-- In February, North Korean Woo Yong Gak, 69, was released from prison in South Korea, where he had been detained since 1958 and was the world's longest-held political prisoner. Still 38 years short of that record, in a jail in Bradenton, Fla., Palestinian researcher Mazen Al-Najjar just completed his second year of confinement without being told of the evidence against him. Al-Najjar, a U.S. resident for 15 years with three American-born children, faces deportation for some sort of association with a terrorist group, the nature of which the U.S. Justice Department has repeatedly refused to disclose, citing national security.

-- In March, for the first time, not only was the Miss Thailand beauty contest televised nationally, but so was the Miss Tiffany Universe contest, which is the equivalent for Thailand's male-to-female transsexuals. An April Associated Press report from Bangkok concluded, after polling many viewers, that at least one of the Tiffany Universe finalists made Miss Thailand look "positively mousy" and that the Tiffany Universe winner was "every bit as feminine" as Miss Thailand.

-- In February, Kahr Arms of Worcester, Mass., a gun manufacturer under the umbrella of the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon (who insists he's doing the work of Jesus), announced it had purchased AutoOrdinance Corp., manufacturer of the Thompson machine gun ("tommy gun"). Kahr (run by Rev. Moon's son) was already prominent for its high-quality line of small, potent handguns. "What's the message?" asked one critic, interviewed by The Washington Post: "Turn the other cheek, or lock and load?"

-- In February in New Westminster, British Columbia, a court acquitted three of the four Sikhs arrested in a 1997 brawl at a local temple that began when newer members started sitting in chairs at tables in the dining hall while traditional members insisted on the holiness of sitting on the floor. (In September, in Broward County, Fla., a traditionalist, no-furniture Sikh opened fire in a local temple, killing one man.)

-- Recent Apparitions: Yuba City, Calif., January: the image of Mary appeared in a knothole in a tree; Wareham, Mass., February: the image of Jesus appeared in the wood grain of a door in an Episcopalian Church; Union City, Calif., March: the image of Jesus appeared in an unfinished concrete wall at the Buddhist Purple Lotus University.

-- In March, Walter Gene Grassie, 49, a former protestant minister whose eight-year affair with a married Mormon woman had recently ended, was convicted of vandalism at several Mormon churches in New Mexico, causing $2.5 million in damages, apparently because he thought the woman's religion was the only thing preventing her from divorcing her husband and marrying Grassie. Prosecutors said he also wrote graffiti calling the woman a "(Mormon) whore." The two had fallen in love shortly after forming the touring musical act, Pecos Valley Yodelers.

-- Ten days apart in April, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority and the official newspaper of the Catholic archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, issued rulings that miracle and prayer advertisements were deceptive and could no longer be published under their auspices. The British organization spokesman said a church advertising miracles would have to provide proof "just like a company that makes washing powder," and the Cincinnati newspaper banned ads thanking particular saints for answering their prayers.

-- In April, several fire trucks speeding down the Massachusetts Turnpike with sirens blaring and lights flashing, en route to help battle a brushfire around the town of Westfield, were delayed a few minutes when a tolltaker insisted on charging each driver. A turnpike spokesman said the tolltaker had been counseled. Similarly, in February, an ambulance rushing a severely burned man from Gibraltar to Seville, Spain, could not escape the $4 toll.

-- Firefighters in Kawasaki, Japan, freed a 5-month-old girl from a coin-operated, 13-by-13-by-24-inch locker in April after her parents had deposited her there while they had dinner at a nearby restaurant. The parents were reprimanded, but not arrested.

-- Edmonton, Alberta, pizza delivery driver Thomasz Leszczewski, 26, was arrested in April and charged with a hit-and-run fatality. According to police, Leszczewski hit a 43-year-old pedestrian while out on a delivery but merely proceeded with his rounds, and police caught up to him dropping off a pizza a few minutes later.

