-- An Airplane "Black Box" for the Home: In July, The Dallas Morning News reported on Arlington, Texas, landscaper Alan Weaver's new in-home, half-inch-thick steel box, called the Safe-N-Side, which is large enough for a person to ride out a tornado in. The largest model is 48 (inches) by 40 by 27, weighs 1,300 pounds, and sells for just under $2,000; Weaver says it will resist most handgun bullets and a 2-by-4 going 100 mph.

-- Who Cares?: A pre-trial hearing was held in March in the $3 million lawsuit by a Lehman Brothers investment banker against a Lehman Brothers bond trader for hitting him between the eyes with his tee shot at the Rockaway Hunting Club in Lawrence, N.Y.

-- In July, the Hanover Park, Ill., Village Board raised everyone's property taxes 5 percent for the next 15 years solely to pay off a $7.2 million judgment against the village for a 1988 traffic accident. Driver Thomas Redlin was injured by an abutment on the road that he said should have carried a warning sign, and he won his lawsuit despite the fact that he did not have a proper license and had been drinking.

-- The owner of MIT Tank Wash Inc. of Savannah, Ga., pleaded guilty in June to willful violation of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation in the death of an employee. The company cleans truck-based tanks of their chemical or food cargo residues, and apparently the company's normal procedure for using one poisonous cleaning substance was merely that the employee would enter the tank, swab the insides with the poisonous cleaner while holding his breath, climb a ladder to the top of the tank, and take a gulp of fresh air before descending again for more cleaning.

-- A University of Michigan School of Nursing study, published in June, reported that almost half of fifth-graders at two low-income schools in Milwaukee reported having had sexual intercourse, compared to 6 percent who smoked cigarettes and 3 percent who drank alcoholic beverages.

-- Leonard Ruckman, 40, was arrested in Stotts City, Mo., in June and charged with assault outside a bar following a dispute over car keys. In a fit of pique, Ruckman allegedly slashed open a female acquaintance's breast and removed her implant.

-- Pedophile Rights: In April, inmate John Gay filed a lawsuit against the Oskaloosa County (Fla.) Correctional Institution to recover about 100 sexually explicit photos of young boys confiscated from him; he claims that he needs them to prepare his appeal. And Robert H. Ellison, 65, of Chicago, arrested in the May FBI "Overseas Male" sting, asked a judge for the prompt return of his child sex videos because he feared he would molest more children if he could not relieve his urges through pornography. (The judge accomplished the same goal by jailing Ellison without bond.)

-- In April in Providence, R.I., Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent Sr. pleaded guilty to an organized-crime charge and took a 10-month prison sentence. He said he pled guilty only because an intestinal illness would have made it impractical for him to sit through a lengthy trial: "How can I go to trial with [the 40 to 50 daily] enemas I got to take?"

-- Kentucky Ku Klux Klan leader and grandmother Velma Seats, asked by a New Yorker writer for a March story why she wasn't wearing her robe that day: "We've had a lot of events lately," she said. "The cleaning bills will kill you."

-- In February, escaped Tennessee inmate James Sean Stuart, 30, was captured on Interstate 65 near Athens, Ala., after leading dozens of police officers at speeds up to 155 mph. Stuart told police he had wanted to turn himself in and was driving fast because he "wanted to get far enough ahead so there wouldn't be any question" that he was giving up on his own.

-- Joan Casavant, 36, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and restitution for a four-year fraud scheme in which she placed, and collected money for, bogus employees on the city of Edmonton, Alberta, payroll. According to her psychologist, Dr. Al Riedieger, Casavant engaged in the scheme "to maintain her dignity in a crumbling social circumstance, asking her employer to demonstrate its affection for her by unconsciously allowing her to take this money."

-- Rosevelt and Linda Matthews of New Bern, N.C., credit their dog, Roc, with awakening them by ringing the doorbell at 4 a.m. after lightning started a fire in their house in June. (Roc had not been trained to do it, but the couple said he had rung the doorbell once before.) And Tipper, a cat belonging to Gail Curtis of Tampa, Fla., was rescued in July while choking on his flea collar when, in the struggle, he knocked a telephone off a table and accidentally hit the speed-dial button for 911.

-- Out of Control: The newspaper feature Earthwatch reported in July that Brazilian angler Nathon do Nascimento choked to death on the Maguari River when a 6-inch-long fish jumped into his mouth while he was yawning. And aircraft were grounded for three hours one day in July at the airport in Vaernes, Norway, because a queen bee had landed there, drawing about 25,000 bees with her. And power outages were reported in Toledo, Ohio, in June (millions of mayflies smothering a power plant), Spotsylvania County, Va., in July (black snake short-circuiting a power line); and Charlottesville, Va., in July (iguana on a power line).

Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (3) the robber who, having taken out a piece of identification to distract the clerk, grabs the money but forgets to take back the ID, as an Evansville, Ind., liquor store robber did in July after presenting his driver's license as proof of age. And (4) the mass march or ceremony for peace and brotherhood which erupts into violence, as did a concert for peace, unity and voter registration in New York City in June.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or 74777.3206@compuserve.com.)

