North Shore Exponent

For a few minutes Friday, Tony Lopac thought he was in big trouble. Lopac took off from work to take care of some last-minute errands, including picking up his marriage license. One problem: The clerk's office was closed for a mandatory furlough day.

The days - well, daylight hours, anyway - are getting shorter. And other things just grow longer. Take, for instance, the case of former Assembly Speaker Scott R. Jensen.

Joshua Towns' anger, a problem for much of his life, carried him to almost unfathomable violence last year, when he beat a victim to death with more than 50 blows from a pipe, a bat and his fists.