-- Scottish psychopathic murderer Noel Ruddle, who has been in the Carstairs mental hospital in Glasgow for eight years, was released in August because no treatment is currently available for his paranoid schizophrenia, and British law prevents a prisoner's hospitalization if it does not result in the improvement, however slight, of his condition. Various officials and psychiatrists quoted in the British press were aghast at the decision, for nearly 2,000 seriously disturbed prisoners are in situations similar to Ruddle's.

"I know I'm not perfect" (recidivist drunk driver Donald Branch, sentenced to 49 years in prison for killing a pregnant woman and her daughter, Memphis, Tenn., June). "I'm not perfect" (Steven Carmichael, 39, with convictions for burglary, theft, drug trafficking and two rapes, Portland, Maine, July). "I'm not perfect" (convicted murderer Raymond O. Nichols, placing a singles ad from his Massachusetts prison cell, May). "(She's) not perfect" (Salt Lake Tribune reporter writing a sympathetic article about a once-drug-crazed mother asking for custody of the daughter she abandoned, June). "He's not perfect" (Monica Turner, wife of boxer-rapist Mike Tyson, May).

-- The San Francisco Examiner reported in June that one-third of outdoor rodents at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge have both male and female reproductive organs, a finding attributed to a nearby reservoir of selenium, which is a byproduct of agricultural runoff. The lead investigator said the rodents are male on the outside and female on the inside.

-- Latest Survived Plunges: Allen Frith, age 45, 75 feet off a cliff at his home near Pigeon Forge, Tenn. (February); 30-year-old woman in her car, off the seventh floor of a parking garage, Pittsburgh (April); 27-year-old man, 80 feet off a construction platform, Washington, D.C. (July); Leung Man-chun, 8, 17 floors from a Hong Kong apartment (with four clotheslines and a canopy breaking his fall) (April).

-- Spectacular Crashes: Piedmont, Mo., teen driver Rory Dale Smith survived a collision with a train even though he was ejected from his truck and slammed through the rolled-up passenger window of another truck (March). A one-vehicle crash on the Capital Beltway in Alexandria, Va., vaulted the chihuahua Tito over a 4-foot-high median barrier and four lanes of traffic safely to the grassy shoulder (April). Olivier Faure, 21, was knocked off his motorcycle by a car in the village of Upaix, France, but walked and hitchhiked, in shock, to his home six miles away before he realized that his forearm had been severed (February).

-- In July, police in Tijuana, Mexico, investigating a roadside sniper attack, jailed suspect Dennis A. Macchione, 33, before they had released the victim's two companions, whom they were holding temporarily. The companions chatted and shared food with Macchione but only because they didn't know who he was; they said if they had known, they'd have killed him. (In December, Las Vegas police inadvertently locked up a witness to a contract killing in the same holding cell with one of the two men accused of arranging the hit.)

-- At a pretrial hearing in Albuquerque, N.M., in March, a judge disclosed government witnesses' addresses over prosecutors' protests; among the evidence: a rap song recorded by the defendants' gang, the Sureno 13, that included a chorus, "I gotta kill me a witness." And key evidence convicting Jeffrey Myrick at his February trial in Cambridge, Mass., for pushing his girlfriend off of a roof: a poem he wrote, reading: "As we stand here / on the roof top / for an unknown reason / my girlfriend took a hop / I screamed / call a cop / because I threw my girl from the top."

-- A 19-year-old man was hospitalized in Salt Lake City in June after personally investigating whether a .22-caliber bullet inside a straw could be ejected by hitting it with a hammer. Answer: sometimes (including this time, wounding the man in the stomach).

-- In June in Christchurch, New Zealand, Thomas Hendry, 23, won the "How Far Will You Go?" contest at Trader McKendry's Tavern (prize: about $300 (U.S.)) by stapling his penis to a crucifix and setting it on fire. Hendry said he needed to pay some bills and was inspired by an earlier contestant who merely pierced his foreskin with a safety pin: "I thought I could do better than that." Hendry's mother was in the bar that night and said, "I'm just very relieved that he won. I would have hated for someone to go through all that and (lose)."

According to recent figures, about 90 people per day in Japan kill themselves, a per capita rate about 75 percent higher than the suicide rate in the United States. The main reason, according to experts cited in a July New York Times dispatch, is the shame and fear of layoffs during Japan's recession. And in July, Villaricca, Italy, with more than 20 percent unemployed, conducted a televised drawing among 177 contestants for six municipal street-sweeper jobs.

