-- An April Associated Press dispatch extolled the dedication of Sierra Madre, Calif., garbage aficionado Kevin Inciyaki, age 9, who, according to his parents, has been into trash since he was 2 and whose family vacation snapshots (to Sea World, etc.) always feature him inspecting local trash cans. He follows garbage trucks on their routes and has recently begun raising garbage-eating worms, under the supervision of UCLA researcher Eugene Tseng, who apparently is a lot like Kevin, proclaiming that garbage is "one of the most fun things you can possibly imagine."

-- According to a May San Francisco Chronicle report, the 2,000 Transcendental Meditation adherents of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who moved to Fairfield, Iowa, several years ago have recently been clashing with the 8,000 townies over whether homes and businesses need to be rebuilt to face east so that, according to TM principles, the residents will lead more fulfilling, harmonious lives. (Sunrise produces energy; sunset produces lethargy.) TM people hold two of the city council's seven positions.

The latest person to shoot himself for perfectly understandable personal reasons: Henry Shepherd, 27, Cambridgeshire, England, who blasted his knee off with a shotgun in May to end the pain of a workplace injury. Said his brother, Lee: "He told me ... he'd rather have a stump (than the pain). The knee injury was ruining his life."

In May, former Marla Maples publicist Chuck Jones was convicted in New York City of burglarizing her apartment to get dozens of pairs of her shoes (with many of which he admitted to having a personal sexual relationship). And in March in Singapore, Zainal Mohamed Esa, 43, was jailed for stealing women's shoes, which he would sniff (according to his lawyer) "until the smell runs out."

In Athens, Ala., in May, Freamon Holt Jr., 29, was charged with theft after a lengthy chase that began when Holt fled on foot across a Kroger store parking lot carrying two steaks he did not pay for. Holt then jumped on a bicycle and rode away, but soon crashed into a utility pole, briefly knocking himself unconscious. However, he came to and fled again, and in a move characterized by a local newspaper writer as the final "leg" of his "triathlon" escape, Holt jumped into Town Creek, but a firefighter caught up to him after a short swim.

-- In April, Jay Monfort bowed to an imminent court ruling and took down the 4-foot-high wire fence he had erected on his property to protect his office in the town of Fishkill, N.Y., from a nest of deadly timber rattlesnakes 260 feet away. According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the timber rattler is endangered, and Monfort's fence "would block the snakes from their usual places to hunt, bask in the sun and reproduce, and would probably cause them 'physiological stress.'"

-- In February, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 95-5 to approve a bill urging federal recognition of the Rappahannock Indian tribe and seven others, but not before several unidentified members of the House began accompanying the debate with imitation tom-tom beats on their desks. Rappahannock representatives were in the gallery and were not amused.

-- Government Seeks Strippers: With an April help-wanted ad in the Palm Beach Post, the Florida labor department sought exotic dancers (7 p.m.-3 a.m., 40 hours a week, $11 per hour) to work at a club in Stuart, Fla. (When faced with work requests by immigrants, states are required by federal law to ascertain whether any domestic workers are available; if there are none, the immigrant qualifies for a federal work visa.) Meanwhile, according to an April report in the Windsor (Ontario) Star, the Canadian government has drastically reduced the number of Eastern European strippers allowed to work in the country, despite a chronic shortage of local strippers.

-- Another Endangered Species: According to a March London Daily Telegraph dispatch, the Brazilian government recently awarded a lone hermit tribesman a 96-square-kilometer personal preserve, off-limits to civilization, in the northwest part of the country near the Bolivian border. Loggers, ranchers and farmers in the area protested because of the impact on their livelihoods. A government team had tracked the hermit down in August 1998 to let him know of the planned preserve, but he resisted and in fact fired an arrow at them.

-- Tacky Officials: In February, prosecutors in Austin, Texas, filed a misdemeanor trespass charge against Judge Steve Mansfield of the state Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming that Judge Mansfield illegally tried to sell two tickets to the Texas-Texas A&M football game in November, was given a warning by Texas campus police, and then tried it again a few minutes later. And in March, a judge in Frederica, Del., fined Mayor Ira R. Glanden III $100 after he admitted in court to taking newspapers several mornings from the front of Greenley's Market before it opened.

-- In March, the federal government's auditor, the General Accounting Office, blasted the financial management of the Internal Revenue Service, with the lead investigator telling a congressional committee, "The IRS cannot do some of the basic accounting and record-keeping tasks that it expects Americans to do," including keeping proper paperwork. On the other hand, among the tax delinquents in the federal government, according to a May IRS report, are 7 percent of the Clinton White House staff (with an almost equal number of White Housers so far behind in tax payments that they have to pay in installments). A White House official said it had just sent out a memo reminding the staff to pay their taxes.

-- In 1997, a car belonging to Michel Emond, 36, was confiscated by the Quebec government's automobile insurance board based on alleged overdue fines, but a mistake had been made, and the board agreed to reimburse Mr. Emond's expenses. However, Emond got tired of waiting for the check, and in March 1999 took advantage of a provision in Quebec law and filed a document that permitted him to legally seize the board's headquarters in Quebec City (value, about $33 million (U.S.)) until the debt was paid. The next day (13 months after agreeing to do so), the board paid up.

