-- Despite a warning label reading "Do not use indoors because of flammability" on its carpet adhesive, the Para-Chem company was ordered by a jury in Akron, Ohio, in July to pay $8 million to two professional installers who were severely burned in an explosion when they tried to use the product indoors. One juror told the Akron Beacon Journal that he and his colleagues felt the warning did not go far enough in convincing the installers not to use the product indoors.

-- A whole class of New Bedford, Mass., middle-school students was recommended for blood tests in July after officials learned that, in May 2001, a now-retired seventh-grade science teacher had pricked the fingers of about two dozen of the students to make sample blood slides, using the same needle (though he wiped it with alcohol between uses). Officials thought the risk of infection was low but had no explanation how a veteran science teacher could stray so far from contemporary blood-safety procedures.

A paper by psychologist Michel Lariviere for Correctional Services of Canada concluded that most guards don't respect inmates (which inhibits rehabilitation efforts) (May). A $4 million study by University of Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions revealed that employees are much more likely to call in sick if they have drunk alcohol the night before (May). A Harvard School of Public Health survey found that people report more noise and other disruptions in binge-drinking college neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods (July). An Iowa State University study found that TV viewers had a harder time noticing the commercials on shows containing explicit sex than on other types of shows (June).

-- The owners of Los Angeles' Westwood Village Memorial Park (resting place of Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Frank Zappa) have asked the county to allow them to build a 463-casket mausoleum on formerly open space in the park that is very close to residential property, thus potentially disturbing both neighbors worried about spirits in their back yards and solemn park visitors, who may be exposed to screaming children and barbecue smoke. (And in June, bowing to strong opposition, the operators of Dublin, Ireland's most famous cemetery (Glasnevin) withdrew a proposal to add income by building 11 luxury townhouses on its grounds.)

-- Former Broward County (Fla.) librarian William Coday's online personal ad touts his multilingualism, world travels, compassion, and love of Keats and baroque music. The ad does not mention that he was convicted of murdering his 1978 and 1997 girlfriends, both with hammers, and that he is in jail awaiting a jury's decision whether he gets death for the latter crime.

-- Leslie Collard, 42, arrested in May in Providence, R.I., for offering an undercover officer a tandem prostitution deal that included her 19-year-old daughter, was asked before the arrest if that meant the mother and daughter would serve him at the same time. "No," she said (according to the officer), "I have morals, because she is my daughter. My daughter will do you first."

-- Pull Their Parenting Licenses: David and Guadalupe Mata were arrested for allegedly chaining their 21-year-old daughter face up on her bed, to keep her away from the married man she had been seeing (Fullerton, Calif., July). A mother and stepfather were charged with duct-taping her 12-year-old son to a lawn chair so he would get sunburned as punishment for sassing her (Hamilton, Ohio, May). Gary and Kathleen Rabatin and their teen-age kids were charged with possession of marijuana, with the parents admitting pride that the kids smoke at home rather than on the street (and dope was found in every room in their house) (Levittown, Pa., June). Sedrick Lamont Curtis, 28, and Shakima Lewis, 25, were charged with forcing their adolescent kids into sex shows in their home, at which they charged clients $10 to watch (Gary, Ind., May)

According to an Agence France-Presse report of a United Nations officials' meeting with Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe in April (concerning how undemocratic the country's last election was), Mugabe allegedly exploded when scolded by a U.S. representative: "Well," said Mugabe, "I don't think George Bush won the U.S. election, but I accept (it)." And in Lumberton, N.J., in July, Michael J. Devine, 36, captured in a stolen truck after a police chase, denied he was trying to escape; he said that he couldn't stop because the truck contained a bomb that would explode if his speed dropped below 55 mph.

Shemuel Nahum Ben Yisrael (formerly, James Christopher) filed a $10 million lawsuit in June against the city of Beaufort, S.C., and its mayor, police and sheriff's department, for an unlawful arrest in 2000 and for generally harassing him. According to the police chief in Yisrael's hometown of nearby Yemassee, Yisrael keeps buckets of paint and urine handy at his home so that, when law enforcement officers come for one of their frequent arrests of him (mostly for trespassing), he can douse himself so as to make the officers' jobs harder.

Latest Bright Ideas: According to an indictment obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice in May, Christopher Lee Jones of Pembroke, N.C., recently publicly attempted to sell 100 stolen Social Security numbers by eBay online auction and tried to enhance their value by specifically suggesting that bidders use them to obtain credit cards. And Tony Alston, 26, and April Lynett Smith, 20, were arrested after a brief police chase following their alleged robbery of a Compass Bank in San Antonio, Texas; police caught them easily because their getaway vehicle was a rental U-Haul truck with a speed governor that the company routinely equips the truck with to slow it down.

