-- After a two-week hearing in January in Washington, D.C., outraged federal judge Royce Lamberth threatened to hold two Cabinet secretaries, Interior's Bruce Babbitt and Treasury's Robert Rubin, in contempt of court for failing to turn over records of federal trust funds held for Native Americans -- records that Lamberth originally ordered released in November 1996. Among the excuses offered by the two departments is that a federal records depository in the Southwest is contaminated with rat droppings, and researchers will not enter it because of the fear of the deadly hantavirus.

-- In December, workers for an AIDS awareness campaign constructed and inflated a condom as long as 10 football fields and large enough inside to allow dance celebrations. The condom was part of a parade in Cali, Colombia.

-- In December in St. Paul, Minn., John O. Sexton, 43, was sentenced to 45 days in jail for cutting off 50 strands of a woman's ponytail on a busy street in August (after being rebuffed in his offer to purchase the locks). He apologized for his "urges about hair" and vowed to get counseling.

-- In Medina, Ohio, in December, David Donathon was sentenced to a year in jail for telephone harassment, specifically, calling people up and asking them if their feet stink. According to his lawyer, Donathon "realizes what he does is wrong, but he is unable to stop himself." And two weeks earlier in Belleville, Ill., James Dowdy, 27, was sentenced to six years in prison for his second offense of entering women's homes and stealing their socks. And in Boulder, Colo., in May, a 28-year-old man was charged with harassment and assault of four women with whom he struck up conversations on the street and whose feet he eventually forcibly fondled. According to one victim, "(The man's) eyes rolled back in his head like he was really excited."

-- In July in Telford, England, in the first court case of what prosecutors called "crush videos," Keith Twogood, 44, was fined about $3,000 for importing two tapes from the United States featuring nearly nude women in stiletto heels, stepping on mice and frogs. A British animal-protection advocate said he "just can't imagine the market for this," but a New York animal-rights spokesperson said he thought the motive was a "foot-fetish type of thing" rather than deliberate cruelty to animals.

-- Worm Rage: Rawle Trotman, 21, Simcoe, Ontario, August, charged with stabbing a fellow angler in an argument over a worm. Sissy Rage: Brian Hertzog, 18, Reading, Pa., December, charged with shooting his sister (leaving her paralyzed below the waist) because she beat him in a wrestling match. Teacher's Rage: Deena Murdoch, 52, Carrollton, Texas, December, was charged with choking a fourth-grade boy because he sneaked a peak at her grade book.

-- Price-Check Rage: An unidentified "big blond" female customer was sought by Oakland, Mich., police in December for allegedly punching out a 55-year-old female clerk at a Hudson's department store when the clerk rolled her eyes at the customer's request for a price check on a dress. "Don't you ever roll your eyes at me," were the last words the clerk recalled before being decked. Yuletide Rage: William Fagyas, 82, was charged with stabbing his wife, Eleanor, 84, in the chest in Crown Point, Ind., in December because, according to police, she "was not in the Christmas spirit."

-- Only-in-California Rage: In December, Ms. Cathomas Starbird, a member of the school board of Sausalito, Calif., pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for allegedly punching, jumping on and biting another woman in April 1998. According to police, Ms. Starbird, her husband, and the other woman had gone out for dinner to celebrate the husband's birthday, and upon returning to the couple's houseboat, Ms. Starbird suggested sex and became furious when the other woman refused to perform oral sex on Ms. Starbird's husband.

-- In November, Pope John Paul II announced that the year 2000 would be a special holy year in which Catholics can obtain special "indulgences" for their sins that act, in a sense, as wild cards to speed up their ascension to heaven. According to policy dating back to the 16th century, Catholics who visit the sick or the jailed, or who contribute to charities, or who fast from smoking or drinking for as little as one day, may get special dispensation, as long as the act is accompanied by penitence.

Globe and Mail- Reuters, 11-28-98]

-- Roman Catholic Monsignor Ignatius McDermott, 88, blessed a Dell laptop computer in December at his headquarters in Chicago, which he believed to be a first (though priests have blessed animals, houses, Harley Davidsons and other things). "Maybe this will get (the younger generation's) attention," he said.

