Desperate time, desperate move

JONESBORO, Arkansas (AFP): After several banks turned him down for a loan to provide cancer treatment for his terminally ill wife, Larry Eugene Archer, 22, decided his next stop at the Mid- South Bank would be different.

It was. He presented the teller a note demanding $10,000 and threatening to "blow you up" and got $4,100.

His getaway, however, ended at a police roadblock.

Archer got some sympathy from his arresting officers when they confirmed that his account of his wife's illness was true, but that did not stop them from charging him with robbery and jailing him on $200,000 bail.