCU quarterback Casey Pachall was suspended indefinitely Thursday, hours after he was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated — his second brush with trouble this year and one that clouds the 15th-ranked Horned Frogs’ push for a Big 12 title.

Coach Gary Patterson announced the suspension, saying his quarterback “obviously needs help.”

Friday marks Vietnamese Student Association’s 20th annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The festival is held to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon or Tet Trung Thu, as it is referred to by most Vietnamese people.

The VSA will work with the department of Multicultural Affairs to host the event, which will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. today in the Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center.

The potential scope of the meningitis outbreak that has killed at least five people widened dramatically Thursday as health officials warned that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patients who got steroid back injections in 23 states could be at risk.

Kansas at Kansas State: This is a highly uneven Sunflower Showdown as No. 7 Wildcats host the Jayhawks in Manhattan. The Wildcats are coming off a monumental road win over Oklahoma and have won 12 straight home games. Conversely, the Jayhawks have lost an astounding 14 consecutive road contests. Kansas has had problems defending the rush, and the Wildcats will be too much for them with Collin Klein, and John Hubert will power the rushing attack to a Wildcats victory. Prediction: Kansas State 42, Kansas 10

The operator of California’s ailing San Onofre nuclear power plant proposed Thursday to restart one of its shuttered reactors after concluding it could be run safely despite damage to scores of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Nationally and at Baylor, people are gathering to celebrate the life work of Mahatma Gandhi by serving their local community on Saturday.

The event, called Be the Change, is coordinated nationally by SAALT, South Asian Americans Leading Together, to honor Gandhi.

Racers, start your mattresses.
At Thursday’s Student Senate meeting, the Alpha Tau Omega Bed Races bill was formally passed 41-1. Student Senate will provide $5,000 in funding for the event.
The lone dissenting senator of the evening was Houston senior Daniel Lin.

In a showdown at close quarters, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney sparred aggressively in their first campaign debate Wednesday night over taxes, deficits and strong steps needed to create jobs in a sputtering national economy. “The status quo is not going to cut it,” declared the challenger.

Social media has many uses during election season.

This election season, social media has been used for hate speech, according to a recent study by Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez, assistant professor of journalism, public relations and news media.

“The study looks at hate groups targeting President Obama,” Moody-Ramirez said. “I started the study three years ago in trying to update my syllabuses to reflect new media and to add social media to my syllabuses.”

While doing research to update her course, Moody-Ramirez said she noticed several Facebook hate groups.

Dozens of weight loss and immune system supplements on the market are illegally labeled and lack the recommended type of scientific evidence to back up their purported health claims, government investigators warn in a new review of the $20 billion supplement industry.

A Kazakhstan-born owner of a Texas export firm was charged in New York on Wednesday with being a secret Russian agent involved in a multimillion-dollar scheme to, in the words of a U.S. prosecutor, “steal American technology” for Russian military and intelligence agencies.

Ranching and physics — an unlikely combination.

One Baylor researcher unites his two passions into a lifetime of work that has recently earned him a national award.

Dr. Marlan O. Scully, distinguished researcher at Baylor and member of the National Academy of Sciences, will receive the 2012 Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus Quinn Prize, the highest award given by the Optical Society of America, for his work in quantum optics.

As the Supreme Court revisits the use of race in college admissions next week, critics of affirmative action are hopeful the justices will roll back the practice. A new report out Wednesday offers a big reason for their optimism: evidence from at least some of the nine states that don’t use affirmative action that leading public universities can bring meaningful diversity to their campuses through race-neutral means.

U.S. births fell for the fourth year in a row, the government reported Wednesday, with experts calling it more proof that the weak economy has continued to dampen enthusiasm for having children.
But there may be a silver lining: The decline in 2011 was just 1 percent — not as sharp a fall-off as the 2 to 3 percent drop seen in other recent years.

“It may be that the effect of the recession is slowly coming to an end,” said Carl Haub, a senior demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization.

Most striking in the new report were steep declines in Hispanic birth rates and a new low in teen births.

Festival-goers at this year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin will be able to plan their fun day thanks to the festival’s new app, which launched yesterday.

The 2012 edition of the application will feature a new design and is available for all iPhone models.

Baylor’s library system has garnered international attention for its hard work in preserving Texas history and culture.

“The Top 20 Most Impressive University Special Collections,” an article produced by The Online Education Database, ranked Baylor’s Texas Collection as no. 11 internationally. The Online Education Database is a website that helps students find education programs to fulfill their academic and career objectives.

Pennsylvania’s divisive voter identification requirement became the latest of its kind to get pushback from the courts ahead of Election Day, delivering a hard-fought victory to Democrats who said it was a ploy to defeat President Barack Obama and other opponents who said it would prevent the elderly and minorities from voting.

Baylor’s NAACP chapter and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority are hosting a forum, “Politically Correct,” to examine political issues relevant to college students.

The forum will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Bennett Auditorium. There is no cost to attend, and all students and faculty are welcome.

The forum will begin with a nonpartisan discussion of the platforms of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, as established at their respective national conventions. NAACP and AKA members will present the discussion.

The verbal jabs flew fast Tuesday night in Texas during the U.S. Senate debate, with Democrat Paul Sadler calling his heavily favored, tea party-backed opponent Ted Cruz a “troll” and Cruz labeling Sadler an unapologetic liberal scheming to raise taxes.

Mandolin player and composer Chris Thile learned the hard way that when you get a call from the 312 area code this time of year, you should probably answer the phone.

Thile is among 23 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants,” which are given in a secrecy-shrouded process. Winners have no idea they’ve been nominated for the $500,000 awards until they get the call, and nominators must remain anonymous.

A Baylor engineering professor and Mission Waco are partnering to form Six Eight Technologies, a new program of Mission Waco-Mission World that will offer training and opportunities for people who want to serve in a technical capacity in developing countries.

Changing light bulbs every few months can be a hassle. Using light emitting diodes (LEDs) can decrease the number of light bulb changes, because LEDs have a longer lifespan compared to traditional lighting.

This fall, Baylor Facilities will hire an intern to determine the most cost- and energy-efficient lighting for campus.

A Florida man’s bid to become the first illegal immigrant to obtain a law license in the United States met skepticism Tuesday from most of the state’s Supreme Court justices.

Jose Godinez-Samperio came to the U.S. with his parents on visitors’ visas when he was 9 years old, but the family never returned to Mexico. He graduated from New College in Florida, earned a law degree from Florida State University and passed the state bar exam last year.

“He’s somebody who has done everything he’s supposed to do. He complied with every rule,” Godinez-Samperio’s attorney and former American Bar Association president Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, said after the hearing.