-- A November Chicago Sun-Times dispatch described the problems encountered by Anita and Jacob Martin, who moved from Daviess County, Ind., five years ago in an attempt to build an Amish community in Poreby, Poland, about 20 miles east of Warsaw. Jacob told a reporter that the couple had made zero converts and faced imminent local pressure from less-strict Mennonite missionaries from Pennsylvania. The couple's lack of success has made Jacob believe that the Amish rules about dress and socializing might be a little too strict.

-- Number Two in the News: In January, police in New Waterford, Nova Scotia (population 8,000), were investigating a suspected serial defecator who had soiled three nontoilet locations during the holiday season, including the floor of a recreation center. Also in January, Donald S. Spaeth, 36, of Ballwin, Mo., pleaded guilty to breaking into six cars on the lots of dealerships and leaving feces on the leather seats. He was sentenced to probation and ordered to continue his medication.

-- Continuing an occasional reader-advisory series of recent stories that were reported elsewhere as real news but which were probably just made up: A November New York Times report on the difficult job of retitling American movies for the Asian market came with a list of wacky examples. (One of the tamer ones: "Leaving Las Vegas" became, in Chinese in Hong Kong, "I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute.") However, as was revealed in December by The Washington Post, the list of examples was composed by an Internet humor Web site and had been mistakenly commingled with serious material on the topic and never investigated by America's "newspaper of record."

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

-- According to a January Boston Globe feature, Mr. Wai Y. Tye, 82, who retired a while back after 32 years' service with Raytheon Corp., has lived without complaint in the same 200-square-foot room in the downtown Boston YMCA continuously since 1949. "When you're busy working and playing tennis," he told a reporter, "when you come home, you don't have much time to take care of an apartment." The bathroom is down the hall to the left, and he said he does not mind the exposed pipes, the linoleum floor and having to use a hot plate.

-- Faced with many retirements and a precipitous drop in new blood, U.S. Catholic officials have stepped up priest-recruiting to include irreverent advertisements to appeal to "generation X" men, according to a December Washington Post report. The Providence, R.I., diocese, for example, recently ran an ad campaign on MTV. And in January, a group of British churches, led by the Church of England, began a campaign to draw young parishioners by displaying Jesus Christ as the late Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. Said one priest associated with the campaign, "We want to get away from the wimpy Nordic figure in a white nightie."

-- Radio Television Russia was flooded with protest letters and demonstrations in December when it was forced to drop the U.S. soap opera "Santa Barbara," which had built a large following. A batch of 65 episodes had been held up at the border because RTR had no money to pay the import fees. One suggestion for Russia's problems was advanced in the December-released book "ABCs of Sex" by nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who wrote that exporting virgin Russian women to men in other countries could somehow raise $750 million a year and that promoting sex for tourists (for example, having hotel mini-bars stocked with sex toys) would bring in much more.

-- A side effect of the international economic embargo of Iraq is the transfer of much of its supply of medical care from physicians to parapsychologists, who "heal" with electromagnetic therapy at half the price that doctors charge (even so, about 80 cents per visit, which is about one-fourth the monthly salary of a government clerk). According to one healer interviewed by the Associated Press, "extensive reading" was all the training he needed to find "gaps" in a patient's magnetic halo so that he could focus energy to that spot, a process that he said cured the gangrene of his first patient (his uncle).

-- Last year, the state historian of Florida kicked off a millennial project to name the 2,000 all-time greatest Floridians, with the deadline for nominations at Dec. 31, 1998. She recently announced a four-month extension, however, because nominators had been able to come up with only several hundred great Floridians.

-- In January, the Saguaro High School (Scottsdale, Ariz.) newspaper editor, Sam Claiborn, wrote an editorial critical of the culture of violence of football heroes, who he said often turn out to be drunks and spouse-abusers. An unnamed member of the school's football team took offense and beat Claiborn up, for which he was suspended.

-- Brad Davis, 25, of Milledgeville, Ga., was hospitalized in December after a hunting accident. He had chased a raccoon into a tree for his companion to shoot, but when hit, the 15-pound animal fell about 60 feet directly on top of Davis, knocking him out cold and breaking three vertebrae.

