-- Ultra-Orthodox Jewish authorities ruled in October that their priests could not ride on airliners taking off from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv without getting into hermetically sealed body bags for the few moments that the plane passes over the cemetery in Holon (reasoning that impurities emanating from the cemetery had to be blocked out). El Al said it wouldn't permit passengers, for safety reasons, to wrap themselves like that, but Swissair announced it would make a slight route adjustment so that its planes could avoid the cemetery.

-- Pennsylvania state Rep. Jane Baker, 56, said she will run for a second term next year even though she told a jury recently that injuries from a traffic accident had left her largely cognitively disabled. Baker, who lives near Allentown, said she "needs help with reading and understanding material and carrying on conversations" due to head injuries and told the jury that in fact she is "virtually unemployable" except for her position in the Legislature. (The jury awarded her $2.9 million in November.)

A couple in their 70s were recovering in Wythenshawe Hospital (Manchester) after severely overdosing on pills because, they said, their neighbors' kids had long been behaving too rambunctiously. And a judge at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court told John Bushnell, 75, that he had best relocate after finding that, for 40 years, he has been guilty of tacky, petty harassment of his neighbors, out of inexplicable hatred. ("Dying-looking git," "creepy-looking Jesus," "first-class s-house" and "humpty-backed bastard" are a few of his epithets.) And the manager of a senior-citizens home was convicted of gross negligence at Chelmsford Crown Court for her longstanding obsession with making sure her clients were sufficiently hydrated (except that she went too far, sometimes pouring massive amounts of water down their throats, to the point where two of them died).

-- Naturists Robert and Christine Morton finally achieved closure in October in their longstanding quest to be able to bring their three kids to the clothing-optional Hippie Hollow park, near Austin, Texas, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected their appeal challenging the park's anti-nudity rule for children. The state and county agencies that run the park, which is open to everyone (including, presumably, well-behaved voyeurs and pedophiles), had ruled that nude children were especially vulnerable, but the Mortons, oblivious of the danger, had insisted on frolicking nude as a family.

-- An October Associated Press dispatch from Pittsburgh reported that some local parents had recently held chicken pox "parties" for their kids, in which one kid with a current outbreak would be mingled with other kids so as to infect them, too, so that (after a week's discomfort) they would acquire lifetime immunity. These parents apparently want their kids to avoid standard immunizations because of the side-effects.

-- In August in Bartlesville, Okla., Douglas Dean Bryant Sr., 39, and Douglas Dean Bryant Jr., 19, were charged with rape in separate incidents; Dad's alleged victim was a year younger, at age 14, than the son's. And in August in Tylertown, Miss., David Earl King, 66, and his son, Nathan Paul King, were convicted of sexually molesting the same 14-year-old boy and received prison sentences of 36 years and 18 years, respectively.

-- In October, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Antonio Contreras' appeal, thus ending his lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, in which he claimed that he was fired as a forklift operator despite his federally protected disability, which he says is "sexual dysfunction." Contreras said he used to have sex five times a week but that injury has limited him to twice a month and that that is the reason Suncast Corporation of Illinois no longer thinks he's a good worker.

-- Katherine Norfolk, 19, and her parents filed a lawsuit in September for about $250,000 against Hurstpierpoint College (West Sussex, England), claiming it did not instruct her well enough in Latin, causing her to score too low on exams to get accepted at Oxford, thus ruining her career and diluting the "earning power" that comes with a degree in Latin.

Jeffrey J. Harris, 39, was arrested at halftime of the Florida high school football game between St. Petersburg and Clearwater in October when he created a loud scene by blocking his two kids (starters for Clearwater) from entering their locker room (which is located in a public place with many students and parents mingling around outside). Harris was mad about something that happened in the first half and ordered the kids to immediately strip off their uniforms in a public display and to come home with him. The kids tried to rejoin their team, and when Harris intervened and struck a martial-arts stance, police arrested him.

Another of those guys who enlist in wartime and then don't much keep up with the news turned up in September in the Guatemalan jungle, just across the border from his native El Salvador, surprised to learn that the 1969 war (El Salvador invading Honduras) ended 32 years ago, about 100 days after it started. Salomon Vides, 72, was further driven into hiding because he often heard gunfire over the years, but rescuers noted that he was living in an area popular with hunters. Reporters noted that Vides looked authentically out of the loop, for example, having a tough time with the concept of a pop-top soda can.

