-- Overcoming Disabilities: In September, wheelchair-using men in Frankfurt, Germany (no legs), and Pompano Beach, Fla. (missing part of a leg and one eye), attempted bank robberies but were thwarted when a customer and a cop, respectively, rushed in and tipped over the wheelchairs. Also in September, police in East Providence, R.I., arrested Bronna-Jo Carmody for drug trafficking out of her apartment, where she is confined because of her use of crutches and an oxygen machine.

-- On Oct. 3, self-described virgin Doreen Lioy, 41, exchanged vows in San Quentin prison's waiting room with 13-time murderer Richard Ramirez (California's notorious "Night Stalker"). It is the first marriage for both. She wore white; he wore blue. She was raised a Roman Catholic; he is a Satanist.

His side of the aisle was crowded with three relatives; her family refused to attend. After the ceremony, she returned to her houseboat in San Rafael; he returned to death row. Lioy said Ramirez proposed in 1988 but that it wasn't until recently that she thought he was ready to settle down (presumably because he just got out of several years' solitary confinement). Said one observer, "Doreen brings out the best in Richard. They complement each other."

-- Nancy Ho Belli, who wed lawyer Melvin Belli three months before his July death, filed a lawsuit in August in San Francisco against another Belli relative for improperly keeping the skeletal remains of a man named Elmer, which Mr. Belli purchased in the 1940s. A spokesman said the relative would "go to jail before revealing Elmer's whereabouts."

-- Lynne Plaskett, 46, running for re-election as a county councilwoman in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., said on TV's "Maury Povich Show" in September that she was cured of the often-fatal T-cell lymphoma 20 years ago by a small UFO disk that hovered over her bed and scanned her body before disappearing.

-- Stock-car racing legend Richard Petty, running for North Carolina secretary of state, paid a $65 fine in September for improperly bumping a car that wouldn't let him pass in the left lane on Interstate 85. According to a state trooper, Petty said if the driver got in front of him again, he was going to knock his "rear end" off the road. Petty told a reporter, "Now if it had been a NASCAR showdown, [the driver] would have been over in the ditch somewhere."

-- Robert Dorton barricaded himself in his residential motel room in Billings, Mont., in August and held police off for more than 30 hours, firing dozens of shots at them, because he feared authorities were about to take away his 15 pet rats, some of which were reported to be the size of cats. Before the siege, according to animal-control officer Mary Locke, Dorton kissed one of the rats and referred to them as "my brothers." Right then, she said, "I knew what I was up against."

-- An unidentified woman who refused to give her name was plucked from the Atlantic Ocean, about two miles out, near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in September, dressed in street clothes. She told one of the rescuers, "I'm fine, my family is here," and said she had been eating seaweed for the three days she had been in the water. She said she was "in transition," that she had just come up to get some air. She was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital.

-- School bus driver Kerri Lynn Patavino, 28, was convicted of statutory rape in Bridgeport, Conn., in August for having sex with a 14-year-old passenger, who said she put a spell on him and made him lick her blood. According to the boy, the two had sex more than a dozen times, and she sent him love letters signed in blood. Patavino admitted that she is a follower of Wicca, an ancient, witchcraft-practicing religion.

-- Mr. Esyededeea Aesfyza, 46, was sentenced to six months in jail in Washington, D.C., in June for having painted swastikas at more than 100 public places in town in the previous three years. In court, Aesfyza, dressed in a long white robe with a green sash, expounded on his love of swastikas, said he prayed to them and said they are a symbol against circumcision.

-- According to documents obtained by a Canadian magazine in August, Canada's military representative in the United States, Maj. Gen. Donald Williams, billed taxpayers improperly to have his house cleaned and for ordinary civilian clothing and golf course green fees, and Mrs. Williams charged off about $100 for armpit-waxing.

-- In August, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that hundreds of former pro athletes, some of whom, like Joe Montana and Bo Jackson, earned millions of dollars a year, were also paid worker compensation benefits under California's lenient law that makes such payments for injured workers an absolute entitlement. Some other states, by contrast, restrict pro athletes' claims.