-- A 72-year-old man was killed in a robbery attempt in Jonesboro, Ga., in December, and after giving a false cover story, his 76-year-old wife finally admitted how it happened. The couple apparently had a habit of picking up men on the highway and bringing them home for sex with the wife so the husband could watch, but this particular guest wanted money more than he wanted sex. (A suspect is in custody.)

-- According to statistics published in November in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, 53 percent of people in France don't bathe or shower daily, 50 percent of men don't use deodorant daily, and 40 percent of men don't change underwear daily (and 15 percent admit wearing the same pair three days straight). According to an expert on French culture, hygiene is considered merely "the hidden face of beauty" in France, and because it is invisible to others, it isn't a priority.

-- In rural Australia south of Brisbane, near the coastal resort of Byron Bay, reside wild white bushmen known locally as "ferals," who closely resemble the savages from the movie "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome," who reek of stale body odor and "bush herbs," and some of whom carry pet rats in their severely matted hair. While the ferals' occasional forays annoy residents and tourists, other locals are thankful for them for environmental reasons, according to a report in the Times of London in October. Said one local, "Americans come out here and go, 'Yuck, everyone's so dirty (so let's not even think of developing this place).' The ferals have saved a lot of forest."

-- Latest Punishments in Afghanistan: On Jan. 15, six Taliban government soldiers had their right hands and left feet amputated for robbery, and a 60-year-old man had a 15-foot wall knocked over on top of him by a tank, in a death sentence for sexually molesting a boy. (The man was knocked unconscious but came to, and since he survived, under Taliban law, he was set free.) In November, a man was allowed by a judge to lawfully slit the throat of the man who killed his son, even though Taliban officials had recommended mercy.

-- A December Associated Press dispatch reported on Seoul's Korean Air Service Academy, which teaches "international manners" to help make South Korean companies more competitive in the quest for foreign customers. A particular problem, according to the Academy's general manager, is that "Koreans have difficulty smiling. Our ancestors had the philosophy that the serious person is better than the smiling one." As smiling increases in large companies, he said, citizens have begun to demand it from their government servants, such as tax collectors.

Latest Storage News: In December, Erie County (Pa.) inmate Larry Eugene DeFoy, 52, was charged with possessing escape tools when a routine X-ray revealed nail clippers and a bolt stored in a sock inside his rectum. He had been chipping away at a concrete block for about three weeks but had made hardly any progress. And on the same day in Durham, N.C., Freddy Farrington, 23, was charged with drug possession and other crimes after a police doctor administered relaxants that encouraged Farrington to unclench his buttocks (which he had been tensing since his arrest) and pass a chunk of cocaine in a plastic bag from his rectum.

(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.)

-- According to a December report in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, U.S. Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana brings his own utensils to a Capitol barber shop (scissors, comb, electric razor) to have his hair cut. Though no one would say for sure, reporters speculated that Burton does this for the same reason (fear of AIDS) that he has stopped ordering soup in restaurants and stopped going to the House gym around the time that colleague and gym regular Barney Frank revealed he is gay.

-- A December Newhouse News Service dispatch reported on the new fascination with tattooing among some younger evangelical Christians, who decorate themselves contrary to the teachings of the book of Leviticus, which in the last millennium was cited as the basis of calling tattooing "a form of deviltry." (On the other hand, supporters point out, the books of Exodus and Revelation describe holy symbols on the bodies of believers.) A religious female graduate student in California, interviewed for the article, said that among her tattoos was an angel, on her butt.

-- In 1997, four years after being convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl, inmate Graylon Bell won $200,000 from a jury against the Indiana Department of Correction for being raped by his cellmate at a Plainfield, Ind., youth facility. In December 1998, Bell and the girl's family reached a settlement in her lawsuit to get part of the money. (Only $31,500 remained, after lawyers' fees, of which she will receive $26,500.)

-- At a September meeting of the Republican Party in Lawrence, Kan., a conservative faction beat back a challenge from moderates and retained control of the party. At the start of the meeting, when attendees realized there was no U.S. flag to which they could offer the traditional pledge of allegiance, the chairman solved the dilemma by unfurling a roll of 32-cent flag stamps at the front of the room.