Richmond, Calif., March: The father of a fourth-grader stabbed the teacher in a disagreement over the girl's progress. Danville, Ky., February: The grandmother of a middle-school student smashed the teacher in the head with the name plate on his desk in a disagreement about the student's progress. Boston, March: The father of a high school student who got a D-minus in conduct, which the father was disputing, punched the teacher in the face, breaking his jaw. (The father is also an associate minister of the Greater Love Tabernacle.)

In Lubbock, Texas, in March, a bomb being made by Robert Keith Hill, 24, intended for an abortion clinic, exploded in his lap, killing him. And in Tampa, Fla., in April, a 28-year-old man in the passenger seat of a pickup truck was killed after he decided to open the door and climb to the back of the truck at 55 mph; he fell and was crushed under the rear wheel. And a 15-year-old boy at the prestigious Eton College in London (attended by Princes William and Harry) was killed in February while playing the "fainting game" between supper and prayer time; the object is for kids put a cord around another kid's neck and tighten it slowly until he faints.

Following news of the March birth in Los Angeles of a baby who was conceived with sperm that had been retrieved hours after his father's death, Pam Reno of Cold Springs, Nev., told reporters that she hopes soon to find a surrogate mother to have her grandchild, using frozen sperm that was retrieved from her 20-year-old son, who died in September. (The procedure is awaiting an ethics panel decision by the Northern Nevada Fertility Center.) However, the genes Reno will be perpetuating (her son's) will be those of a 20-year-old who died playing Russian roulette with his friends.

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

-- A beatification ceremony was held in Rome in May for the proposed saint Padre Pio of southern Italy, who died in 1968. Padre Pio was wildly loved by his parishioners but viewed skeptically by critics, including two popes and other Vatican officials. According to his supporters, his hands bled from the crucifixion holes similar to those of Jesus, to the point where light passed through them; he once had a wrestling match with the devil, who gouged Padre Pio's eyes; and various parishioners (including a friend of the man who later became Pope John Paul II) were inexplicably cured of illnesses after praying through Padre Pio. He will need two posthumous miracles to become a saint.

-- Practicing Up for Yugoslavia: In April, an Air Force pilot training at the Warren Grove Bombing Range in New Jersey missed his target by a mile and a half, landing in a state forest preserve and starting a fire that burned more than 18 square miles.

The government of Hungary recently agreed to investigate massive scams in which 30,000 farmers paid their life savings (totaling about $42 million) for earthworms to breed under fanciful assurances that Western entrepreneurs would buy all the worms they could produce, according to an April London Daily Telegraph report. And in Malaysia, where men rely on snake-blood tonics as their own Viagra, the bounty on cobras is now about $35 each, compared to 75 cents in the 1970s, according to a February Times of London story. And in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., in March, a 60-year-old man was assaulted by a woman after he made a derogatory comment to her while receiving fellatio, for which he had paid $2.

In October, Brandon Lund, 16, was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his father because, according to the prosecutor, "He just didn't like the way (he) was running the household." And in March, landlord Alvin Weiss, 46, was sentenced to seven years in prison for hiring a hit man (unsuccessfully) to kill two of his tenants so he could re-lease their apartments at higher rents. And in Lahore, Pakistan, in April, according to police, a 32-year-old woman was shot to death by a hit man hired by her father because she had shamed him by seeking a divorce from her husband.

-- In March, two professors reported that results of their identical polls on ethical questions, asked of graduate business students and then of inmates at three Midwestern prisons, yielded remarkably similar results. In fact, inmates were judged more loyal to employers than were the MBAs. And the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in April that 25 business-ethics students at San Diego State University flunked the course, for cheating on an exam.

-- In March, the Burlington Homes housing development near Bakersfield, Calif., rejected the application of attorney Timothy Liebaert and his wife for a five-bedroom home, citing the company's aversion to lawyers, which the company believes are quick to litigate and thus impose higher legal and administrative costs, which frustrates Burlington Homes' efforts to keep its prices down. Of course, when informed of Burlington Homes' rejection of his application, Liebaert sued.