People continue to receive surprises as they innocently take their seats in the bathroom. In May, Betty Rook, 79, was hospitalized in Petersburg, Va., with a rat bite on her butt as she sat on the toilet; city official Tim Jones said he gets about one report a year of a rat making it through sewer lines into a residential toilet. And as Tom Smelcer of Apsley, Ontario, flushed his toilet in April, he saw a bird battling against the flow, finally thrusting itself free and crashing against Smelcer's head; health officials said it probably came from a roof-top septic-tank vent.

I Love This Game: Kenneth Demarrias, 19, was convicted in May in Kansas City, Mo., of killing two and wounding a third after an argument over a basketball game. And Yasser Ashburn, 15, confessed in January in Brooklyn, N.Y., that he stabbed a 14-year-old boy to death after a school basketball game in which the latter starred in his team's victory.

After an investigation to alleviate residents' fears, police in the village of Durness, Scotland, issued a public certificate of assurance that two recently arrived gay restaurateurs were definitely not pedophiles. A Franciscan nun admitted scrawling white supremacist graffiti on the walls of a hospital just to see how people would react (Joliet, Ill.). A fire broke out in a beer factory but was quickly quashed when the flames melted a hose, releasing 25 gallons of brew (Ostrava, Czech Republic). A 38-year-old man was charged with sexually assaulting three sheep (Lakeside, Calif.). A judge foiled a conciliation plan by Cleveland mayor Michael White (who is black) to allow Ku Klux Klan members to use a police building to change into their robes and hoods at their Aug. 21 march.

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

-- As Predicted in the "South Park" Movie: In August, the Ottawa Sun reported general outrage in Canada (led by the war veterans'group, the Royal Canadian Legion) that gay-hating Topeka, Kan., pastor Fred Phelps had burned the Canadian flag while in Ottawa recently. Phelps was protesting a Supreme Court of Canada decision to include same-sex couples as having "spouses" and had called the smoldering Canadian banner the "Fag Flag." Said a retired army captain, "Our government has got to make the stand."

In July, Massachusetts filed a civil complaint against convicted murderer Sean Smith, 34, on behalf of three of Smith's fellow inmates who said Smith bilked them out of $55,000 of family money in an investment scheme. And three days later, a judge in Tampa, Fla., denied tobacco-litigation lawyer Henry Valenzuela his $20 million share (out of $200 million set aside for legal fees from the state's 1997 settlement with tobacco companies) because he had been late in paying his $2,500 share of a litigation expense.

-- Allegedly jealous husband Floyd John Weseman, 27, was arrested in Morristown, Tenn., in April and charged with domestic assault after he reportedly beat his wife and attached a small padlock to her genitals.

-- In June, a New Orleans court awarded bicyclist Jerry Lawrence, 60, $95,000 after he suffered a fractured skull and two broken legs when hit by a police car on call. Lawrence prevailed even though he was drunk and ran a stop sign, which put himself directly in the path of the cruiser, which had siren and emergency lights on. Said Lawrence's lawyer, "(D)runks have some rights, too."

-- In July, a 48-year-old woman filed a lawsuit against Gold Coast Hospital in Southport, Australia, for about $450,000 (U.S.) because the hospital apparently misplaced part of her brain after aneurysm surgery in 1996. According to the lawsuit, doctors were to temporarily remove her right frontal lobe and replace it when swelling subsided, but then, when they went to insert the lobe, they couldn't find it. She has a temporary titanium plate but claims various symptoms including "irritability" and a "perception" that the lobe might have been fed to dogs.

-- According to a March Boston Globe story, residents of Portsmouth, N.H., are finally at the breaking point over the city's ancient and deteriorating sewer system that has resulted (according to one resident) in raw sewage overflow in his basement and on city streets during every high tide in the past 10 years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency believes repair would be so costly that it has long exempted Portsmouth and 100 New England communities from raw sewage discharge regulations. The city manager said a solution is at least 10 to 15 years away, but, asked one resident, "Why are we talking about building a new library and parking garage when we have sewage in our basements?"

-- The Safety Tanteisha detective agency in Osaka, Japan, told New Scientist magazine in June that it sells about 200 aerosol-spray kits a month (at $400 each) to help women find out whether their men are having affairs by detecting the presence of fresh seminal fluid on their underwear. Another "miracle product," Infidelity Detection Cream, rubbed on a man's skin, will cause blisters the next time he showers, which would subject him to wifely questioning if he arrived home with freshly blistered skin.