-- Tampa, Fla., nursing home resident John Yerger, 93, after realizing he had been duped into paying a $5,000 fee to collect his alleged $1 million winnings in a Canadian lottery and then cooperating with authorities in an attempt (unsuccessful) to sting the culprits: "It may have cost me $5,000, but this is the most excitement I've had in a long time."

-- Greensboro, N.C., city council member Keith Holliday, explaining in January why the city was forced to hire a public relations firm to deal with its current water-shortage crisis: "I'll bet you I've been asked 100 times ... why we just didn't make our lakes bigger."

-- An inadvertent glitch in the recent earthquake-proof construction at Barnstable (Mass.) High School: The building is so solidly soundproof that students could not hear ordinary fire alarms, and for the first month of this school year (until the problem was fixed), the school board was forced to hire firefighters on overtime to stand guard in the building to alert everyone in case of fire, at a total cost of about $1,000 a day.

-- Empowered by a November referendum in which 73 percent of the country voted against legalizing drugs, Swiss prosecutors announced they would file challenges to current law on marijuana, which bans its sale only as a "narcotic." Over the last three years, several hemp shops have opened, selling dried marijuana as an herbal room freshener (with names like "Juicy Fruit" and "Lemon Skunk") and labeled "not for consumption."

-- A December Wall Street Journal report described the problems of auto manufacturers forced to crash-test their cars using mannequins not only of government-dictated sizes and weight but wearing clothing prescribed in minute detail by regulation. Included are requirements that the dummies wear shoes of a precise weight and a black-leather style, that "adults" wear matched sets of cotton shirts and form-fitting shorts, that a "child" must wear "thermal knit, waffle-weave polyester and cotton underwear or equivalent," with size 7M sneakers, with "rubber toe caps, uppers of Dacron and cotton or nylon and a total mass of .453 kg." Only recently did the government drop its requirement that all adult clothes be of the color "tea rose" and that all shoes be gray suede.

-- Tale of Two Towns: According to a December New York Times report, residents of the unincorporated community called Brooksville, Ala., are gathering signatures to petition the state to create an official town based on the Bible and the Ten Commandments, bringing together church and state, which are supposedly constitutionally separate. Sinners would be welcome but expected to observe public behavior codes and might have to attend church services to have their votes counted because many of the town's decisions would be made there. At the other end of the spectrum, El Paso (Texas) County officials in November got a court order decertifying the town of Buford, calling it a sham set up solely to protect virtually its only "residents": a dozen adult bookstores and strip clubs that have, in the 36 years of Buford's existence, been exempt from county regulation.

-- According to Kenya's largest newspaper, the Daily Nation, the government in October formed a committee to study potential problems with the country's computers' complying with the Jan. 1, 2000, date changeover. The final report and recommendations of the committee were ordered published within 18 months, which would be April 18, 2000.

-- Julian Cabrera, 18, and a 14-year-old companion were arrested in October in San Diego and charged with shoplifting items from an AM/PM Mini Mart. A clerk who said he witnessed the shoplifting chased them out of the store and returned to call 911. While the clerk was on the phone, the suspects returned to the store to ask another clerk for a bag to put their stuff in. Their return trip to the store delayed them enough that police spotted them as they were leaving.

-- The Classic Middle Name (continued): Challenging in September the competence of his lawyer in his conviction for murdering a preacher near Lebanon, Ind.: Gerald Wayne Bivins. Informing jurors at his sentencing hearing (after being convicted of murder in Torrance, Calif., in December) that he regretted not killing all of them, too: David Wayne Arisman. Executed in McAlester, Okla., in December for the murder of his wife: John Wayne Duvall. Captured after a brief jailbreak in Nashville, Tenn., in December: accused murderer Michael Wayne Perry. Named the prime suspect in the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl in Roseburg, Ore., in December: Dale Wayne Hill. Dead of a self-inflicted gunshot after critically wounding his ex-girlfriend in Brooklyn, N.Y., in July: Robert Wayne Jiles.

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