-- In March, trial began in Lesli Szabo's $1.7 million lawsuit against a Hamilton, Ontario, hospital for not making her 1993 childbirth pain-free. Physicians said that painless childbirth cannot be achieved without the anesthesia's endangering the child, but Szabo said she expected enough comfort to be able to read or knit while the child was being delivered. She admitted to previous run-ins with physicians, explaining, "When I'm in pain, the (words) that come out of my mouth would curl your hair." After five days of trial, the parties reached an undisclosed settlement.

-- David Samarzia, 44, who won a $650,000 judgment against the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Duluth, Minn., as damages for being molested as a kid by former pastor Daniel Reeb, told reporters in February that since the church cannot pay the judgment, he most likely would take over the house of worship himself as payment and turn it into a place to help other sex abuse victims.

-- Following the August death of 122-year-old French woman Jeanne Calment, Canadian Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur, 116, was named by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest person. In an interview with the Associated Press on that occasion, Meilleur said her hobby was finding a girlfriend for her 81-year-old son at the nursing home where they both reside.

-- In November, Howard and Jean Garber of Anaheim Hills, Calif., announced that in spring 1998 they would have a grandchild despite their daughter Julie's having passed away a year earlier at age 28 from leukemia. Julie had harvested 12 eggs before undergoing radiation treatment, and after her death, her parents selected a father and surrogate mother, who announced on Thanksgiving Day that she was pregnant.

-- While locked up in the Kerr County (Texas) jail in November, burglar Bill Wells, 40, met up with burglar Corey Hillger, 22, for the first time in about 22 years. Hillger is Wells' son. And in October near New Orleans, according to sheriff's deputies, George Francois, 72 and drunk, slammed his car into a vehicle driven by another drunken driver, his son, Roland Francois, 35. Both were hospitalized.

-- In January in Union Township, N.J., Phyllis Klingebiel, who said she had always had a "close and loving relationship" with her adult son, Michael, filed a lawsuit against him after he refused to share the winnings on an October Pick 6 lottery ticket that paid $2 million. According to Phyllis, the two had pooled $20 a month each for tickets for more than 10 years, and Michael had called her after the winning ticket was announced to say that "we" had won, but then the next day, he called his mom back to say that the winning ticket happened to be one that he had bought on his own.

-- At his trial in Fort Worth, Texas, in January, William Lee Monroe, 28, admitted he stole a gas stove from an apartment but denied responsibility for the resulting ruptured gas line, explosion and fire that sent two people to the hospital and injured three others. According to his lawyer, Monroe is too dumb to know that an open gas line is dangerous. "Stupid is as stupid does," said the lawyer. (Guilty anyway, said the jury.)

-- Two days after Arthur Downey's arrest in Phoenix in October, during a drug bust in which an 8-year-old boy was detained as Downey's runner, Downey (whose age was not given but who is at least in his 20s) told the Arizona Republic newspaper that, actually, the boy was the boss and that he, Downey, was the runner.

-- John Kieser, 45, was convicted in Philadelphia in January of carrying a weapon on an airliner. While a passenger on a US Airways flight in August 1997, Kieser had uttered the word "hijack," which is illegal to do, but protested later that he was just responding to someone who had addressed him by saying, "Hi, Jack." A search of his carry-on bag revealed a flare gun and 17 fire-starting flares.

-- In November, the police chief of New Haven, Conn., explaining why $23,000 was missing from the police evidence room following an investigation into illegal gambling, said in a report that the money must have accidentally fallen into a garbage can and been thrown out. And Wells Fargo armored-car personnel David Faircloth and Steven Stepp reported that $209,000 missing from their truck in Research Triangle Park, N.C., in December must have accidentally fallen out the open back door and that they don't know what happened to it.

-- According to a December report in PC Week magazine on the recent Comdex computer convention, the exhibitor Prescient Systems installed its new Gotcha video surveillance software to record the construction of its convention booth, as a tool to help sell the software once the convention opened. During the night following the installation, two convention-hall guards, unaware that Gotcha was operating, broke into the Prescient booth and stole two boxes of Pentium chips. The guards were identified on Gotcha's digital tape and arrested the next day.