A 13-year-old boy was struck and killed in the street while playing "chicken" with a neighbor driving a go-cart (Lithonia, Ga., March). And a 17-year-old boy was struck and killed while playing lie-down-on-the-highway "chicken" at 11:30 p.m. (Crescent City, Calif., June). And a 44-year-old woman was struck and killed by an Amtrak train as she drove through a railroad crossing busily conversing on her cell phone (Little Rock, Ark., June).

County officials charged the Dance Place studio (Safety Harbor, Fla.) with pressuring 30 elderly customers to sign 328 separate contracts for dance lessons, totaling $3.5 million (including selling one woman $257,000 worth over a three-week period) (July). While laid-off workers of Global Crossing Ltd. (one-time value: $54 billion) try to recoup some of the $32 million in severance pay they lost by the company's bankruptcy filing, the Los Angeles Times reported that company founder Gary Winnick continues his historically detailed, $30 million renovation on the $94 million mansion he purchased before the collapse (July).

A Muslim housewife in Florida filed a lawsuit after the state revoked her driver's license because she insisted that her identification photo reveal only her eyes (because of her niqab veil) (Winter Park, Fla.). A 19-year-old man fatally overconsumed in a contest to see who could eat the most salt (Tamluk, India). A 20-year-old man was arrested after making 1,100 calls to 911 over a two-day period, attributing his behavior simply to boredom (Gainesville, Fla.). A court in Iran denied Mohammad Khordadian travel privileges for 10 years because he formerly taught Iran-disapproved dance lessons while living in Los Angeles (Tehran).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or Newsweird@aol.com, or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)

-- More News From the Front Lines: The Jammu and Kashmir State Cable Car Corp. continues to run its gondolas at the mountain resort of Gulmarg (according to a July Washington Post dispatch), passing within 3 miles of the "Line of Control" that separates Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir (and despite the gondolas occasionally picking up ground fire); business is down considerably for skiing, hiking and golf, but still, frolickers show up. And according to a June report in Lebanon Daily Star (via The Wall Street Journal), Israeli and Hezbollah forces on the Lebanese border, on stand-down from live ammunition, recently exchanged "fire" with a paint-gun blast, pingpong balls and eggs.

-- In June, retired British actor Michael Fabian was sentenced to six months in jail for duping an employment agency into sending him 12 actors for a job he had, before leaving town without paying. Fabian had been on trial for harassing a prosecutor and had acted as his own lawyer, presenting a lavish, theatrical defense, for which he thought he needed the inspiration of a good audience, i.e., the 12 actors, sitting in the gallery. (Still, he was convicted.)

Among people who have recently forgotten that they had kids locked up in hot cars (which Centers for Disease Control said has killed at least 27 toddlers since 2000): Tarajee Maynor, age 25 (her two kids died while she kept a three-hour hair salon appointment, Southfield, Mich., June); Jorge Villamar, 59 (left his 16-month-old granddaughter in a sweltering car for an hour and a half, Central Islip, N.Y., July); and two parents who on July 8 had left kids in hot cars in Fort Worth, Texas (fatal to a 6-month-old boy), and Scarborough, Ontario, but whose names had not been released at press time.

-- Simply Dapper, age 6 months, won four prize ribbons at the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association show in Costa Mesa, Calif., in May. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the rodent's "shiny beige coat, sweet temperament, and a blood line dating back 12 generations" were the main factors in his success. Contest rats have fancy names (e.g., "Himalayan" rat) but cost only a few dollars to acquire and are genetically the same as ordinary, Dumpster-diving Norwegian rats.

-- During the same week in February that the Westminster Dog Show opened in New York City, United Arab Emirates held its first-ever beauty contest for camels in Abu Dhabi, with total prize money of about $27,000. And in June, an Interlachen, Fla., farmer named a goat (which he said came from a long line of show goats) Li'l Dale when it was born with a white marking in the shape of a "3" on its brown coat (and which the hundreds of Floridians who flocked to see it thought was surely a divine sign about the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt). (Babe Ruth also wore number 3, but the visitors seemed certain the goat did not refer to him.)

-- To deal with the city's mounting dog litter problem, officials in Anchorage, Alaska, proposed in May to help call recalcitrant dog owners' attention to the problem by squirting a dab of peanut butter on each pile of dog poop in the parks and on sidewalks. (The idea is that owners would more conscientiously clean up so that their own dogs would not be tempted to try to eat the peanut butter.)

-- In June, Harvey, Ill., Baptist minister Rev. Roland Gray was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for faking at least 14 auto accidents to defraud insurance companies of more than $450,000; "I consider myself a man of God," Gray told the judge, "(but) I got a little confused." Also in June, Mr. Andrea Cabiale, 40, of Turin, Italy, was charged with arranging at least 500 bump-and-stop car accidents involving young female drivers, in largely unsuccessful attempts to date them; in Cabiale's apartment were 2,159 photographs of female car owners and their damaged vehicles.

