It caught me off guard as much as it might have caught anybody else.

The judge may simply want ... to get a handle on what is implicated in the lawsuit and what is happening on Thursday, and get sense of whether or not anything needs to be done immediately.

That's a more subtle and complicated legal issue that will require a briefing by the parties.

The prisoners first connected five of the prison's 14 cells by smashing large holes through the walls that separated them. Then, they gathered in one of the cells and crawled through a tunnel that they apparently had been digging for weeks, if not months.

That's one of the mysteries we have to solve.

They are highly dangerous criminals who were serving time for rape, murder and armed robbery, among other crimes.