If you ever have to save someone from a rip current, expert lifeguards say you should pretty much just do exactly what a 13-year-old boy in San Clemente did when he heard his friend's distressed cries yesterday. The boy sprung into action and went paddling after his friend. He offered his own bodyboard and began pushing back to shore. A lifeguard met the boys halfway. more ›

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was named the villainous winner of the 2008 Heroes & Villains Face-Off in the just-released Holiday issue of Field & Stream magazine. His faults were closing state recreation areas in the midst of budget cuts while taking away funding for steelhead and salmon restorations. Then again, the magazine also named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a hero for being an active hunter and fisherman. more ›

Two men who should be exalted as heroes are instead rotting in prison and getting violently assaulted by other inmates. In February of 2005, a Mexican national named Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila fled U.S. Border Patrol Agents who were checking to see what his van was doing at the U.S.-Mexico border near Fabens, Texas. During the chase, Aldrete-Davila fought with the Border Patrol and appeared to pull a gun. Agents shot and wounded him, then discovered that... more ›