Check out the hot new trend sweeping posh Manhattan restaurants: Eating your meal, then running away before you pay the check! "Theft of service" was up 20 percent last year, and the people doing it weren't just poor jerks.

On Christmas Eve, a Dallas pastor, Sandy McGriff, was arrested for breaking into her friend's home and allegedly stealing fur coats, a laptop, and designer purses. McGriff says she thwarted two burglars, but an eyewitness has a different story.

A dedicated group of thieves drove an unattended forklift through the wall of an Oregon general store while it was closed on Saturday. The only thing they took was beer. There are, frankly, worse ways to spend Christmas.

Retired tennis great Pete Sampras had a "majority" of the memorabilia from his days as a champion stolen from a California public storage facility, including rings, medals and trophies. It's very sad, but why was that stuff in public storage?

A Texas woman had her car returned after it had been stolen because the thief wanted to scold her for leaving her toddler inside. He then ran away. There are worse people to take child-rearing advice from, I guess.

Yesterday, a museum in Egypt reported a $55 million van Gogh painting stolen. It turns out the painting was cut from its frame during business hours, and all of the museum's alarms, plus seven of 43 security cameras were disabled.

A painting by Vincent van Gogh was reportedly stolen from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Egypt today. Estimates put the value of the painting, "Poppy Flowers" at $50 million. Also, this is the second time the painting has been stolen.

Residents of Bell, California are upset that their city's administrators make annual salaries that don't exactly scream "public servant." For instance, City Manager Robert Rizzo: $787,637. And Police Chief Randy Adams: $457,000. They have agreed to resign. [LAT]

One of the greatest fugitives of our time, 19-year-old Colton Harris-Moore, the "Barefoot Bandit," has reportedly been arrested in the Bahamas, where he is said to have crash landed a small plane. A two year odyssey has ended. (Updated)

Hondas are the most stolen cars in New York. This is nothing new. What is new? Car thieves are now using the "Internet" to get access to your sweet whip. Don't sell your car on Craigslist!

On Thursday art thieves broke into the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and stole $123m of paintings, including a Matisse and a Picasso. Yesterday two men got into the home of a collector in Marseille and stole five works.

Gerald Posner, the former Daily Beast reporter who's copped to a comically high number of plagiarism violations recently, gave a little speech in Miami Beach last night. One of the authors he's plagiarized was there! It did not go well.

Twenty year-old Jennifer Mercado was a juror on a credit card thief's case. So she stole a fellow juror's credit card. And used it on her lunch hour. And came back to court with the stuff she bought. Winner. [NYDN]

Oh shoot, fashion PR person Mallory Montilla was some sort of career criminal or possibly a kleptomaniac, if you believe the cops, at least. Or is she a sad victim of mean girls?

It's getting so you can't even trust PR people any more: Cops say that Mallory Montilla, a 24 year-old flack at Whisper PR in NYC, stole almost $100,000 worth of jewelry. From clients! The swag corrupted her mind!

Carla Pillo Mote, an executive director at a Philadelphia advertising agency, used Facebook-stalking skills to track down the drunk guy who stole her laptop, tax files, and wallet. Too much information is a good thing!

John McCain, Sarah Palin, and their campaigners, just won't take a hint—or a flurry of cease-and-desist orders from all the musicians whose music they keep stealing for their nauseating "maverick" campaign. Last week, Van Halen had to tell them to STFU when the campaign started using the song "Right Now" totally…