Least competent criminals

. A 49-year-old Leavenworth, Kan., man was hospitalized in November after (according to police) using a front-end loader to pluck an ATM from the Frontier Credit Union. He was hurt when he drove to the edge of a 50-foot embankment and tried to drop the ATM, imagining that the fall would break it open, but instead, he, the loader, and the ATM all crashed to the bottom.

. British Muslim convert Nicky Reilly, 22, pleaded guilty in October in Exeter, England, to attempted terrorism for detonating a homemade nail bomb in the Giraffe restaurant. The plan failed when Reilly triggered the bomb in the men's room, intending to take it into the dining area, but then could not unlock the men's room door to get out. (His lawyer called him perhaps the "least cunning" person ever to be charged with terrorism in Britain.)