-- Prosecutors and six Tampa-area juries have found Oscar Ray Bolin to be a vicious murderer, but in August, the state Supreme Court ruled, for the sixth time, that he's entitled to a new trial, that damaging testimony from his ex-wife ought not to have been used against him. The court said Bolin had not waived his privilege not to have his wife's words used against him (even though he wrote police a six-page letter reading in part, "If there's anything that you really want to know about, then you'll haft (sic) to ask Cheryl Jo (the ex-wife), because she knew just about everything that I was ever a part of (and) she knew about all 3 of these homicide (sic) which I'm charged with"). (The wife died before the trials, but her videotaped interview was played in court.)

-- Several insurance companies in France have begun offering policies to compensate parents of kids who get bullied in the schoolyard, according to an August Associated Press report. No company yet covers stolen lunch money, but eyeglasses that get slapped off a kid's face and trendy designer clothes that inspire muggings are covered.

Recent Scams: Two inmates at Cook County (Ill.) jail managed to swindle as many as 12 people ($9,000 from one woman) by calling them at random, collect (even though a message broke in automatically every 60 seconds identifying the call as coming from jail), and promising to cleanse the callees' nonexistent criminal records for a fee. (The men were indicted in July.) And a former Atlantic City, N.J., man sued boardwalk fortune-teller Sole Mio Balaam Nicola after he had given her $200,000 over a 13-year period, closed his real-estate business, left his wife and moved from the area, all in order to comply with various curse-avoidance behaviors she sold him. (The lawsuit was settled in May).

-- In June in Seattle, federal judge Marsha J. Pechman reinstated sexual-assault convict William Bergen Greene's main defense (which had been rejected by a Washington state judge): that he did not attack his female mental health counselor in 1994 but rather one of his other personalities (a 4-year-old boy, "Tyrone") did. Judge Pechman said the trial judge was insufficiently respectful of the science of multiple-personality disorders, and she was persuaded to that opinion by Greene, himself, who argued his own appeal.

-- High Court Judge Griffith Williams ruled in July that Christina Coles, 21, of Kent, England, was entitled to compensation (amount to be determined) to help raise her daughter Rebecca, now 3, to be paid by the driver of a car that hit Coles' car in 1995. Coles apparently demonstrated that Rebecca would never have been born except that the collision caused Coles a memory loss, which contributed to why Coles forgot to take her birth-control pills. Furthermore, Judge Williams issued the ruling even though he found that Coles was 75 percent at fault for the original collision.

-- In June, a jury in Broward County, Fla., found that a 28-year-old man who was speeding and whose blood-alcohol reading was twice the presumed-impaired limit was nonetheless only 10 percent responsible for the single-car accident that killed him. The man's car ran off an access ramp on Florida's Turnpike and smashed into a metal pole because, the jury determined, the 10-inch drop-off on the left lane caused the car to swerve (which was 45 percent each the fault of the state and the construction company). (The amount of damages due his family were to be determined later.)

-- Actor Bethany Halliday filed a lawsuit in May against the British opera company D'Oyly Carte because it allegedly pulled back an offer it had made to her earlier to play a blushing teen-age virgin in "The Pirates of Penzance." D'Oyly Carte said that whatever interest it had in Halliday at one time no longer existed when she showed up pregnant and would be three months from delivery when the show opened. (The character she was to play is so sheltered that she screams in fright every time she sees a man.)

-- The Arizona Fish and Game Commission told new resident Wallace Burford in June that they were declining his formal request to compensate him $328.21 because one of the state's 250,000 wild coyotes had eaten his cat. Burford's suggestion was also rejected: that the commission feed wild coyotes so they aren't so hungry for cats all the time.

Stephen T. Harris, 39, was arrested in July and charged with public indecency for apparently deliberately (according to the surveillance camera at Lowes Home Improvement in Plainville, Conn.) unzipping his pants and slightly wetting the back of the pants leg of a man who was shopping at the store. After doing it once and not being noticed by the man, Harris apparently returned and did it twice more. No motive was given in the police report, nor was there evidence the men knew each other.

Trevor Blair Roszell, 35, pleaded guilty in Edmonton, Alberta, in August to impersonating a police officer. The person he had tried to impress with several items of police paraphernalia was, it turned out, herself an undercover officer who was at the time portraying a prostitute. Furthermore, "Officer" Roszell then tried to convince the woman to give him a freebie since he, too, was on the job.

