Most bank robbers try the direct approach in stealing cash: Enter a bank or credit union during business hours and demand it. Homer Police last week charged a Homer woman with taking a back-door approach when she allegedly broke into the Alaska USA Credit Union at about 1:45 a.m. last Friday. Sierra M. Steen, 23, was charged with second-degree burglary, third-degree theft, both felonies, third-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest.

Buccaneer Energy has alleged that Archer Drilling’s “misrepresentations, misconduct and delays” cost their company $30 million because the Endeavour-Spirit of Independence jack-up rig could not be used to drill in Cook Inlet last fall and this winter.

The company’s allegation is contained in a counterclaim — filed last week in Texas District Court — to Archer’s previous $6.5 million lawsuit.

A federal civil jury on Thursday exonerated three Homer Police officers and the city that employs them. In a unanimous verdict delivered about noon Thursday, the 8-member jury found that lawyers for Cherry Dietzmann and her children, the plaintiffs in a $45 million suit against the city and officers, did not prove that Homer Police officers Will Hutt, Stacy Luck and Dave Shealy shot Jason Anderson Jr. in a shootout between the boy’s father, Jason Karlo Anderson Sr., and Homer Police and U.S. Marshals seven years ago at the Homer Airport.

An idea to use the Homer Deep Water Dock as a test bed to measure and evaluate tidal energy got a boost with a city-university collaboration. Instead of the city hiring a private firm, a group of seven University of Alaska Anchorage engineering students and their professors are doing the 35-percent design for the Tidal Energy Incubator Project.

The cost?

“We’ve been able to take advantage of some free labor by feeding them cookies to get to that first 35 percent,” said Katie Koester, city of Homer economic development coordinator, joking.