-- People Who Should Have Kept a Lower Profile: Daniel Thorn, St. John, New Brunswick, on the lam for parole violation, was arrested at a Toronto Blue Jays game in September when he happened to take a seat a few feet away from his parole officer. And Steve Graves, Phoenix, behind in child-support payments, inadvertently revealed his whereabouts to his wife when he got his picture in the newspaper in November for publicly handing in $23,000 that he found on the street. And Neil Ramirez, also behind with child support and moonlighting behind a beard as Santa Claus in December in Brooklyn, N.Y., saw his unwitting toddler-daughter wander up to his lap. The kid recognized him and yelled, "Daddy is Santa!" at which point the ex-wife grabbed some child-support paperwork from her purse and crammed it into Ramirez's Santa suit.

-- In December, a 24-year-old woman was charged with battery in Beloit, Wis., for allegedly hitting her husband with a plant stand, sending him to the hospital for six stitches. According to police, the couple had been married for two months and fought frequently about sex. That night, she was angry that he had retired for the evening after only four episodes.

-- Still More Recent Rages: "Rejected Her Marriage Proposal Rage" (Amy J. Weir, arrested in Vancouver, Wash., in December, suspected of killing her reluctant boyfriend, cutting up his body, and flushing some of the parts down a toilet). "Relatives Staying Too Long Rage" (Jonathan M. Charest, 31, Rochester, N.H., in January allegedly carved open his guest-bedroom door with a chain saw to stop one of the frequent, loud arguments between visiting in-laws). "Road Rage (Variation)" (Jerry Russo, 51, Howell Township, N.J., in December allegedly ran down a car whose occupants had been laughing at him for picking his nose while driving).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- Open Season: Three weeks before a U.S. Marine Corps pilot clipped a ski gondola in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, killing 20 people, a British air force Harrier jet accidentally dropped two half-ton, unarmed bombs on a farm in southern Italy near the town of Pizziferro, narrowly missing the house of Tommaso Giannico.

-- In February, the Hawaii House Agriculture committee approved a bill to legalize the "sport" of cockfighting, provided the roosters wear tiny padded gloves on their feet instead of the traditional metal leg spurs.

-- In September in Des Moines, Iowa, federal prosecutor Kevin Query, 40, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fondling a 12-year-old girl and taking nude photographs of her, owing, he said, to his obsession with females' hair, which he said exuded perfection and beauty. He took showers with the girl, he said, to make sure her hair got washed without tangling, and he photographed her nude to document her beauty in case she later cut her hair. (He said his own marriage ended when his wife cut her hair.)

-- Wells Fargo and MasterCard announced in January that they have installed an automatic teller machine at McMurdo Station in Antarctica (whose winter population is 200). And in November, army engineers in India installed a pay phone atop the Siachen Glacier, on the Pakistan border and home to a recurring Indian-Pakistani battlefield, where the temperature hovers around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit with winds around 70 mph.

-- In September in Center Point, near Birmingham, Ala., Tim and Maxine Smith were convicted of promoting prostitution in their massage parlor, but the women who work for them were not charged because the legislature in that Bible Belt state never got around to making prostitution illegal in Center Point or in several other areas of the state.

-- In August, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning against an electrical cattle-prod-type device called The Stimulator, sold by at least six companies to be self-applied as relief for headaches, back pain, arthritis, stress, menstrual cramps, earaches, sinus, nosebleeds and the flu. Wrote the FDA, "The Stimulator is essentially an electric gas barbecue grill igniter with finger grips."

-- Doctors at the Center for Impotence and Fertility in Rome, Italy, reported in the Dec. 6 issue of The Lancet medical journal that the experimental virility drug alprostadil increased penis size in almost all men who injected it into their urethras but that the rigidity usually subsided within a couple of minutes. Measurements for their work were obtained via a Rigicompt, which shows the pressure exerted by the erection, and by patients' hanging a 750-gram weight to see if their penises could hold it. (A few can support a 1-kilogram weight, which Dr. Ermanno Greco says is "peak virility.")

-- In December in Fort Pierce, Fla., William Alfred Hitt, 71, was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding the federal government of about $450,000 by claiming disability benefits from a World War II hand injury while working full-time as a house painter. Once a month for 22 years, Hitt put on an arm brace, got into a wheelchair, and reported to the local federal building to pick up his "paycheck." (The jury deliberated 12 minutes before finding him guilty.)