Earlier this year, News of the Weird reported the astounding "fact" that, according to federal lawsuits filed in San Francisco, at least three business executives (of the 88 victims) in the Alaska Air 261 crash in January 2000 had secret mistresses in rural Mexico or Guatemala, with whom they had fathered children (and whose "great aunts" or other distant relatives had filed wrongful-death lawsuits against Alaska Air). However, in court-ordered mediation in July, Miami lawyers Edgar Miller and David Russell were ordered to pay $225,000 to the estate of one of the executives because a judge found the San Francisco claims to be bogus. Miller and Russell claim they were duped by the "relatives," but the mediating judge said they played a larger role.

The Athens, Greece, daily newspaper Adesmeytos, noting that so many people had left town for a national holiday, reported to readers that there was absolutely no news worthy of putting on the front page of its Aug. 13 edition. High school physics teacher Jim Schmitt is undergoing rabies vaccination after a bat flew into his mouth briefly during an early-morning run on Aug. 23 (Eau Claire, Wis.). A California prisoner on a highway work detail was using a Port-a-Potty (on wheels) when a truck driver inadvertently drove off with it to another site and had pulled it along for a while at 40 mph before anyone heard the inmate's screams (Morro Bay, Calif.). "Folk artist" Stephen Huneck opened a dog-themed church ("all creeds, all breeds, no dogma") to honor canines' spiritual and utilitarian service to humanity (St. Johnsbury, Vt.).

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

-- Life Imitates the Three Stooges: According to a complaint filed with police, at a Lincoln, R.I., School Committee meeting in August concerning the hiring of two assistant principals, member Lucille J. Mandeville, 45, grabbed the nose of colleague Patricia A. Iannelli, 51, and "proceeded to twist" it, saying, "What's the matter? Did you get your little nose twisted out of joint?" Observers said the rancor between the two had been building for a while.

-- The British magazine New Scientist reported in August that researchers at Japan's Central Research Institute of Electrical Power Industry were actively studying whether compact nuclear reactors (of the size of a broom closet and to be housed in a building's basement) could be used to provide electricity for population-intensive downtown-Tokyo blocks of office and apartment buildings. The Rapid-L reactor was originally designed to produce electricity for moon stations.

Mark Harter got only probation for killing a 31-year-old man who had come onto his property, got into an argument, and demanded that Harter either put his gun down or shoot him (Mt. Vernon, Mo., March). The Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new murder trial for Rejean Parent in May because the trial court had been too lenient with him; he had shot his estranged wife during an argument about their divorce terms, immediately after she said, "I told you I would take you to the cleaners" (Quebec City). Casimiro Ovalle, 59, survived a gunshot administered by his wife during a quarrel; he had handed her a rifle and dared her to shoot him (Brownsville, Texas, May).

-- The Northampton (England) Borough Council recently ordered Ruby Barber to remove the 2-year-old barbed-wire fence around her home because it might possibly injure someone who "foolishly" tried to climb it to come onto her property. Just before she put it up, she had been burglarized three times; since then, none.

-- In July, Colorado House Bill 01-1221 became law, banning aluminum underpants. Its purpose is to discourage shoplifters' using them to get past electronic detectors, but the law does provide an exception that allows people to wear them if they can prove it's for a "personal" reason.

-- Texas has created "tax districts" in nonresidential but business-rich areas, thus allowing developers to move a single "voter" into the district, approve some public-works projects, and move out. In a June series, The Dallas Morning News reported that businesses in a nonresidential tax district in Denton, Texas, needed a voter and that Dell Computer, located in the district, promised a laptop computer to anyone who would relocate and become the voter. Jerry Drake, an assistant city attorney in Denton, accepted the offer, moved into a trailer in the tiny district to establish residency, voted on the pro-development agenda (which carried, 1-0), and then moved back to his home in town. Drake insisted that he accepted the computer only for enduring the inconvenience of relocation and not as a bribe on how to vote.

-- Government Policy on Copulation: In July, Kenya's president Daniel arap Moi urged his countrymen (because of the ravages of AIDS) to refrain from sex altogether for the next two years. However, the government of population-dwindling Singapore has instituted subsidies, paid vacations, and education opportunities in order to increase procreation (with Singapore's establishmentarian Straits Times newspaper publishing a "Make-Out Guide" on how to have semi-public sex and what supplies were needed, e.g., lubricants, music, towelettes). And Malaysian Senator Jamilah Ibrahim (a woman) introduced legislation in August to limit nighttime work by women so they will be available for conjugal duty.

-- Antonio (no middle name) Vargas of Windsor, Calif., told the San Francisco Examiner in August that he's optimistic the San Bernardino County (Calif.) District Attorney's office has finally gotten straight after more than 20 years that he is not one of the eight Antonio Vargases they want for such things as missing child-support payments. Vargas said he has received various summonses and orders over the years aimed at other Antonio Vargases but that even as he gets things straight with one prosecutor, another mistakes him all over again, and the office only recently revamped its tracking system.