-- According to a report in The People newspaper in London in July, British spies who set up high-tech clandestine cameras to gain intelligence on the Irish Republican Army discovered that the cameras also recorded much kinky sex. The newspaper said the British government is planning to use some sex scenes, including episodes in which IRA leaders have sex with the wives of their jailed comrades, in an upcoming propaganda campaign.

-- Kids Lacking "Quality Time": Brian Smith, 42, was charged in Cassville, Mo., in July with locking his three kids in 55-gallon drums during the day while he was at work. And Jeffrey Hoveland, 50, pleaded guilty in St. Paul, Minn., in July to using an electrified dog collar to punish his two sons, ages 9 and 11. And Jan and Joyce Duplantis were arrested in New Orleans in June and charged with forcing their two female wards, ages 8 and 9, to live outside in a crude playhouse so as not to mess up their apartment.

-- In June, the Houston Health and Human Services Department warned of a local diarrhea outbreak caused by cyclospora. The department said two clusters of cases had been reported, the first among a group of executives of the natural gas industry meeting at a local club.

-- In June, the Arkansas State Medical Board ordered Waldo, Ark., family physician Jewel Byron Grimmett Jr. to start keeping written records. At a hearing, Grimmett told board members that he has kept all patient histories, including prescription records, only in his head for the 35 years he has been practicing medicine. Grimmett avoided license revocation because he is Waldo's only doctor and because, according to him, he treats about half his patients for free.

-- In March, after the parents of Huang Pin-jen, 27, and Chang Shu-mei, 26, of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, refused to bless their wedding, the couple opted for suicide. They drove a car off a cliff (but survived), tried to hang themselves (but survived), and leaped from atop a 12-story building (but survived, landing on an adjacent roof, suffering multiple fractures). In April, the parents reconsidered.

-- On May 23, the bodies of two Dominican Republic nationals were discovered, one near JFK Airport in Long Beach, N.Y., and the other about 10 miles from Miami (Fla.) International Airport. Both had grease marks, and after investigations, police in both places said they believed the men had fallen from the wheel wells of airliners, where they had stowed away hoping for illegal entry into the United States.

-- Fifteen New York City police officers were indicted in July and as many as 700 other city employees are under investigation for not paying federal taxes. The cops had bought fake-legal-gibberish documents (for $900 to $2,000 each) from scam artists who had convinced them that, despite the fact that they were police officers, they could legally claim not to be subject to government jurisdiction. (In the document, the officers were "nonimmigrant nonresidents" who are "alien to the United States.") In each case, the city payroll office unquestioningly accepted the form and did not withhold federal tax, in some cases for up to four years.

-- Oslo, Norway, police inspector Leif Ole Topnes admitted in July that "our body-search techniques aren't good enough." He was commenting on a male prisoner's having been locked up for two weeks in the women's jail despite having been "body-searched" at the Sola Airport and then "strip-searched" at the jail. The man was wearing female makeup and had hormone-treatment breasts, but Topnes admitted that otherwise he was obviously a man and should have been detected as such.

-- Jeffrey J. Pyrcioch, 19, and an alleged accomplice were arrested in West Lafayette, Ind., in May on theft and fraud charges. Pyrcioch allegedly cashed checks that he had written with disappearing ink, apparently believing the checks would be blank by the time they were presented to the bank for collection. However, traces of ink remained, and police said Pyrcioch would have a better chance of getting away with it if he had not used checks pre-printed with his name and account number on them.

-- In April, Edward Lopez, 19, and Eric Harb, 18, were arrested in Lincolnwood, Ill., after police were called to a Summit department store. According to a clerk, the two men had approached him and asked politely if he would permit them to pay for clothes with a stolen credit card.

-- Columbus, Ohio, police arrested Timothy E. Lebo, 39, and Charles J. Kinser, 32, around 5 a.m. on June 5 and charged them with ripping an ATM out of a bank's wall and attempting to carry it away in the trunk of their car. When questioned by police, the pair tried to convince officers that the ATM was a washing machine.

-- In March, in Clawson, Mich., and in January, in Federal Way, Wash., parents mistakenly packed cans of Bud Ice beer in their elementary schoolchildren's lunchboxes. They said they confused the Bud Ice with a Hawaiian Punch can (Clawson) and a holiday can of Pepsi (Federal Way).

-- Ms. Terry Klemann, 42, received several traffic citations and was ticketed for filing a false report after her car rammed two pickup trucks in Belleville, Ill., in July. An apparently serious Klemann steadfastly maintained that her cocker spaniel, Mutzie 2, had gotten behind the wheel and maneuvered the car into the trucks. Later, she told the Belleville News-Democrat that several years ago the original Mutzie had driven Klemann's friend's car into a tree in New York City.

-- Although Los Angeles police-beating victim Rodney King was convicted in Alhambra, Calif., in July of misdemeanor hit-and-run for injuring his estranged wife by driving away while her arm was still reaching into his car, he was acquitted of more serious charges, including assault with a deadly weapon. Outside the courtroom, a triumphant King told reporters, "I'm going to Disneyland."