-- A man inadvertently shot and killed his 23-year-old son on a hunting trip while the son hid behind a log, holding up a dead squirrel and making barking sounds (even after the son had been warned by the family many times to cut out the pranks) (Galien, Mich., September). And a 25-year-old man who had parked on railroad tracks to scare his girlfriend and then chased after her on foot was killed when he ran back to the car to move it (after hearing a horn) and was crushed by a passing train (Houston, July). And a 19-year-old college student was killed when he slid down a library chute that he thought was for books but which was a garbage chute dumping straight into a compactor (Sewanee, Tenn., October).

Motorist Jerry Ross pleaded guilty to hit-and-run charges after he collided with a slow-moving train, then extricated his car despite its having been mangled, and then drove off (Augusta, Ga.). Greg Bonnett filed a lawsuit against a strip club after a dancer took too wide a swing from a pole and smacked him in the face with her leg, breaking his nose (Port Moody, British Columbia). A 58-year-old man died of kidney problems resulting from his 1966 gunshot wound from University of Texas Tower killer Charles Whitman, thus bringing Whitman's death toll that day to 15. Bruce Menia was served an eviction notice by his apartment-house landlord because of numerous complaints about how loud and "disturbing" his snoring is (Albany, N.Y.)

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

-- A 33-year-old man was taken to Via Christi Regional Medical Center in Wichita, Kan., on Nov. 13 with a coat hanger stuck in his throat, but there was a logical explanation, he told the hospital staff. At a party, "someone," he said, had slipped a dime-sized balloon containing what he heard was cocaine into his drink, and after accidentally ingesting it and feeling it stick in his throat, he decided to try to fish it out with the coat hanger. Surgeons unhooked the hanger, but police recovered the bag, and prosecutors said they would probably file a felony drug possession charge against the man.

-- Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation told a Society for Neuroscience meeting in November in San Diego that their study had found that muscles were strengthened 35 percent and 13 percent, respectively, among two groups of people who merely concentrated on imagining they were exercising (vs. no increase at all by control groups that neither exercised nor imagined exercise).

In August, the Food and Drug Administration approved the artificial Neosphincter, a prescription-required, pump-operated device to give relief for otherwise-hopelessly incontinent people; although the device recorded too many "adverse incidents" in trials to be marketed to the general population, it claimed a 90 percent success rate for patients specially trained in its use. And in October, Toronto cosmetic surgeon Robert Stubbs, who has a thriving practice in silicone testicle implants for men missing one or both, told the Edmonton Journal that he can now offer special implants for fully testicled men who merely want bigger ones.

-- Dionne French filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico in October over a 1998 incident, charging the Santa Fe Southern Railway and a conductor and brakeman with negligence in not stopping a train in time to avoid hitting her. French, who was homeless at the time and living near Santa Fe, admitted that she was lying on the tracks asleep, and with a brown blanket over her, but said the railroad still had the obligation to detect her presence and stop.

-- It Actually Happens: Dorothy M. Ellis Williams filed a lawsuit in July against the QuikTrip gas station in Edwardsville, Ill., for injuries to her back and knee when she slipped on a banana peel while walking out the front door.

-- Scott Bender filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways in October, charging that a crew on a February flight from North Carolina had closed up the plane that was parked at a gate in Birmingham, Ala., and left him sleeping in his seat. Bender said he deserves some money from the airline because when he woke up, it was pitch black, and he thought for a few seconds that he was dead.

-- Sudanese-born gynecologist Darwish Hasan Darwish dropped to his knees and praised Allah after he was found not guilty by a jury at Preston (England) Crown Court in October on a charge that he had raped a woman whom he had put under hypnosis. The woman later gave birth to his child, which was assumed for years to have been her husband's, until her husband, who is a plumber, installed a sauna in the Darwish home and noticed a resemblance between one of Darwish's daughters and his own. The jury apparently believed the sex might have been consensual, but among the things the judge did not permit jurors to know was that Dr. Darwish had already been convicted of having sex with patients under similar circumstances nine times.