-- In March, John Killick, 57, who was being held in a maximum-security prison in Sydney, Australia, on armed-robbery charges, was sprung from the exercise yard by a helicopter, which his girlfriend had hijacked at gunpoint. The couple are still at large.

-- Three cows escaped from a barn in Ancaster, Ontario, in April, and when cornered by animal control officers, two escaped by leaping over a police cruiser and remained on the lam for two more hours before being tranquilized. And a week later, following a one-truck accident on the Capital Beltway near Alexandria, Va., the driver's dog Tito was found in excellent condition. He could not have crossed the Beltway on foot at that point; the only way he could have been where he was was to have been ejected over a four-foot concrete barrier and four lanes of traffic and to have landed in the soft grass.

-- During an April sunset in Brooksville, Fla., Lucy Dover, 79, was knocked to the ground by a 15-pound red fox, breaking her hip and rendering her unable to get up. Periodically, the fox attacked Dover, clawing and biting her repeatedly, until she grabbed it behind the head and by the tail and held it at bay for the next 12 hours, until her landlord happened by on a routine visit and rescued her.

-- Patricia Dolinska, 27, was arrested for shoplifting from a grocery store in Ottawa, Ontario, in April. According to police, underneath Dolinska's long skirt were three whole chickens, a pork roast, a beef roast and a duck.

-- According to a March report in the London Daily Telegraph, Saddam Hussein has delayed deploying his planned 60-member suicide-pilot task force, saying he does not trust the recruits. (Saddam's strategy is for pilots to lure U.S. and British pilots into range of Iraq's air defenses so he can shoot the planes down and show the world that he has inflicted his first casualties of the Desert Fox confrontation.)

-- In January, Theotis Hall, 51, was arrested in Brunswick, Ga., and charged with assisted suicide after he allegedly complied with a woman's wishes and locked her inside her car's trunk, with the engine running, for about eight hours. According to police, the woman paid $140 to Hall, whom she had recruited from a local labor pool. Said a police sergeant, "She went to a temporary service because it was a temporary job." (She was rescued by her son and is alive.)

-- A 27-year-old man in Springfield, Ill., called the local State Journal-Register newspaper in April to say that he is the one police have been calling "Sock Man" and that he promised to stop his antics if editors would not print his name. According to police, he approached two women and promised them $100 each if they would go home, get some of their socks, and leave them for him at designated points. One took him up on the offer, but he reneged on the payment. Police Lt. Carl Sprinkel said the man would not be charged: "It's no crime to be weird."

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

-- An April Associated Press report from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, described recent intensive competition for dead bodies. The government has been offering $100 to any family that will relocate deceased relatives' bodies from a certain graveyard to another, to make way for a new road. However, families that declined soon learned they must stand guard over their relatives' graves every night lest robbers move the bodies themselves, for the bounty. The AP story reported on one woman who guarded a grave every night for weeks but became ill in mid-April and missed one night, allowing robbers to remove her sister's body.

-- In May a jury in Birmingham, Ala., ruled in favor of Barbara Carlisle and her parents in their lawsuit against two companies responsible for charging them 18 months' more payments than what the salesman originally promised for two satellite dishes, a total overcharge of $1,224. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $581 million.

The Asian Wall Street Journal reported in April that a Muslim organization in Jakarta, Indonesia, has decided to establish a formal recruiting and registration office for suicide bombers, complete with brochures and promises of training in teaching and first aid. "We got 600 applicants in two days," said the office director. And in March, according to authorities investigating the suspected kidnapper and sexual abuser David Parker Ray in Elephant Butte, N.M., Ray had prepared an "orientation" videotape that he played for his victims to let them know what they could expect while in captivity.