-- In June, the government of Saskatchewan said it was unsuccessful in trying to return to the manufacturer almost 1,000 5-inch-long "wooden demonstrators" designed for school condom-education classes. Schools refused to use them, and opponents of the program called for disposal via a "weenie roast."

Wayne Dumond made News of the Weird in 1988 when he won $110,000 in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against an Arkansas sheriff. Vigilantes had castrated Dumond as an alleged rapist, and the sheriff had displayed Dumond's privates in a jar on his desk as a souvenir, which a jury said was unnecessary ridicule. In 1990, the Parole Board recommended Dumond be freed based on DNA evidence that showed it unlikely he had committed the rape, but then-Gov. Bill Clinton, who was a friend of the rape victim's mother, rejected the recommendation. In September 1996, Gov. Mike Huckabee ordered Dumond released, based on that DNA evidence.

Jimmy Hogg, 77, collapsed and died of a heart attack in September on the first hole of a Fife, Scotland, golf course. His four partners paused briefly as an ambulance took the body away, then resumed their round, with one making the required statement, "I'm sure Jimmy would have wanted us to do that." And earlier in the month, Arthur Mooney, 67, similarly died in the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grande Ronde, Ore., but customers continued to play slot machines while the body lay nearby on the floor for an hour.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or 74777.3206@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere.)

-- More Anal-Retentive Suspects: Charinassa Fairley was charged in July with killing her husband in Baton Rouge, La., after police found a checklist that included the notations "Make a prank call to him; offer food and love; make him take a bath with you. Put on gloves" and "Make love like never before for the last time. Lay down after he falls asleep. Pop him." And in September, former Navy Ensign Dana R. Collins, 35, was convicted of the murder of a colleague after police found a to-do list that included the items "Take him out," "Cut him up/take head/fingers and toes," "Put him in 2 bags," and "Drive body to Pennsylvania. Keep head and fingers and toes -- scatter on way back." And after Gary Lynn Davis, 43, was arrested in July and charged with sexual assaults on several children around Adrian, Pa., police found in his home a neatly printed, three-page list of 125 "Boys and Girls I've Been With" that included abbreviations for the acts committed with each.

-- The New York Attorney General's office announced in September that a new state law banning prison inmates from throwing bodily fluids at guards did not cover one pressing problem: Some inmates recently mailed their semen in plastic pouches to their wives or girlfriends as an expression of love, and the envelopes squished open when run through mail-sorting machines, splattering workers. However, since the inmates did not intend to splatter them, the law does not apply.

-- In July, artist Victoria Baldwin prevailed in her lawsuit against the Sydney, Australia, salon Synergy over a bad haircut she got last year. She won $750 plus $234 to compensate her for the hats she had to buy to disguise the cut, which she described as so bad that she looked like Hillary Clinton.

-- Three Texas residents filed a lawsuit in Lufkin, Texas, against the Walt Disney Co., objecting to three recent films marketed to family audiences that they say actually contained subliminal sexual messages: "The Little Mermaid" supposedly has a scene in which a minister has an erection; a voiceover in one scene in "Aladdin" whispers "Take off your clothes"; and "The Lion King" contains a scene in which the word "sex" is formed with clouds, grass and flower petals.

-- Scott Byron Morrison, 47, in jail awaiting trial for the 1995 murder of his ex-wife, filed a $500,000 lawsuit against Calgary (Alberta) General Hospital in August. Morrison claims that if the hospital had properly treated him for a mental illness, he would not have been released and would not, four days later, have killed the woman with a shotgun blast.

-- Earlier this year, unsuccessful Puyallup, Wash., school-board candidate Dale Washam filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Washington state Republican party and others because, he said, the Republicans stole the 1994 "Contract With America" idea from him. Washam said he originated the concept of holding political candidates to their promises when he ran in 1991, 1992 and 1993.