-- In July, Dr. Richard Dye of Half Moon Bay, Calif., was acquitted of sexual assault on female patients despite his admission that he had therapeutically brought at least four women to climax on his examination table during his years as a family practitioner. (Police said he had told them it was "100" women.) Though several woman had made complaints against him, a large contingent of his female patients attended the trial, enthusiastically supporting him.

In an incident resembling a movie scene, Alan Martin, 49, was hospitalized in fair condition after being run over on Oct. 1. He had deliberately lain down in the middle of a busy street in Daly City, Calif., as a protest against officers' confiscating his RV, which had just been involved in a minor accident. Martin refused to budge from the street so officers tried to shield his body for a while by blocking a lane of traffic with their cruisers, but then along came one of those notorious California hot-pursuit police chases, with the car driven by fleeing suspect Kevin Domino, 37, accidentally ramming the stopped cruiser, then driving over Martin's body, then trying to straighten out his car and inadvertently running over Martin again, before taking off. (Police caught Domino a few blocks later when his car stalled out.)

News of the Weird has reported several times on romantic-revenge cases from Japan, in which spurned lovers make it nearly their life's work to harass former suitors, sometimes telephoning dozens of times a month for years. Recently, Masashi Kimura made 220 phone calls to the 25-year-old woman who had ignored his advances, and the man was arrested in October. In most traditional cases, the couple had had a previous relationship; in this case, Kimura (of Nagoya, Japan) was still trying to pester the woman for just a first date, and the 220 calls were made in about one month's time.

Stephen Millhouse, 20, was convicted of burglary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in October, for breaking into the apartment of a 21-year-old woman and awakening her. According to her testimony, Millhouse was only slightly aggressive, mostly asking politely for sex, which she declined. Frustrated, Millhouse then asked for an actual date. She finally gave him her phone number just to get rid of him, and when he called her back, she arranged a meeting and, ultimately, for his arrest. Millhouse's lawyer told the jury that his client is too stupid to be dangerous, even asking Millhouse on the stand, "Did you really think she wanted to see you again?" (Millhouse answered, "I didn't know for sure. That's why I called.")

A 22-year-old man got 60 years in prison for shooting two guys who laughed at his brother's haircut (shaved all around except for a patch of hair surrounding his pony tail) (Chicago). Former president Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan warned citizens that if they didn't vote for the candidates he is endorsing, he will kill himself. The 270-pound president of a group that helps steer at-risk kids away from crime (and who coaches a football team of 7-year-olds) was arrested for punching a referee in the head (Sarasota, Fla.). Two weeks after the House of Representatives' highly criticized decision to fearfully shut down because of anthrax mail, its members voted themselves $12,000 pay raises.

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

-- Among the diversionary shipboard classes serving U.S. Marine combat-expeditionary units on the USS Peleliu warship in the Arabian Sea are an anger-management class taught by a chaplain and an English class taught by intelligence officer Chris Picado, delving into poetry from World War I. In an October Reuters interview, one admiring student in Capt. Picado's class (who might be minutes away from combat), explained: "Just by what (the poet wrote), you can actually feel (the war), or you can get a mental picture of (death)."

-- Sexual assaults by adults against children in South Africa have almost doubled in two years, prompted probably, say officials, by a growing belief in the countryside that having sex with a virgin will cure an HIV-positive man. According to a health official in Durban: "We have no idea where this idea has come from, but it has been around for a few years and has certainly taken hold," especially in view of the country's sharp increase in AIDS cases. The country was stunned in early November when six men, attempting to "protect" themselves, were charged with the rape of a baby.

Jack Wilke filed a lawsuit in August against the police in Reedsburg, Wis., because, when he asked for his wife's "personal effects" back after her suicide, they gave him only a container holding some actual internal organs. And as part of a Charleston, W.Va., wrongful-firing lawsuit, it was revealed in August that the box of remains of murder victim David Allen Williams, which the medical examiner sent to his sister in 1998, were by mistake deer bones, which the sister unknowingly had cremated. And the parts (nose, scalp, teeth) that startled a woman when she found them in her attic in September were later revealed to be her late husband's souvenirs of his 1981 plastic surgery (Mohegan Lake, N.Y.)