Michael Dean Messer of Waynesville, N.C., was bitten in August by his pet 4-foot-long timber rattlesnake, which he had taken outside "for some exercise" after coaxing it to swallow a hen's egg because he was so "worried about him (not) eating (lately)." Said Messer, "(M)y dog got him upset." And two days later, in Fayette County, Va., Alfred "Pooch" Preast was hospitalized after taking a bite on the hand from a timber rattler, but Preast was bitten in the middle of worshiping at the Pentecostal House of Prayer. (Preast's uncle was a snake-handling legend in the area, and his brother said Pooch was showing off for his new girlfriend, who herself had been raised in a snake-handling family but had dropped out years ago.)

-- The acrobatic New York City crook called Spiderman, Omar Waftalim Triplett, 23, was convicted in June of several muggings, but his behavior in front of the jury might have sealed the verdict. He shouted to the jury during opening arguments that he was really Mike Tyson and said, "I'll eat your children." Then, he announced he was partial to the name "Ali Hitler." Then, he testified that he couldn't have committed one of the crimes because he was spending the night with a "good friend" (whose name and address had slipped his mind). Then, he quickly retestified that he perhaps did have an altercation with police on the night in question, with them "trying to shoot me" but that he escaped; after all, he asked, "Is it illegal to run? Is it wrong to disguise myself?"

Arrested and charged with murder: Kevin Wayne Coffey (Port Arthur, Texas, July); Terry Wayne Freeman (Peoria, Ill., August); Michael Wayne Farmer (arrested in Wamego, Kan., and charged with a Baltimore murder, August); Dallas Wayne Shults (Sevier County, Tenn., August); Donald Wayne Darling II (Florence, Ala., July). Being sought as a murder suspect: Lewis Wayne Seay (Moreland, Ga., August). Committed suicide while on the lam as a murder suspect: David Wayne Outlaw Sr. (Dallas, August). Executed for murder: Jerald Wayne Harjo (Macalester, Okla., July).

A 28-year-old woman was arrested and accused of stealing software and videotapes from a neighbor by patiently, over a two-week period, carving a 16-inch hole in their apartments' common wall and squeezing through (Yorii, Japan). Several cow carcasses were exposed by residents digging in yards in their brand-new subdivision's homes, which used to be a dairy farm (Ontario, Calif.). Lawyer Christina Gulotta was fined $13,000 and suffered a mistrial ruling in a medical malpractice case because she refused to stop dramatically frowning at nearly every adverse ruling by the judge (Suffolk County, N.Y.). Police in Calgary, Alberta, asked the public not to bring suspected bombs down to the station after one such helpful citizen did, which sent officers scurrying and resulted in a blast that put holes in the wall of the station.

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

-- Istanbul's leading circumciser, Kemal Ozkan (106,000 lifetime procedures), predicted in August that because of the economic downturn, he will perform only half of the 3,000 he performed last year. Depleted government budgets force Turk boys in poverty to wait until military service to get cut, according to an Associated Press dispatch, and business is off by half at the famous Circumcision Palace (the place where well-off parents can have their sons snipped upstairs and then fete them at elaborate parties downstairs). In the traditional Turkish coming-of-age ceremony, boys parade beforehand through the streets dressed like royalty in white suits with capes, holding gold-trimmed scepters.

-- In July, Mr. Justice Bodey of Britain's High Court ordered four men to take blood tests to determine a 7-year-old boy's father, which is a question the mother apparently had tried not to think about until now. She admitted that she was so desperate at her expiring biological clock that, to maximize her chances at the height of her cycle from April 28 to May 1, 1993, she stepped away from her apparently sterile husband and had sex with a different man every night, and now one of the men wants father's rights.

-- Two Utah men, seeking to make Hollywood movies safe for their mostly Mormon neighbors, are creating stashes of major-film releases from which they have dubbed out the cussing and the sex. Ray Lines sells the pristine versions at three CleanFlicks video stores near Provo; David Schenk runs a Clean Cut Video club in Kaysville that contains 62 titles for members to check out. "Great movies are great because they have a great story line," said Schenk to an Associated Press reporter in August, "not because they drop the F-bomb" (139 of which, for example, Schenk had to remove from "Good Will Hunting"). Hollywood studios are aware of the Utah men's work but have not commented.

