Despite a $7.5 million budget deficit, the city of Berkeley, Calif., bought a 40-foot-long refrigerated trailer last year for the sole purpose of storing shopping carts that had been commandeered by homeless people for their "stuff" but then abandoned. According to a November 2004 report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the city says the freezer prevents vermin infestation while authorities wait (up to 90 days) for the "owners" to reclaim their belongings. Critics of the program said the city should just confiscate the shopping carts, most of which had been stolen from merchants in the first place and almost all of which are never claimed, anyway.

In underreported November election returns: Notorious Florida radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem lost his race for Pinellas County sheriff, and his Tampa radio competitor "Dave the Dwarf" Flood lost for a conservation-panel seat (but each got nearly 30 percent of the vote). The mayor of Arvin, Calif., Juan Olivares, was arrested the day before polls opened, charged with child molesting. (Voters ousted him.) Peter Stevenson, losing candidate for Vermont lieutenant governor, appeared at the only televised debate with a fake arrow through his head and blood on his clothes. Bruce Borders won, becoming the Indiana General Assembly's only Elvis impersonator. Losing Pennsylvania congressional candidate Arthur Farnsworth, who ran on an anti-tax platform, was arrested three days after the election for tax evasion.

In 1998, a New York jury said Kenneth H. Payne murdered a man, but the state's highest court set him free in October 2004, with no strings attached. The jury had convicted him of "depraved indifference" murder (rejecting "intentional" murder), but the Court of Appeals said the circumstances of the crime better fit the latter rather than the former. Noting that state prosecutors have often used "depraved indifference" as a crutch for juries that might be reluctant to call a murder "intentional," the court decided to send district attorneys a message by essentially giving Payne a free murder.

(1) According to an October Reuters dispatch, Afghan women are being vigorously recruited for the police force even though there are still no female uniforms, and the crews being trained by the United States wear their everyday jewelry, accessories, stockings, high heels and brightly colored head scarves (but still appeared to be highly motivated). (2) The U.S. Forest Service, acting under its new policy of directly billing culpable parties for firefighting costs, said in October that it was preparing to send Ryan Unger, 18, of Wenatchee, Wash., an invoice for $10 million for his having started the August fires in central Washington.

-- Public Servant: The school superintendent of Beverly, Mass., William H. Lupini, decided to leave that $130,000-a-year job in May and take the $148,000-a-year job as school superintendent in Brookline, Mass. However, since Brookline's school year did not start until July, and since Lupini perhaps felt there were no other "school superintendent" jobs available covering the interim month of June, he applied for $2,332 in unemployment compensation for that month, as reported in the Beverly Citizen newspaper.

-- The Chicago Sun-Times reported in November that Illinois officials had decided to spend $115,000 in federal money to distribute 2.4 million condoms to help reduce sexually transmitted diseases among the young, but also concluded that the young might need special incentives to actually use the condoms. Consequently, bureaucrats decided that 900,000 would be in colors (orange, green, red or blue) and that 300,000 others would be flavored (orange, lemon, grape, cherry), to encourage their use in oral sex. State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger objected to the distribution of what he called "French ticklers" and suggested that all condoms should be "army green, utilitarian, low-priced." (Update: Gov. Rod Blagojevich subsequently eliminated the colors/flavors option.)

-- In November, the Federation of American Scientists revealed the existence of a recent U.S. Air Force-paid study of psychic teleportation prepared by true-believing Nevada physicist Eric Davis, who wrote that moving oneself from location to location through mind powers is "quite real and can be controlled." An Air Force Research Lab spokesman defended his agency's use of UFO and spoon-bending reports and Soviet and Chinese studies of psychics, telling USA Today, "If we don't turn over stones, we don't know if we have missed something."

-- Three of the five National Transportation Safety Board members criticized a fourth, the chairman, in a personal letter obtained by the St. Petersburg Times in September. According to the letter, Chairman Ellen Engleman Conners was getting too political (the board is supposedly nonpartisan) and too controlling (the board is traditionally quite collegial), and the Times reported that members and staffers had complained privately that Engleman Conners would sometimes call them in advance of public meetings to negotiate clothing, in order to discourage outfits that would clash with her own.

In October, prominent Albany, N.Y., pediatric neurologist Phillip Riback was sentenced to 48 years in prison after his conviction on 28 sexual-abuse counts against 12 boys, but he continued to insist that his actions were simply "misconstrued," disputing testimony not only that he touched the boys inappropriately but that he had them spit on his face and into his mouth. Riback's lawyer said his client suffers from a disorder that makes socializing difficult: "He has a pattern of quirky, entertaining behavior as a way of relating that simply goes too far."

In addition to his poor performance on a field sobriety test, the chief evidence that Frank Hersha, 28, was driving drunk in Manchester, Conn., in October was that police spotted him trying to order from the drive-thru window of a local restaurant that was obviously closed. And in Watertown, Mass., a playful Kudzai Kwenda, 23, accidentally locked handcuffs on his wrist at home in October, and figured they would know how to get them off at the local police station, but shortly after arrival, he was jailed because he had apparently forgotten there was an arrest warrant out against him.

Two months ago, News of the Weird reported on computer technology that would permit quasi-insertive sexual intercourse by a remote user (the Sinulator). In just a short step from that, hunter John Underwood announced in November that he had set up the equipment for "hunters" to fire a rifle over the Internet at deer, antelope and wild pigs on his 330-acre ranch near San Antonio, Texas (but opposition is mounting, and state regulators may step in, although current law is said to be written in a way that could not cover Internet hunting). Underwood would provide animal retrieval and shipping services, and said his business would be especially valuable for disabled sportsmen.