-- Inventor Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy, called by one sex boutique owner "the Leonardo da Vinci of the condom," is embroiled in a patent dispute in a Newark, N.J., court because he has turned out two different models that threaten to revolutionize condom use through built-in bulges that increase sensitivity. According to an April New York Times story, financial backers of Dr. Reddy's earlier Pleasure Plus condom say that Reddy copied the basic design with his new Inspiral condom and have tied up the Inspiral with a request for injunction, but Dr. Reddy points out that the Pleasure Plus uses a pouch for friction while the Inspiral uses a "shock-absorber" effect.

-- Recent Inventions: In March, Bruce Bryan of Pittsburgh received a patent (though not yet Food and Drug Administration approval) for making food that glows, using a substance taken from jellyfish and fireflies. And in February, three fashion houses in South Korea began marketing men's suits containing fragrant microcapsules that burst when caressed. And fifth grader Christie Brown of Prince George, British Columbia, said in March that a company was interested in her science-fair-winning project: a frozen cracker that would not get soggy when put in hot soup.

-- Recent Inventions (Unmentionables): The spokesman for an elite unit at the Canadian defense department's headquarters told reporters in March that his office could soon develop the world's first "combat bra" that would combine the strength and durability needed for military operations while also being comfortable enough to wear for several days at a time if conditions warranted. And a company called Wisdom Marketing in Bangkok, Thailand, announced in March it would soon start selling chastity-belt underwear for women, for rape-prevention purposes, complete with a small combination lock similar to those found on luggage, for about $40.

-- The New York Times reported in January on the booming market in spiritual cosmetics, which sellers say will lead consumers to greater confidence and knowledge of the higher self, through bubble bath, lipstick, night cream, color therapy, etc. One manufacturer cited had originally invented chakra nail polish and other items as an ironic commentary on the beauty business but then rolled out a complete cosmetics line when he found how wildly popular his products were.

-- Ronnie Brock's Alibi Agency (membership fee: about $35) opened in March in Blackpool, England, to help clients produce fake receipts, invitations, telephone calls, etc., to cover up illicit romantic liaisons. Brock is certain that his agency supplies a social benefit, in that in "99 percent" of affairs, the participants return to their original partners provided that the affair has remained secret.

-- Engineers at Imperial College in London, England, recently produced a blood-extracting robot that they believe is more accurate than humans at finding a vein and properly inserting a needle, according to an April New Scientist story. Human blood-drawers often act as if all arms and veins are the same, but Imperial's robots examine the skin, tissue and vein size with highly sensitive instruments. On the other hand, at Trinity University in Hartford, Conn., an April exhibition of stand-alone robots was for the most part impressive, according to a Knight-Ridder News Service story, but included a number of robot firefighters that walked directly into the flames.

-- In February, a group of scientists and lawyers in New Zealand proposed legislation to give near-"human" rights to gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans because they are so genetically close to humans. Only the most mild, benign experiments could be conducted on them. Opponents feared that such rights might eventually extend to other animals and even to ordinary lab rats, which would significantly frustrate medical research.

-- Human Rights Stretches: In February, legislatures in Maine and Arizona voted down proposals to prohibit discrimination against motorcyclists, but a similar effort continues in Pennsylvania. (Last year, the Minnesota legislature passed an obscure provision in a finance bill barring anti-biker discrimination by restaurants and bars.) And a legislative proposal in California pending from last year, the Open Waves Act, would guarantee that local surfers had no greater right to a wave than visiting surfers. (At times in California, surfers brawl over waves, using their boards as clubs.)

-- In March, an Ontario provincial court upheld the right of convicted public masturbator Marvin Mezquita-Duenas not to have to stand in front of city hall holding a sign that revealed his crime. The trial judge had sentenced him to 18 months' probation and five days of openly admitting his perversion.

Within a three-day period in April, two people accidentally hanged themselves. A 73-year-old woman in Pittsburgh strangled herself when she fell down while unlocking her door with a necklace key, and in New York City, suspected burglar Terrence Adams, 55, hanged himself when his sweater caught on a piece of metal as he was lowering himself through a ceiling into a clothing store. (The store's name: the Dum Dum Boutique.)

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