-- In May, scientists at the University of Hawaii announced that they had successfully transferred the gene that gives jellyfish a green color over to the permanent DNA of a mouse via a method of "transgenesis" that breaks the coating of sperm and allows gene-commingling. That a pink mouse turned fluorescent green under an ultraviolet light was cool, but the scientists were much more excited that their transgenesis was a big improvement over previous methods.

-- The Times of London reported in May that officials from Britain's Ministry of Defense had recently met with Eric Herr, the American who has patented a phaser gun and seeks $500,000 to make a prototype. Current "taser" guns are not effective unless applied directly to the skin, but Herr's gun would shoot a laser at someone up to 100 yards away and then pass an electrical current through it that would temporarily immobilize the target.

Londoner Lisa Wright was granted a loan of about $4,500 from the Prince's (of Wales) Trust during the spring to help her start a business to design "respectable and elegant" women's clothes for male transvestites. Said Wright, "If they're going to dress as women, they must learn how to dress properly. We don't want transvestites to frighten children." And according to documents released by Canada's Reform party in June, film director Cynthia Roberts received about $78,000 (U.S.) in 1996 and 1997 from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council to make "Bubbles Galore," starring American porn queen Nina Hartley and featuring, according to Roberts, "wall-to-wall sex."

On July 7 in Bari, Italy, neighbors found the skeleton of a man, later learned to have been born in 1928, fully clothed and lying on his bed. After contacting relatives and neighbors, police estimated the man had been dead for around five years. That might tie the record set by the late Wolfgang Dircks of Bonn, Germany, when his body was found in November 1998; he apparently expired during December 1993 based on the TV program guide next to the still-"on" (but broken) television set that the body was propped in front of.

In May, four men, aided by an employee of the State Theater in Menomonie, Wis., stole a print of the "Star Wars" movie "The Phantom Menace" (value: $60,000) in one of the worst-executed crimes in state history. As the men lifted the 3-foot-wide spool from the projector, it unraveled, leaving two miles of celluloid on the floor. The men scooped the mess up, took it home, and tried to wash the film in a bathtub to get rid of their fingerprints (hint: doesn't work). Then, they cut it up for disposal but, after a while, finally realized they needed to turn themselves in. (Authorities said alcohol was heavily involved in the caper.) In sentencing in July, each man got five days in jail.

-- A thief who stole $500 from Frieda Folsoms 36 years ago returned it to her anonymously (but without interest, which would have been another $2,200) (Sacramento, Calif.). A 42-year-old Boy Scout volunteer, missing for 24 hours, was found naked and hanging by his ankles from a tree, as a result of an autoerotic mishap (Orlando, Fla.). A groom divorced his wife at their wedding reception after she had dissed his mother's dancing ability (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia). A credit-union robber ducked out quickly with his stash, failing to notice that the teller had honestly misread the holdup note asking for "$2500" and put only "$25.00" in the bag (Pawtucket, R.I.). A pizzeria robbery was foiled when the manager thought the robber's "I want it all" demand referred to a large-sized pizza and began reading off the options and prices, confusing the man (Dayton, Ohio).

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

-- In April, Citizens Bank, the holder of the mortgage on Edward J. Brown's $90,000 Dartmouth, Mass., home, sold it at auction for $60,000 because Brown had dallied over paying the final $324 last year. He had made 299 of the 300 payments but held off on the last one because he mistakenly thought having a mortgage reduced his legal liability. Brown also apparently ignored several letters and phone calls inquiring about the final payment.

Recent Events at Tesco: January: considered allowing its Hastings store to run a nude-shopping night after the normal closing hour (but eventually declined because of the potential for mishandling of fresh fruits and vegetables). May: told farmers to grow smaller melons after focus groups reported that large melons made small-busted female customers feel inferior. May: tested its pies ballistically after receiving a surge of requests for recommendations on which of its pies is best for throwing (answer: egg custard). June: began a program to sew instructions on self-testing for testicular cancer into men's underwear.

-- In April, the administration at Princeton University reaffirmed its faculty appointment of Australian philosophy professor Peter Singer to a prestigious chair in bioethics, saying that "the strength of his teaching and his research" outweighs "any particular point of view" he holds. One of Singer's points of view is that parents have the right to kill their severely deformed children in the first month of life.