-- John Patrick Bradley, 56, and three women were arrested in March in Los Angeles for an ambitious scheme in which recent U.S. immigrants were charged as much as $25,000 for the promise of becoming citizens. The ruse involved an almost full-scale replica of the official immigration service process, including elaborate materials and tests and a swearing-in ceremony, with Bradley dressed as a judge, leading everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Christopher Watt, 15, who it is believed entered a 9-foot-diameter pipe in the Ottawa, Ontario, sewer system on a dare, was swept deep into the foul waters for five hours on June 10 before rescue crews got to him on an inflatable raft. And a 12-year-old boy, helping his father clean the family's backyard sewer in Chicago on June 6, got stuck in the muck for several hours until 28 firefighters and 10 paramedics freed him.

Eight-year fugitive John Thomas Boston, 39, who mailed a note in March to Louisville, Ky., police just as he crossed into Canada, informing them that they would never catch him, was arrested in April in Dallas and charged not only as a fugitive but for the first time with three 1994 rapes. Boston's main error (other than returning to the U.S. from Canada) was to lick the envelope containing the taunting note; his DNA allegedly matched evidence from the rapes.

Arrested for murder: Kenneth Wayne Hall Sr. (Gaffney, S.C., March), David Wayne Satterfield (Dallas, March), Shelly Wayne Martin (Baltimore, May), Jason Wayne Petershagen (Alvin, Texas, May), David Wayne Crews (Knoxville, Tenn., June), Mark Wayne Lomax (Houston, April), Jeffrey Wayne Paschall (Draper, Utah, June). Convicted of murder: Mark Wayne Silvers (Anderson, S.C., April), Darren Wayne Campbell (Coquille, Ore., May). Sentenced for murder: Michael Wayne Cole (Goldsboro, N.C., March). Murder conviction overturned and new trial ordered: Michael Wayne Jennings (Contra Costa County, Calif., May).

Melodie Morsicato, 45, was arrested in New Britain, Conn., in March after she crashed through the front door of a Target store at 4 a.m. in her Nissan Stanza and, once inside, continued to drive around the store. And a 37-year-old woman drove into the Ginger Inn Chinese restaurant in Durham, N.C., in April in her Honda SUV and, once inside, continued driving around the dining room. And two men in their early 20s were arrested in El Dorado, Ark., in April for riding their horses into a Wal-Mart and around the store for a few minutes; police said alcohol was involved.

Bell South telemarketer Maria del Pilar Basto became a hero, calling Leonardo Diaz to sell him more minutes for his out-of-minutes wireless phone, and happening to reach him as he was trapped in a blizzard in the Andes Mountains and had almost given up hope of being rescued (Bogota, Colombia). Health inspectors arrested a 57-year-old man and charged him with manufacturing 30 pounds of "bathtub cheese" (Napa, Calif.). Pakistani officials arrested leaders of a tribal council that had ordered an 18-year-old woman gang-raped as revenge against her brother, who had been seen walking beside a woman of higher status (Punjab province, Pakistan). Vandals struck the First United Methodist Church with hate graffiti, but had trouble with Satan ("Satin") and Rebel ("Reble") (Prestonburg, Ky.).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or Newsweird@aol.com, or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)

-- "Dozens" of money-making Web sites have recently been created by parents who post photos they have taken of their adolescent daughters (as young as age 6) frolicking in frilly clothing or swimwear, according to a May New York Daily News report. The sites are operated like pornography businesses, with some free teaser photos, but with $30-a-month "members" getting access to the photo archive and "personal" messages from the "model." Some sites operate chat rooms where members discuss the girls in great detail. One "typical" site has 3,000 daily users, and another had 32 million page views in nine months. The parents say they are helping their daughters with modeling careers or with future college expenses.

-- China's youth and young adults are increasingly beyond the communist government's control in their spending and leisure habits, according to a May dispatch in Toronto's Globe and Mail. Although party leaders still appear on "most-admired" lists, so do Bill Gates and pop stars such as the Taiwanese boy band F4, and older Chinese complain that superficial, amoral kids know more lyrics of Michael Jackson than sayings of Mao Tse-tung. (The government recently banned an imported, 15-episode TV show starring F4, but had to back down because of the boys' popularity among screaming teen-age girls and because of complaints by government TV stations that they needed the advertising revenue the show would bring in.)

