I have my cell phone set up so that if a news flash comes in through the AP newsfeed, a text message displays on the screen. The “breaking news” lines have all the restrictions that regular newspaper headlines have, but even more length limits, so they’re prone to ambiguity. Yesterday’s was a doozy; I waited to post because snarking at a sentence glitch would have been horribly tacky if actual harm had befallen the subject of the flash (who has, fortunately, been found and is safe):

 

“Police officers search for boy after not being found in balloon.”

 

---- Bill Spruiell