From the first two pages of today’s Nashua [NH] Telegraph:

• A firefighter in Concord was commended after saving the lives of two children in a trailer home. He explained that he drove by and saw smoke pouring out of an attached shed, with the father of the children attempting to extinguish it with a garden hose. The firefighter ran into the burning house and got the kids–who were in their cribs–out.
• A 20-year-old man was arrested in Derry for allegedly sexually assaulting a 4-year-old. Strangely, he was arrested in the library. He was reading, of all things, a book called Encyclopedia of Rape. Just… wow, dude, you have problems.
• A man in Brentwood was arrested for beating his 6-month-old son, apparently breaking “more than two dozen bones” on the boy. At his sentencing, his wife spoke saying that he had never hurt the boy.
• On the front page, a babysitter was arrested with 26 counts each of kidnapping and child endangerment, and felony theft. Before you think she had a warehouse of babies she’d kidnapped, she was actually outsourcing her babysitting. She’d agree to babysit the kid, and then find other babysitters on Craigslist to provide the care. Unfortunately for her, “personal contracts” cannot be assigned/transferred, and I’m pretty sure that child care, unlike lawn mowing, counts as a personal contract. However, I’d contest that kidnapping is a reach, and felony theft is utterly wrong: the services were received, just provided by someone else. It might be a tort, but I’m not sure that subcontracting can be considered theft, even if subcontracting wasn’t permissible. Child endangerment, though, is probably a pretty fitting charge. The parents have a brief statement encouraging other parents to do random, unannounced visits of their child to make sure that they’re actually there. I suppose, in this case, it’d have been appropriate, but it seems somewhat preposterous that one would have to do that, especially since most people hire babysitters because they’re unable to be there.

Also, is there any crime that isn’t committed on Craigslist? Browse around enough and you’ll find flagrant prostitution and drug sales. (You’ll also periodically see people arrested for this stuff in the newspaper… I’d love to work in a police department’s “Craiglist Division,” which might just be a full-time job.) Apparently you now have babysitting-outsourcers.