-- Emma Ness of Fargo, N.D., passed her driver's license-renewal eye test in September despite the fact that she is so severely vision-impaired that her nurse must drive her around. Ness, 79, said she had 75 percent blockage in one eye, 25 percent in the other, and sees spots in the middle of road signs, according to a report in the Fargo Forum, but she bet the nurse that clerks would renew her license, anyway, and they did. ("We're only human," said a state transportation official.) (In October, a 34-year-old legally blind man, who did not have a license, died when he accidentally smashed his car into the back of a tractor-trailer in Lenoir, N.C.)

-- Port of Oakland (Calif.) commissioners ordered a full inquiry in October on why 1,000 secure-area access badges to Oakland International Airport were missing. However, the FAA had come down hard on the airport only because 1,000 badges was too many, in that regulations permit that airport to have only 500 unaccounted-for access badges.

-- During the summer, cell-phone users who dialed 911 in Northern California and who were placed on hold for the next available operator did not receive the traditional, calming recorded messages of reassurance. Rather, the often-panicked callers had to listen to tapes of either energy-saving tips or job-recruiting notices for the California Highway Patrol. After the San Francisco Chronicle publicized the messages in an August story, the traditional calming messages were returned to the line.

-- For reasons not yet explained in the British press, when David Devlin of Glasgow, Scotland, retrieved prints from his four rolls of Greek-vacation photographs from a film processing shop in August, he found that his package contained not his photos but rather year-old snapshots taken by Cherie Blair (wife of the British prime minister) of husband Tony and their children on holiday in Italy. Devlin returned the photos to the shop, and Blair's office said only that the prime minister was grateful to have them back.

-- Mark Wayne Toon, 24, was arrested in September and charged with breaking into the Van Alma Tire Center in Fort Smith, Ark., and stealing some things. Police investigators learned that Toon had not only accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene but, in the course of urinating against a front window, had had occasion to rest his buttocks against the pane, leaving two sets of what police described as buttocks-shaped prints.

A September San Francisco Chronicle profile highlighted the several victories of free-lance postal-customer advocate Doug Carlson in getting sluggish or recalcitrant postal supervisors to do their jobs better, but also described Carlson's lifelong fascination with the post office: "As a kid, he followed the postman around. He got his first post office box when he was 15. (H)e toured mail-processing facilities." "It's fun to watch," he said. A law-school graduate and now a university administrator, Carlson reads the postal manual as a "hobby," he said, to be able to cite instances in which the USPS doesn't follow its own procedures.

According to police in Brockton, Mass., among suspected DUI driver Edward T. Petit's first words to officers after fatally hitting a 24-year-old woman in June were that he was just bragging to his buddy a few minutes earlier that he could "drink him under the table any day." And in September, inmate Timothy Mize, 43, was beaten up by cellmates in jail in Enid, Okla., after he started bragging about his crime of molesting a 15-year-old girl. And on being informed that Canada had chosen a secluded rural retreat for next year's Group of Eight summit, possibly because the area's grizzly bear population would discourage the usual protestors, Alberta activist Alan Keane said the protestors would be out in force, anyway, because grizzly bears "are our friends."

Arrested for murder in Shelby, N.C., in August: John Wayne Moses; and in Hastings, Minn., in October: Steven Wayne McBride; and in Ehrenberg, Ariz., in October: George Wayne McBroom; and in Bangor, Maine, in October: Carl Wayne Heath; and in Irving, Texas, in October: Darrell Wayne Wright; and in Toledo, Ohio, in October: Mark Wayne Jones. Sentenced to life in prison for murder in Dallas, in September: Michael Wayne Henry; and in Wellington, New Zealand, in October: Richard Wayne Gorrie. Executed for murder in Raleigh, N.C., in August: Ronald Wayne Frye.

The Human Blockhead (Melvin Burkhart, 94), a carnival star who hammered spikes into his face through a cavity behind his nostril, passed away (Riverview, Fla.). British researchers found that a sheep can distinguish and recognize as many as 50 other sheeps' faces for up to two years, even in silhouette. A San Francisco motorcycle cop ordered a Fire Department Toys for Tots van, actively collecting for the holidays, towed for having expired license plates. A 49-year-old computer programmer was sentenced to two years in prison for hacking into a town's waste-disposal system to divert millions of gallons of raw sewage onto land, out of frustration that the town wouldn't hire him (Maroochy Shire, Australia).