The head of a research team from the University of Adelaide (Australia), studying whiplash injuries, reported a preliminary finding in April that some victims' pain is prolonged more by "litigation" than by "damage to (the particular) joint." And in March, a female researcher at the University of Central Florida found that female speakers with C-cup breasts were regarded as more professional by males than those of larger or smaller cups. And a University of Cambridge professor announced in April, after lab experiments involving "kinetic energy, centrifugal force and co-efficient of friction," that the cleanest way to eat spaghetti is to roll the strands on a vertical fork against a spoon parallel to the plate and then to eat the pasta off the spoon.

-- Oregon legislators lamented in June that a major windmill-construction project on the Washington-Oregon border, expected to power 70,000 homes and thus a delight to clean-energy environmentalists, would probably be delayed because of the discovery that the property under construction is home to the endangered Washington ground squirrel, the saving of which is also a delight to environmentalists.

-- Among the fresh "zero tolerance" cases in the news recently is the policy of a low-income housing complex in Seaside, Ore., to automatically terminate a lease if anyone in the unit engages in any violent act against anyone in the complex. According to a federal lawsuit filed in July, that policy was too literally enforced against Tiffani Ann Alvera, who has been scheduled for eviction only because she showed the landlord the judicial restraining order she had gotten after her husband beat her up.

-- In June, Father Manuel Torres of Marbella, Spain, showed a London Daily Telegraph reporter his new chart (listing 19 sins and three penances) in use in the 60 Catholic parishes around the Malaga tourist region. Since the number of worshippers rises 20-fold during the holiday season, with few visitors able to express themselves in Spanish, Father Torres said it has become crucial to his efficiency to have penitents find their sins on the list, point to them, and watch him as he holds up either one finger (three Hail Marys), two (one Our Father) and three (one act of charity).

-- In May, a 100-ton boulder slipped off of a 96-wheel trailer while being driven interstate in India from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, where it was to be sculpted into an idol of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman. As the word spread, villagers gathered around the rock, consecrated it, and delivered offerings to it, but the temple in Tamil Nadu said it still wants the rock (which was donated to the temple by a quarry owner) reloaded and delivered.

-- The 10-week tour through the U.S. this summer of Indian spiritual leader "Amma" (Mata Amritanandamayi) gave her a chance to pad her lifetime total of hugs, which she dispenses to each devotee who greets her, sometimes continuously for as long as 20 hours a day. Each service of chants and meditations lasts about two hours, followed by the hugs (about 1,000 at a Chicago ceremony in July), usually accompanied by a few back rubs and a kiss on the cheek.

Mr. Irwin Rose, said to be in his 50s, was found dead in his upscale New York City apartment in July, apparently of natural causes. The doorman said Rose had not been out of the building in 13 years, that he had everything delivered; an employee of a restaurant in the next block said Rose had been calling for the same meal three times a day every day for eight years (rice pudding, chicken soup, two eggs over easy, sausages, cheesecake). A friend said Rose used to be a movie and fashion dealmaker until a debilitating leg illness slowed him down.

Donald James Eversen was arrested in Sparks, Nev., in March and charged with attempting to rob two women and then to steal a beer truck for his getaway. Police found Eversen (who had been drinking) a few blocks from the scene, and when they brought the two women by to identify him, Eversen immediately blurted out that, yes, those were the two women he had tried to rob. And Humberto "The Frog" Banuelos, a man alleged to be a big hit man for the Tijuana drug cartel, was arrested in July in spite of the extensive cosmetic surgery he had undergone for disguise. Police said Banuelos had neglected to change the one thing that they regarded as his chief body characteristic: a distinctive bullet-wound scar on his right buttock.

Earlier this year, News of the Weird reported that the tony Silicon Valley town of Woodside, Calif. (population 5,600), had recently proposed to comply with a state law setting a minimum per-town number of "affordable housing" units by allowing horse farmers to create moderately priced "apartments" inside their barns. In May, Massachusetts state Rep. John H. Rogers proposed that towns in his state, when attempting to comply with laws requiring low-income housing, be able to include jails and prisons in their totals.

The Florida Department of Corrections released DUI-manslaughter convict Casey Bloom, even though he fulfilled his required 4,350 hours of community service by making only two public appearances, which were taped and broadcast thousands of times. Boston Harbor's 10th annual swim to commemorate clean-water progress was canceled due to heavy pollution. A 26-year-old Navy man was rescued from 85 feet inside the Kilauea (Hawaii) Volcano, where he had fallen after chasing his windblown baseball cap. Two mothers of 15-year-old baseball players were arrested after beating unconscious the mother of the rival player who scored the winning run (Salt Lake City).

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