-- Customer Jerry Merich filed a lawsuit against the Starbucks Corp. in July over a 1995 injury in which a Starbucks employee in the company's Littleton, Colo., shop greeted him with a "high five" slap of the hand and caused a shoulder injury which left Merich unable to work for six months.

-- In August, Chris Bowdish's Chevron gas station in Lake Oswego, Ore., offered free mammograms administered by local hospital personnel. Said Bowdish, "You can tune up your body while you're having your car tuned up."

-- A Minneapolis firm is marketing an electronic device that allows people to see whether they have the proper temperament to become parents in that it "cries" at random intervals (more often on the "cranky" setting than on the "easy" setting) and stops only when the "parent" reacts properly. To stop the crying, a probe must be held in place for up to 35 minutes to simulate the time required to feed, bathe and comfort the crying infant. Shaking or tilting the device causes it to register an "abuse" signal.

-- At a trade fair in Vienna, Austria, in August, body-paint artist Karl Machhamer demonstrated his design for a skin-tight latex condom, custom-painted onto a penis. He plans to market bottles with enough paint for three applications, along with instructions, for about $8. The main drawback is the seven-minute wait while the paint dries.

-- In July, Philadelphia inventor Bill Killian introduced the Lawn Buddy message machine, in which a 5-inch-tall mechanical animal arises from a flower pot placed by the front door, announces that the resident is away, and invites the visitor to say a message. Killian says it will be on the market in early 1997 for about $30.

-- Earlier this year and backed by $100,000 in federal, state and private grants, Kodiak, Alaska, photographer Marion Stirrup developed PlanTea, a nutrient-rich mix of kelp, fish bone meal, dried beet root powder and other ingredients, which she touts as a superior plant food. Stirrup says the list of ingredients came to her telepathically from her 16-inch palm plant, georgiane (which prefers its name spelled with a lower-case G, Stirrup said).

-- Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (7) The person believed to be missing and dead but who attends his own funeral and shocks the mourners, as did Dulal Chandra Das, who turned up in October after having merely gone off from his home in Calcutta, India, to pray for a while. And (8) the episodes of just-desserts shootings in hunting season, as when Clifford Shellman allegedly shot to death another hunter in May near Blooming Grove, N.Y., after the two inadvertently coaxed each other closer together by sounding their turkey lures.

-- In August, a 60-year-old stray-dog caretaker was killed in Los Angeles when four large sacks of dog food fell on top of her in her home. And in August, the Ontario Labour Ministry issued a warning after two professional divers drowned in June and July in ponds while searching for golf balls for Sports Quest Inc., which runs a $500,000-a-year business of reselling "experienced golf balls." And Basilio Re died in the village of Vigogna, Italy, in July, during a party to celebrate his 100th birthday, when a gust of wind blew off his hat and he suffered a heart attack chasing it.

-- Wayward Principals: On Sept. 3, the principal of Sylvia Elementary School in Beckley, W.Va., George S. Meadows, 55, was suspended after being arrested for prostitution. (He was wearing a wig and dressed as a woman at the time.) On Sept. 4, the principal of Charles Brush High School in Lyndhurst, Ohio, Walter Conte, 50, was arrested and charged with clandestinely videotaping 16 cheerleaders as they changed into swimsuits for a party at his lakefront home.

-- In August, the Copenhagen (Denmark) Zoo added an exhibit to its primate collection, amid the baboons and chimpanzees: a Homo sapiens couple who will go about their daily business in a Plexiglas-walled natural habitat consisting of kitchen, living room, bedroom and workshop, as well as a computer, television, telephone, stereo and fax machine. Said a Zoo official, "We are all ... monkeys in a way, but some people find that hard to accept."

-- The Lazarus Society in Cologne, Germany, recently released a "Confession by Computer" CD, with a menu of the 200 most-frequent sins and a separate program to allow the particularly iniquitous to customize the sins to which they will confess. Appropriate penances are prescribed, as well as a link to priests via the Internet. The German Conference of Bishops quickly denounced the disk. And in June, Rev. David E. Courter of the Independent Catholic Church International told an Associated Press reporter he would soon celebrate Mass on-line and allow people to take communion via computer by placing unleavened bread in front of their monitors.