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or 74777.3206@compuserve.com.)

-- In June, radio station WWAX-FM in the Duluth, Minn., suburb of Hermantown began an all-commercials format. Said general manager J. Thomas Lijewski, commercials are an "art form that deserves to be respected." The station will air vintage ads, odd local and national ads, and bloopers, in addition to revenue-producing commercials.

-- In July in Dadeville, Ala., Mr. Gabel Taylor, 38, who had just prevailed in an informal Bible-quoting contest, was shot to death by the loser. �

-- In an April Associated Press story, Levent Yueksel's and wife Sherri Kane's 32-seat Dardanelles restaurant in Philadelphia was profiled, not for its food but for its attitude: According to a sign in the window, the restaurant refuses to serve "negative people" (who are also referred to in the sign as "assholes"). Say Yueksel and Kane, that includes people who smoke, who are rude, who demand their food in a hurry, or who want the music turned down. The owners say they insist on respect "for the people who feed you."

-- The magazine Tokyo Weekender, reporting in late 1995 on the specialty-bra rage in Japan, cited The Triumph Co.'s "Body-Warmth Bra Two-Cup Ozeki." As padding, the bra contains a waterproof pocket sealed with a cork stopper and which comes with about 40 cc's of sake, which will warm to body temperature in about an hour.

-- Malaysian Gurcharan Singh announced in April that he was marketing a breakthrough, $40 "disposable circumcision device" approved by Muslim religious authorities. It is described as resembling a corkscrew and is called the Tara Klamp.

-- Recently, Budapest, Hungary, novelty shopkeeper Ferenc Kovacs, 45, introduced condoms that, when unrolled, play one of two tunes ("Arise, Ye Worker" or "You Sweet Little Dumbbell").� And Marc Snyder of Oakland, Calif., has marketed a $3.95 talking condom using similar technology but with message options ("You turn me on" or "I love you" or "Thank you for your business"). And a food company executive in Poland, Dariusz Napierala, announced in May that he will soon offer a "tourist survival kit" of canned meat, plastic utensils, tea and a condom.

-- Frank Fradella of Boynton Beach, Fla., charges $50 for custom-made, two-page love letters and poetry ("My words ... on your lips"). In February, a Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reporter found several male customers who praised Fradella's work even though their women had left them.

-- In June, federal inmate Arthur Morrison, who had served 46 months of his 51-month sentence for threatening former girlfriends, finally got his wish to withdraw his guilty plea to those charges, to go to trial, and to be his own lawyer. New York City prosecutors said their evidence (including audiotapes) is still overwhelming and that they would seek a sentence of at least 15 years. Morrison acknowledged that his chances of prevailing at trial were slim.

-- Earlier this year, Michael J. Lewis Sr., serving time in Missouri for a gas station robbery, called the county attorney's office just out of curiosity, to find out why he had never been prosecuted for a 1993 bank robbery with which he had been charged. The prosecutor discovered that the file had been misplaced and that only a few months remained to bring Lewis to trial before the statute of limitations would run out. In June, Lewis, already serving 10 years, plea-bargained to another 10.

-- Last year, at a reception for the African/African-American Summit Inc. conference in Senegal (a conference attended by Jesse Jackson and the late Ron Brown), the Club Med Senegal resort staged a skit in which two white staff members appeared in blackface, with white lips, garish clothes and white gloves to perform a musical number, and a riot nearly ensued. (In May 1996, offended organizations and individuals filed a $5 million lawsuit against Club Med in New York City.)

-- In March in North Adams, Mass., on a public-access cable TV program about papier-mache masks, Ms. Royce Patton, 28, abruptly changed the subject and accused a former neighbor of allowing two of her kids to have sex. Patton named the family, ran a video of all of the woman's seven children, and used obscenities in describing them. The former neighbor said the dispute with Patton was really over loans of money and a bottle of suntan lotion.

-- In April, a 17-year-old boy drowned in the indoor pool at the Henry VIII Hotel in a suburb of St. Louis, Mo. The boy had jumped in with several others, but no one noticed that he had gone under because the pool's water was so murky that visibility was only three to four feet.

A senior aide to Liberian factional leader Charles Taylor, explaining to The New York Times in April why this year's civil war is more civil than earlier ones: "In the past, fighters would rip out people's intestines and use them to string up roadblocks. This time there has been none of that."

When News of the Weird first mentioned Corky Ra's Summum Inc. in 1988, the Salt Lake City company had just begun the business of mummifying dead pets and had only the dream of someday mummifying dead people, which Ra figured he could do for $7,000 ($18,000 for a mummified bronzed statue). According to a June 1996 story in the San Jose Mercury News, Ra has so far serviced three dozen dogs, cats and birds, and has a customer list of 137 humans (the oldest of which is 54) who want someday to be mummified. His chief associate supposedly has practiced on more than 2,000 roadkill animals and on 30 cadavers purchased from a medical school. The price for humans now starts at $30,000, and bronzing could run into six figures.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or 74777.3206@compuserve.com.)