-- In May the National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias (disorders affecting the teeth, hair, nails and sweat glands of children) complained that it was hard enough to raise money for research for such obscure disorders without having Pfizer Inc. and its spokesman Bob Dole steal its nickname "E.D." as a euphemism for impotence. The foundation started using the term in 1981.

-- According to a March Chicago Tribune story, anywhere from 40,000 to 200,000 patients woke up during their surgeries in 1998, in possession of one or more of their senses (sometimes feeling searing pain) but unable because of muscle relaxants to move or tell their doctors they need more anesthesia. According to a professor of anesthesiology, the cause often is doctors' restrained use of anesthesia in order to minimize legal liability.

-- In March, the Rocky Flats nuclear cleanup site near Denver announced that it was packaging up more radiated waste than it had facilities for and would have to store the steel drums in tents, perhaps until the year 2006. The Rocky Flats environmental manager said he was confident the tents could withstand 100 mph winds and that, besides, the most lethal waste would be stored indoors. Still, an official of the neighboring town of Bloomfield called the idea "ridiculous."

-- The New York Times disclosed in June that about 2,000 obsolete, unfunctioning fire hydrants remain in place in New York City, dry for almost 20 years, whose only purpose is to allow the city to collect revenue from motorists who park too close to them. Supposedly, a contractor will begin removing them soon, for a fee of about $3,000 each.

-- Clean Air Act regulations announced by President Clinton in April establish the goal for returning national parks and wilderness areas to pre-industrial purity but only by the year 2064. States don't even have to decide on their plans until the year 2008. This program represents a frenzied acceleration by the Clinton administration, in that previous Environmental Protection Agency plans called for pure air in national parks by around 2190.

-- In March, the Oklahoma City Council agreed to pay a settlement to local video stores after police illegally seized copies of the Oscar-winning movie of Gunter Grass' classic, "The Tin Drum," which treats life in World War II-era Germany through the eyes of a young boy. The boy, disgusted by the grown-ups around him, uses special powers emanating from the drum to refuse adulthood and remain young in order not to have to join German society, a storyline missed by Oklahoma City police, who saw only that when the "boy" had sex, it must have been child porn. That oversimplification of obscenity law cost Oklahoma City taxpayers $400,000.

In May, a 32-year-old Austrian man was charged with tormenting women with obscene phone calls during the previous three years; he admitted to making 40,000 calls, which works out to 250 per week. One month later, Edward Lightfoot, 28, was charged with continuing to make obscene calls to women from a Michigan prison, where he is serving five years for stalking; in his prime, Lightfoot was said to have made as many as 200 obscene calls a day.

One of the classic reports from an early News of the Weird column in 1988 is of the Japanese inventor with a three-pole-and-brush system hooked to a water supply that will, when someone squeezes between the poles, start squirting water and vibrating, as sort of a car wash for humans. In July 1999, a Tokyo beauty parlor, Avant, announced that it had invented the world's first washing machine for humans, consisting of a 7-foot chamber (covering all but the head) with 13 shower jets. An 18-minute session sells for about $8 and makes the user feel like (according to a recent customer) "a dish in a dishwasher."

In May, an 18-year-old man who jumped the turnstile at a Brooklyn, N.Y., subway station was killed while fleeing police when he leaped from the platform but couldn't avoid a train coasting into the station. And a 23-year-old Clearwater, Fla., bar-brawling man, who had been escorted out of the Turtle Club in March by a bouncer, sneaked back in and leaped off a staircase, trying to kick another man, but was killed when he landed on his head. (Also, the kick was ineffectual.)

Amnesty International charged that the Myanmar government just captured a 3-year-old girl, whom it called a political prisoner. Sailor Matt Boreham's attempt to cross the Atlantic solo ended after four miles, when he told the Newfoundland Coast Guard he didn't feel good and to please come get him. A weaving driver in Jerusalem was ticketed after police discovered he was steering with his elbows while he was having conversations on two cell phones at the same time. Virginia legislature candidate Al Bedrosian was arraigned on assault and battery charges for spanking a 2-year-old kid, not his own, who was running loose in a Roanoke hospital waiting room. A 20-year-old woman suffered a broken arm when she stood too close to a passing freight train while lifting her blouse to flash the conductor (Olathe, Kan.).

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