-- In April, Eastern Orthodox monks in the former Soviet republic of Moldova signed a contract with the Exiton corporation, one of the leading builders of the severely depressed Moldovan economy. Under the contract, Exiton would help support a monastery and assist the monks in recovering lost icons, and the monks would pray for Exiton's bottom line.

-- Completely separate police investigations began in August in Lake Helen, Fla., and Woburn, Mass., after parents complained that their children had been baptized without permission at local churches (Central Fellowship Baptist in Florida and Anchor Baptist in Massachusetts). Anchor allegedly lured housing-project kids with a promise of pizza, which the kids say they never received.

-- In May, Social Security Commissioner Shirley Chater went against an agency policy by reassigning a Social Security number based on a religious complaint. Eric and Maria Bessem's toddler had been assigned a number containing 666 (the biblical "mark of the beast") and protested by refusing to claim the child on income tax forms. A Pentecostal pastor near the Bessems' home in Orange County, Calif., has a zip code of 92666 but says he accepts it because it is not a personal identifier like the Social Security number.

-- Recently, the All-Merciful Saviour Russian Orthodox Monastery realized it needed to raise money through an entrepreneurial venture. Since the order is located on Vashon Island near Seattle, it decided to make and market four blends of gourmet coffee, at $20 to $30 a pound, including its signature blend, Abbot's Choice.

-- At a preliminary hearing in July in Guthrie, Okla., a woman said Jimmy Don Branun assaulted her in his mobile home and then changed into black pantyhose, a garter belt, women's underpants, a training bra, and white, high-heeled shoes. The victim ran out the door and escaped when Branun was not able to keep up with her in his high heels.

-- Tom Murphy of Pittsburgh sold his 30 homing pigeons last year after an injury left him unable to care for them. Two were sold to buyers in Amarillo and Austin, Texas. In August, the two escaped and flew back to Murphy, making the 1,500 miles in about five days.

-- In August at the Loyal, Wis., Corn Fest, Steven Schiller, 24, and Kevin Froba, 25, won prizes at the familiar strength game in which a contestant slams a mallet onto a device that causes a weight to ascend and ring a bell. However, they later complained to the game operator about the quality of their prizes, and an altercation ensued. Schiller and Froba were hospitalized after the operator hit each of them in the head with the mallet.

-- In May, Karen Watson, 20, gave birth to a baby boy in Albany, Ore., which she said took her completely by surprise, though she said she had been suffering from anemia. Of course, this was not the first case of a woman's unexpectedly giving birth, but Watson is a pre-med biology major at the University of California, Davis, with plans to go into family practice.

-- Latest Postal Service-Firearms News: In August in New Egypt, N.J., letter-sorter Rodger Johnson, 44, was arrested after a search of his booby-trapped home revealed explosives, gas grenades, 85 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. And in Paterson, N.J., two days later, Postal Service mechanic Danny Isku was arrested for shooting his supervisor in the hand, and news reports indicated Isku was a member of a Paterson postal workers' gun club.

-- In May, an unidentified co-pilot on a Danish Maersk airlines flight from Birmingham, England, to Milan, Italy, with 49 passengers aboard had an anxiety attack over France because he was afraid of heights. He later resigned.

-- In September, a man was crushed to death on a stairway at the Sammis Real Estate and Insurance office in Huntington, N.Y., in the process of stealing the office's 600-pound safe; he apparently violated the cardinal rule of stairway-safe-hauling by standing on a step lower than the one the safe is on. (And it turned out the safe was empty.) And in Tucson, Ariz., a man intending to commit suicide in September is still alive. He turned on the gas in his trailer home and sat down to go in peace, but then decided to smoke a last cigarette. An explosion followed, and he was hospitalized with first- and second-degree burns.

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