Latest Spectacular Industrial Fatalities: A 35-year-old man died when 21 panes of glass crashed on him at a construction site (West Palm Beach, Fla., Feb.). And two railroad workers were killed when a loaded boxcar fell on them (Hamtramck, Mich., March). And two bin cleaners were killed when they were buried under an avalanche of corn in a grain elevator (Juniata, Neb., Apr.).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679, or Weird@compuserve.com.)

-- Jose Lopezes in the Operating Room: In May, Sr. Jose Maria Lopez, 33, had a foot amputated at Whittier (Calif.) Hospital Medical Center. He still has two remaining; what was taken was a 6-inch, footlike growth inside his left ankle that has always hampered his walking and limited his shoe selection. And a few days earlier, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, surgeons removed a miniature bottle from the rectum of a Sr. Jose Lopez, 43. He said he got drunk and passed out and thus has no idea how the bottle got there.

-- No More Inhumane Punishment: In May, controversial Phoenix tough-guy sheriff Joe Arpaio announced he would institute bedtime stories at the Maricopa County jails, consisting of audiotapes of classic novels (e.g., "Little Women") to be read at lights-out every night. The novels replace the previous bedtime fare, which ran for four years: a videotaped lecture series by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

-- According to an April Tampa Tribune story, the following fates have befallen young men who in recent years have recovered the submerged, religiously blessed cross in annual diving competitions during the Epiphany festival in Tarpon Springs, Fla.: One died in a car accident; one suffered a severe spinal injury; one was arrested on burglary charges; and, this year, according to police, two former winners and a third diver were charged with attempted murder for bashing two people's skulls with shovels because their car was going too slow.

-- In Montreal, Quebec, in December, convicted serial killer Allan Legere announced through his lawyer that he had increased the amount of his 1994 lawsuit against the prison for its failure to stop inmates from beating him up. Legere is serving life for five murders, including the rape and torture killings of three women and the beating death of a Catholic priest. One witness against Legere said she once remarked to him, "You like to torture," whereupon Legere allegedly responded, "Yes, I do."

-- In the election campaign of 1998, Fred Morgan, the new Republican leader in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, personally embraced the party's proposal for reforming motor vehicle regulation, including cracking down on residents who drive with out-of-state license plates; in December, Morgan admitted that the car in his parking space at the capitol, with the Arkansas tag, was his (but that he would register it in Oklahoma as soon as his late mother's probate got taken care of). And in February, Katrina Clark, the director of housing code enforcement for the city of Boston, was evicted from her apartment for failure to pay more than $3,500 in rent and for reneging on her repayment plan.

-- In a brawl at a recreation league softball game in Granada Hills, Calif., in March, which started after an umpire changed a call from safe to out, four off-duty Los Angeles police officers on one of the teams were roughed up with softball bats. Things went so bad for the officers that one ran to his car, retrieved his weapon, and held the other team at bay until on-duty officers arrived.

-- Ester Maria Pena, 58, was convicted and fined $100 in Frederick County, Md., in March for a 1998 traffic incident in which police chased her at high speeds for four miles and arrested her at gunpoint. According to police, Pena had sped off after they tried to pull her over for driving too slow.

-- In March, London's second-largest newspaper, the Sun, reported that 70 pages of medical records of Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family were found in a folder, lying on the side of a road near the southwest Scotland town of Ayr.

-- In January, following his transfer from a maximum-security prison to a minimum-security facility in British Columbia, convicted murderer Colin Thatcher persuaded warden Ron Wiebe to let him ship his horse to the prison so he could get in some riding. Wiebe told reporters the prison has in the past helped inmates prepare for post-release careers in ranching, but Thatcher, 60, is serving a life sentence for killing his ex-wife.

-- Prominent New York City chef (and TV cooking-show star) David Ruggerio pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in March for inflating at least 26 credit-card transactions at his Manhattan restaurant. According to the prosecutor, Ruggerio apparently thought he could add tips of $221,000 to credit-card dinner tabs totaling $4,000 (including one $30,000 tip on a $1,000 check) and not have the cardholders notice it.

The Classic Middle Name (continued, and getting out of hand): Executed for murder, in Florence, Ariz., in May: Robert Wayne Vickers. Convicted of murder, in Frederick, Md., in March: Bruce Wayne Koenig and in Lenexa, Kan., in May, Rodney Wayne Henry. Confessed to murder, in Fort Worth, Texas, in March: Arthur Wayne Goodman, Jr. Sentenced for murder, in Prattville, Ala., in May: Timothy Wayne Barnett. Charged with murder, in Birmingham, Ala., in May: Percy Wayne Froman, and in Houston in April: Bradley Wayne Cagle.

According to a report from New York's Newsday in April, the judge in the Abner Louima trial (in which a New York City police officer ultimately pleaded guilty to brutalizing a Haitian immigrant) permitted juror No. 299 to remain on the panel despite an objection by a defense lawyer that she had been seen reading the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News in the jury lounge (main story, "Woman Pregnant With Mummy's Baby"). After questioning the woman on whether she liked "weird stories," the judge let the matter pass.

-- In incidents one week apart in April, in Morristown, N.J., and Bloomfield Township, Mich., construction workers became trapped in sand pits, and in both cases, quick-thinking co-workers attempted to pull them out with backhoes. In both cases, the backhoe operators accidentally decapitated the workers.

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

-- 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.)