Police sent a caller off with more than just a cross word when she dialled 999 to ask for the answer to five down.

As the locals had sort of punched in and gone about the business of dispatching their inferior foe, as the 17,296 folks in the Carrier Dome had pretty much spent the evening with crossed legs and crossword puzzles, this was one of those affairs that sorely needed a Moment, capital M.

ACROSS: 1, Uboat 6, Copse 9, Soup-con 10, Mouse 11, Putin 12, Denis 13, Curried 15, Pet 17, Heat 18, Curare 19, Hairs 20, Friday 22, Skis 24, Fad 25, Voltage 26, Admen 27, Panto 28, Actor 29, Out-back 30, Leapt 31, Types.

This is the answer to Today's Crossword, which appears on page 20 in Miami Today for the Week of January 8, 2009 puzzle. Turn here to see if you got it right — or to overcome a major hurdle.

ACROSS: 3, F-loss 8, Human 10, Panic 11, Rot 12, Copal 13, Grown-up 15, Cop it 18, Air 19, Depose 21, Allayed 22, Lark 23, Tent 24, Motored 26, Shower 29, Tax 31, Satan 32, Centred 34, Stead 35, Ian 36, Ditto 37, Elgar 38, Errol.

Denison native Warren Olson won $30,000 on the "Candy Cane Crossword" scratch game. Olson claimed his prize Friday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Storm Lake. He purchased his winning ticket at Casey's in Denison. Candy Cane Crossword is a $3 scratch game.

16/12/2008 | So we now have desperate parents attempting to bribe teachers to get their children into a selective high school. What a sad indictment of our education policies, the holy grail of which is parental choice.

Behind The Bedroom Door: Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It Edited by Paula Derrow Delacorte, 334 pages, $25 In her introduction to Behind the Bedroom Door , Paula Derrow bemoans “how little the women I know [talk] about the awkward couplings and surprising urges, the long dry spells or messy, mind-blowing encounters that make up a person’s sexual history.” Hmmm. Ms. ...