Screenshot from Youtube.

A lifetime of therapy begins here.

​Officials from Rosemount High School are apologizing for a so-called "prank" that will almost surely lead to a lifetime of awkward family gatherings and thousands of hours of therapy for the students involved.

At an end-of-the-year pepfest last week, a group of winter sports captains were blindfolded in the school gym in front of their peers, and told they would be receiving a kiss from a "special someone."

These poor kids reasonably assumed they were about to make out with their classmates. But the assembly organizers had something else in mind: their parents.

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Steven Cross doesn't understand all the attention, and wants to see his son again.

​Steven Cross, the Lakeville father who left his 11-year-old son behind and bolted for California when he couldn't make ends meet, wants another chance to be a father.

In fact, Cross, who's gone on something of a local media tour since returning to Minnesota, doesn't understand why his case inspired all the outrage and shame he's receiving from other parents.

In the latest interview about his case, Cross told the Star Tribune that he's shocked to find himself in the American spotlight.

"I'm unbelievably surprised at the attention this has gotten," Cross said.
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Mark Nelson: Pick on someone your own size.

​The human body has 24 ribs, and Mark Nelson allegedly squeezed a baby so hard that 22 of his broke.

Nelson's been arrested and charged in Washington County for the horrific crime on the baby, which is actually his girlfriend's son. Nelson, 32, took his anger out on the baby, 0, after an argument with the child's mother. He told police that he squeezed the baby boy until he heard a "crack."

Deep breath. It gets worse. Nelson didn't tell the mother what he'd done, and when she noticed the boy falling ill, he said he was sure the baby would "get better.'

Now Nelson's in serious trouble, and so's the baby, which was last known to be in intensive care with critical injuries to his organs, according to the Pioneer Press.

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Steven Cross turned up in coastal California.

​After the incredibly depressing story last week about Steven Cross, the Lakeville man who split on his son when he couldn't find work, reasonable speculation had it that the desperate man could be headed for a bad end.

In fact, Cross is alive, and was working at a deli in California, where police found him yesterday. Cross was taken into custody without incident, and will now be brought back to Minnesota to face charges and, at least on some level, reconnect with the 11 year old son he left behind.

This story is the stuff of Bruce Springsteen songs.

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Cross was last thought to be in California.

​You know those coffee mugs and T-shirts that say, "World's Greatest Dad"? Well, Steven Cross has to turn his in, right after he turns himself in for leaving his 11-year-old boy to fend for himself.

Dakota County has issued a warrant for Cross, who is alleged to have ditched out on the boy after he ran out of money and couldn't find a job. That is, he was so sick of letting his son down, he thought he'd just let him take over. Apparently that's not just stupid, it's illegal.

Cross, who was last known to be somewhere in southern California, is facing a single gross misdemeanor charge of child neglect.

Cross left a letter to his son, explaining why he was leaving him, and told him to walk over to a neighbor's house for help. The boy did, but, for pretty obvious reasons, was crying by the time he got there.
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courtesy of Derek Larson

Hail to the geek.

​Not long ago, GQ magazine voted St. Paul one of the worst dressed cities in the country. Clearly, the writer failed to consult the Larson family first.

In the early 1980s, the St. Paul family donned some seriously patriotic duds and someone had the good sense to snap a photo.

The result is so awesome that it just might win Derek Larson and his family a two-week vacation to Waikiki.

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The boy wandered around Lake Nokomis for about an hour last night.

​Two parents are fortunate to have their toddler back today after leaving the two-year-old boy at Lake Nokomis for an hour last night.

The parents called the Orono Police Department and reported the boy missing just before 7:30 p.m. Sunday. At first, the parents simply reported their son was missing.

Four police departments, including a Hennepin County Sheriff bloodhound unit, and the Mound Fire Department snapped into action and searched for the missing child. After a short time searching, the mother and father figured out they'd probably left their son at Lake Nokomis, where they'd been visiting a friend at Spring Park.

Around the same time, a call came in to report that a young boy had been found. Orono Police Chief Correy Farniok says the boy had been wandering around alone for "a while," perhaps up to an hour. The toddler was fine, Farniok says, and the couple was lucky.
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Socorro Eaton lost control and terrified her child.

​The last day of elementary school is supposed to be all about giddy anticipation of summer vacation, but Socorro Eaton is accused or turning her daughter's final day at Bruce Vento Elementary into a violent, humiliating nightmare.

The pair showed up late for class, with the daughter hauling a bag of art supplies she thought she needed that day. But when Eaton heard the teacher say the class wasn't working on the project that day, she flew into a rage.

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Ashley Renee Couch will be sentenced in May.

​Ashley Renee Couch has pleaded guilty to child endangerment, a little more than a month after a bizarre episode in which she threw her baby into a snowbank during a heated argument with the baby's father.

That man, 19-year-old Deontae Thurmond, was later arrested on suspicion of domestic assault, but not before news of the abandoned, barely clothed, and frozen baby made headlines all over town and beyond.

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Chelscia English.

​Chelscia English has just learned first hand the truth behind that old saying, "You can't take your eyes off that kid for a minute."

That's what she did the other night in St. Paul when she parked her SUV with the engine running and ran into the Rainbow Foods on Arcade Street to buy a juice box for her 3-year-old daughter.

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