Middle-school teacher Timothy Thomure, 46, admitted rubbing a knife blade along a student's finger (and other acts of intimidation) to "loosen (students) up and get them to interact" (Sedalia, Mo., March). Parents of an 8-year-old boy recently asked school officials for counseling help to deal with a lingering 1999 incident in which a teacher disciplined him by dumping a cup of cockroaches on his chest (Houston, April). A middle-school teacher was fired for allegedly throwing a chair at a student during a "behavior management" class (Pflugerville, Texas, May). A Sunday school teacher was convicted of a misdemeanor for counseling a teen-age boy that a good way to curb his masturbation habit was to write "What would Jesus do?" on his penis (Andover, Minn., June).

-- Donna Beck filed a wrongful death claim in April against the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department following the death of her son James Allen Beck in a barricade-shootout last year (in which one deputy was killed). Beck was prepared for a long stand-off, having stockpiled weapons in his home (which caught fire from a tear gas canister, resulting in Beck's death and the destruction of his body).

-- A jury in New York City recently awarded $14.1 million to a 38-year-old woman who was badly maimed after she was hit by a subway train after lying down purposefully on an underground track in a probable suicide attempt. According to a New York Law Journal report summarized in a June New York Times story, the jury found that the train conductor, who had already slowed to 15 mph following a report of someone lying on the tracks, should have been going slower. (The judge lowered the award to $9.9 million after finding that it was 30 percent the woman's fault.) [New York Times, 6-25-02]

-- Scottish train driver Jacqueline Morrison, 29, filed a lawsuit in April against her employer, ScotRail, asking about $25,000 because she bruised a fingernail (which eventually fell off) when she went to adjust her seat in the cab.

-- In April, a court in New South Wales, Australia, awarded a 20-year-old man the equivalent of $525,000 (U.S.) as a result of his being knocked out in a 1995 Narrandera High School fight that he apparently participated in willingly and in which he threw the first punches. Although he was medically cleared the next day, he said serious headaches and neurological problems have developed and that the last seven years have been physically and financially tough for him.

-- June Bond, 34, filed a $300,000 claim against Ventura County (Calif.) because her husband (on a work program for violating probation) stomped a palm frond down into a Dumpster, and it snapped back and severed his ear, causing him, she said, to no longer be affectionate. And Tim and Donna Vogle filed a lawsuit against a restaurant in St. Joseph, Mo., in June, claiming that the owner slapped Mrs. Vogle in the head with a raw steak (after she complained that it was overdone) and that as a result, the couple's sex life has been 75 percent diminished.

Edward O. Green, 24, was arrested in LaPorte, Ind., near the front desk at the sheriff's station shortly after he had arrived to bail out a friend. A deputy had told him to take a seat momentarily, but apparently Green, who was probably inebriated, quickly dozed off and began to snore. As deputies approached to awaken him, they noticed several small plastic bags (which tests later revealed to contain cocaine) in his mouth.

Correction Service of Canada recently touted some prisons' successful model programs of allowing inmates who request it to live in certain wings designated as drug-free zones (even though all sections of all prisons are supposed to be drug-free). And Suffolk County (Mass.) has begun to pay its prison guards a $1,000 yearly bonus if they test clean for illegal drugs. (The programs in both of these stories were enticements to get inmates and guards to agree to random drug-testing, which would otherwise be prohibited.)

A 49-year-old Kingman, Ariz., inmate was killed when he slipped on feces he had expelled in his cell and struck his head on the floor (April). A 60-year-old Tucson, Ariz., model-airplane enthusiast was killed when he was accidentally hit in the chest by his own radio-controlled, 6-pound, 5-foot-wing-span plane (May). A 47-year-old female car passenger was killed when the driver accidentally smashed into a "Welcome to Minnesota" sign on Interstate 94 (April).

Imprisoned Brazilian drug king Fernandinho Beira-Mar somehow arranged for a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile to be delivered to his cell at Bangu One prison before the government confiscated it (June). A high school senior who plagiarized a paper and whose English teacher failed her was nonetheless given a last-minute makeup test in order to graduate, after her parents' lawyer threatened the school district with lengthy litigation (Phoenix, May). A federal environmental official warned of another serious danger of home methamphetamine labs, that they create 5 pounds of dangerous toxic waste for every pound of meth (Bulls Gap, Tenn., May).

Four women were taken in by a man who persuaded them to stand topless at their windows so that cutting-edge global satellite technology could give them at-home mammograms (Algarve region of southern Portugal). The "Barbasol bandit," a 44-year-old convenience-store robber whose "mask" consisted of slathered-on shaving cream, pleaded guilty (Vernon, Conn.). A 280-pound sea lion arose from San Francisco Bay, crossed two runways, and made it to a terminal at SFX airport before security detected it. A Columbus, Ohio, suburb proclaimed that residents with odd street addresses should sit in their yards on Friday nights so that people on the other side of the street can visit them, with the situation reversed on Saturday nights (Worthington, Ohio).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or Newsweird@aol.com, or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)