It wasn’t all bad
■ When Port Austin, Mich., library director Mary Jaworski discovered a hungry, partially blind cat in her garage, she was determined to find him a good home. Jaworski shared her story with the Port Austin library board, whose members realized a cat could draw in new patrons. The community banded together to fund the cat’s shots, food, and toys and agreed to let him live among the bookshelves. Three years later, Booker Theodorus Sleeper has become a local staple, climbing into purses and greeting kids at the checkout line.
■ In 1980, a notorious thief known as Erik the Belgian made off with six 17th-century tapestries from a church in Northern Spain. Over the years, the tapestries were recovered, but the largest was missing a 2-by-2-foot depiction of an angel cut from its corner. Erik, who was eventually caught, went on to help the authorities recover thousands of stolen works. But he died before he could reveal the location of the missing angel. An investigator named Ángel Alcaraz recently reopened the case and tracked down the angel with the help of Erik’s former lawyer. The tapestry has since been restored. “If heaven should lack one angel,” said Alcaraz, “it would be a lesser heaven.”
■ Three firefighters in Fairfax County, Va. were used to spending 48-hour shifts together at the station, ready for any sudden call. One mission they didn’t expect to undertake together was heading to the hospital for the births of their children. The three men—Kyle Frederick, Michael Irvine, and Kyle Dean—knew that their partners had due dates not far apart. Only when all three ran into each other at the hospital on Feb. 20 did they realize the births would fall in one 24-hour period. The babies, all boys, are doing fine. The firehouse, though, now has three simultaneous paternity leaves.