-- In order to get around local ordinances that shut down their stripper bars, entrepreneurs in Eureka, Calif., and Ladson, S.C., converted their businesses. Tom Razooly's Tip Top Club became a recreational vehicle promotion facility in November, and now customers sitting under the flashing lights are handed numerous brochures for RVs while they watch women do pole dances. In January, Ladson's Jerry Colombo converted his Club 2010 into the "Church of the Fuzzy Bunny's," (sic) featuring Bible-reading followed by a procession of pastie-wearing dancers.

-- Christina Mack, 35, was arrested for attempted murder in Peoria, Ill., in December, based on a neighbor's statement that Mack had told her she planned to cover a floor with oil or grease so that her boyfriend, who lost his right leg in 1992, would fall down the stairs to his death. He fell, all right, and hit his head, but declined medical assistance. Mack, however, also fell, knocking herself out, but firefighters revived her so the police could take her away.

-- Recent Sympathy Hoaxes: Schoolteacher Jody Sue Stein allegedly accepted thousands of dollars in gifts and disability payments based on an elaborate, false claim that she had a brain tumor (St. Louis, June 1997). Valerie Jones allegedly accepted thousands of dollars in gifts for her nonexistent leukemia-stricken infant daughter (Yorktown Crossing, Va., October). Police officer Allen Blunk, 30, and his wife allegedly raised $43,000 from neighbors for a bone marrow transplant for their 7-year-old daughter (who did not need one) and spent it on themselves (Tulsa, Okla., January).

]

-- In August, the three murder convictions against Michael Pardue, 41, which sent him to prison 24 years ago, were dismissed by the Alabama Supreme Court as the product of a coerced confession (and a sister of one of the victims said she accepts that Pardue is innocent). However, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles said in November that it will not release Pardue, because of three subsequent convictions during those 24 years, for attempting to escape from the prison that was wrongfully holding him.

-- Right Place, Right Time: In October, a federal judge in Albuquerque refused to send convicted casino robber Loretta Martinez, 61, to prison for stealing $7,000 in an April 1997 holdup. The judge noted that, in the interim, that particular casino was found to be without proper state authority and thus was operating illegally at the time of the heist. Martinez was not required to make restitution because, the judge said, that would be like reimbursing a drug dealer for his losses.

-- In February, prosecutors in Boston finally dismissed two counts of arson against Boston University junior Keven Ackerman, despite overwhelming evidence several days after his arrest in June that it was a simple case of mistaken identity. Though he slightly resembles the arsonist (yet is 6 inches taller), Ackerman had no fire-type evidence on his skin or clothes, no motive, no criminal record, and 15 alibi witnesses who were at a party with him all evening long. Also, the only witness against him has a long criminal record himself, and reportedly sometimes falsely accuses people of crimes.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- Slam-Dunkers at Risk: Peter Martin Vella, 18, filed a lawsuit against the city of Milford, Conn., in December, claiming that he ripped his nose open during a city playground basketball game. He said his nostril caught on a protruding hook (on which the net hangs) on the basket rim. And a 20-year-old man was killed in Melbourne, Australia, in January when the brick wall of a garage collapsed; the wall had a basketball backboard attached, and the man had held onto the rim after a slam-dunk, bringing the backboard and the wall down on top of him.

-- In January, the executor of the estate of the late Larry Lee Hillblom agreed to pay out at least $90 million each to four Pacific Islands teen-agers whose DNA showed Hillblom was their father. Hillblom, who founded the DHL international courier firm and died in a 1995 plane crash, was described by one lawyer in the case as a pedophile who obsessively pursued teen-age virgin bargirls in the Philippines and the Micronesian islands. At least one of the children will see quite an income bump this year, from the $125 a month he and his grandmother now earn in Palau.

-- The Washington Post reported in November on the unusual cat obsession of Kristin Kierig in Fairfax County, Va., unusual because the 114 cats that live with her are well-fed, and her townhouse is clean and orderly. More typical stories were of foul-smelling houses in Oshawa, Ontario, in August (120 cats), Edmonton, Alberta, in September (59 cats), and Piedmont, Calif., in October (150 cats, most of them diseased, plus another 250 dead cats in the freezer). Said Piedmont police Capt. Fred Gouveia: "One litter box and 150 cats. You have a problem."

-- In October, the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, which provides defense attorneys on capital punishment cases, briefly suspended lawyer Timothy T. Riddell and a colleague for an inept last-minute appeal in June to spare the life of convicted killer Harold McQueen Jr. Riddell had been lightly punished for another indiscretion the year before, having acknowledged in a child-custody case that he several times had recorded his own solo sexual activity over state-owned videotapes that contain official-record sessions of capital punishment trials. According to newspaper reports, the tapes show Riddell dressed in women's underwear and engaging in, among other things, various activities with his own urine.

-- Latest Indoor Landfill: In November, a 27-year-old woman in Swansea, R.I., was so distraught when she took a peek at the inside of her stepmother's home that she called 911. In most rooms, garbage was piled to the ceiling, and some rooms couldn't be entered because of trash blocking the doors. Apparently, the stepmother and her two sons lived in the house uneventfully, although the boys told police that they didn't like it that the house had been so dirty for a couple of years now. The stepmother was said to have become distraught when some relatives died.

-- Speaking to an audience at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., in October, novelist Kathryn Harrison (who previously had written about her four-year affair with her father) read a letter she had written to her dead grandmother, in which she confessed to sticking her finger into the woman's cremated ashes and licking it off, then doing the same thing with her whole hand. According to the New York Post, "The crowd responded with polite applause."

-- In October, librarians at several Ohio colleges reported that hundreds of their books had been vandalized by someone's clipping photographs from them, all of young boys. Targets included children's books, fine arts books, and health and medical books, and pictures of Anglo, Middle Eastern and Asian boys were taken. The vandal or vandals are still at large.

-- The Weirdo-German Community: In a November letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, three physicians describe the case of a German female hospital-lab technician, age 45, who was treated for 13 episodes of malaria during 1994-1996. Because of the frequency and the fact that the underlying parasite genotypes were different in several of the attacks, the physicians quizzed the patient, who immediately broke down and admitted she had been deliberately injecting herself with malaria-infected blood.

-- In July, the Lomsko Pivo brewery in Lom, Bulgaria, announced that brewmaster Yordan Platikanov has developed a beer that could neutralize any lingering amounts of uranium 134 and strontium in the body after exposure to nuclear radiation. Platikanov said the new beer should be urged on nuclear power plant workers relaxing at the end of a shift.

-- In December, Clearwater, Fla., entrepreneur Victoria Morton announced that she has developed a brassiere that can increase cup size during wear by repositioning fat near the breasts. "If a woman has extra tissue anywhere above her waist, even on her back, she can use this bra to create bigger, firmer breasts," said Morton, 62, in a press release. Morton is the person credited with inventing the "mineral body wrap" weight-loss technique in the 1960s.

-- In November, Abuja, Nigeria, entrepreneur Bawa Garba began marketing Abacha-brand television sets in his country, emblazoned with the image of Nigeria's military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha. Most of the sets will be sold to government agencies, but the public can buy the 21-inch models for about $490, which the average Nigerian would need to work 22 months to earn.

-- In December, veterinary student Beate Broese-Quinn filed a lawsuit against Foothill College in San Jose, Calif., which had flunked her after she declined to do a class assignment to dissect a fetal pig. Said her lawyer, "(Forcing) her to (dissect) is antithetical to everything this country is founded on" because her love of animals is the equivalent to other people's belief in God.

-- According to The Times of London in December, the latest group to take offense at the workings of the world is a federation of meat-shop owners in France, who say they're hurt that reporters routinely refer to vicious murderers as "butchers." Butchers, said the association, are "gentle, peace-loving" "artisans."

-- In November, Oakland (Calif.) Community College student Anita S. Lee filed a sexual harassment complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against psychology professor Joel M. Cohen. She was offended not at the actual content of his Introduction to Psychology class, whose opening session she left after about 10 minutes, deciding it was not for her, but at the warning that Cohen had put on the syllabus, alerting students that "adult themes and topics" would be explored in an "open, frank" and "controversial" way. A member of the National Association for Women in Education, supporting Lee, said, "I read (the warning), and said, 'If I was a student, I'd be scared stiff.'"

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)