Karen Stolzmann, 44, was arrested in October in Portage, Wis., and charged with possession of stolen property, specifically, her long-dead boyfriend's ashes, which police say she dug up more than 10 years ago, perhaps to taunt his family, with whom she never got along. Other items that had been buried with him were found in her possession, and authorities speculate that the beer the family buried as tribute had long since been drunk by Stolzmann. (The couple reportedly had a stormy relationship, and the family believes she provoked his suicide.)

(1) A journal study by Maastricht University in The Netherlands concluded that even the air quality alongside major highways is not as dangerous as the air inside the typical church (with candles, incense and poor ventilation). (2) A Junction City, Ore., high school student was arrested after he and a pal allegedly distributed a DVD they had made, complete with rap-music sound track, of them beating up a classmate they had selected at random.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

Eccentric British rock musician Genesis P-Orridge (born Neil Megson) and his wife and partner, Lady Jaye Breyer, are gradually transforming themselves surgically into gender-neutral human beings ("pandrogynous") resembling each other, so that eventually they will be indistinguishable, to demonstrate how overrated gender is as a point of reference. (For example, he wore a lace dress at their wedding, and she dressed as a biker guy, with moustache, and for Valentine's Day 2003, each got breast implants.) P-Orridge told SF Weekly in October that their goal is to jointly become a third person, distinct from either of them.

(1) Katherine Williams was kicked out of the public library's community flea market in Spring Hill, Tenn., in October because she offered for sale a yellow duck-shaped bath sponge, larger than a football, that happened to vibrate (to the delight of her child, she said); city officials (who were apparently focused on the word "vibrate") concluded that it must be a sex toy and said her booth violated the town's adult-business law. (2) Archaeologists excitedly announced in October that in examining ruins on the Wittenberg, Germany, property of 16th-century philosopher Martin Luther, they discovered the actual stone toilet on which he composed the manifesto that launched the Protestant Revolution. (Luther suffered chronic constipation and thus spent much of his days on the toilet.)

In November, former mayor Diana Cortez of La Grulla, Texas, and the town's former bookkeeper pleaded guilty to taking $53,700 in federal community grant money and spending it all on psychic consultations. And in August, the St. Louis (Mo.) Regional Chamber and Growth Association fired psychic David Levin after seven years' service, during which time it paid him $1.4 million in fees and expenses. Levin's business card read "executive coach," and the association president admitted Levin had "uncanny" abilities, but Levin prominently attributed his astuteness to his spiritual powers, which he said he has in common with his wife and 15-year-old son.

-- Showstopping designs for women during October's Fashion Week in Paris this year included (according to a report in London's Daily Mirror) a formal, plastic, nearly transparent bag, about 3 feet by 4 feet, designed to be worn over the head (from Dutch designers Viktor and Rolf); a set of deluxe armor plates resembling football shoulder pads (and helmet) (from Alexander McQueen); and an outfit seemingly consisting of more than a dozen foot-long black tied bows extending from the shoulders to below the waist (Viktor and Rolf).

-- Mr. Ilker Yilmaz, 28, of Istanbul, inspired to bring pride to Turkey by achieving a Guinness Book world record, decided to challenge Canadian Mark Moraal's 8.7-foot mark for squirting milk out of his eye. In October, exploiting what he called an anomaly in his tear gland, he sucked milk up his nose and pinched it 9.223 feet out of an eye socket in front of several witnesses and is now awaiting official recognition.

-- In one of the stark reminders of regional language variations in the United States, a game resembling horseshoes is fast becoming a pastime in the Midwest that likely would not be so popular under the same name in the South. In this game, contestants throw beanbag-like bags of corn toward a platform that has a hole in the center, trying to score points (in the hole, or on the platform, or knocking your opponents' bag off the platform). Some refer to the game as Corn Toss, but the more popular name, according to a September report in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, is Cornhole.

-- Included among "weapons" allegedly found on inmates at the Grafton prison in Australia, reported in September in Brisbane's Courier-Mail, were four venomous redback spiders that an inmate said were "pets" that were regularly "milked" of venom by inmates in order to produce a toxin that they could inject, to help them get high.

(1) Friends tried to persuade a 37-year-old man at a party near Greenville, Mich., in September that he was too drunk to drive home safely, but the man became enraged; in the ensuing brawl, the man was clubbed in the head with a flashlight and died. (2) Parent Deborah Meister, 46, was charged with assault in Anchorage, Alaska, in September following a public meeting on school policies at Central Middle School; according to police, Meister roughed up an assistant principal because she thought he had been too cavalier about the problem of student bullying.

Among the unsuccessful 2004 write-in presidential candidates (according to a November report on NJ.com): Jack Grimes of Maryland, who admires the leadership methodology of Saddam Hussein but would rely on telepathy and astrology to make tough presidential decisions; Sterling Allan of Utah, who alphabetized and then numbered every word in the Bible and said that the codes he produced told him to return the United States to the gold standard, among other insights; and Randy Crow of North Carolina, who says that despite a government-implanted chip in his brain, his administration would crush the "Omega Agency," which steals from people, which staged the Sept. 11 attacks, and which may have the ability to vaporize everyone.

It was one of the classics, but it happened anew, in Bloomington, Ill., in October. Donald R. Hilger was arrested and charged with robbing 11 local businesses over the previous two weeks. He was picked up shortly after a robbery of a Jewel/Osco store, and police brought two of that robbery's witnesses by the arrest scene to see if they could identify him. According to police, however, as soon as the employees spotted Hilger, Hilger pointed at one of them and blurted out, "That's the one I robbed."

A 47-year-old tribesman from Vietnam, who had relocated to a U.S. government-sponsored Montagnard community in North Carolina to escape persecution, got homesick and headed back to Vietnam in September. However, he lost his papers and is now stranded at Los Angeles International Airport because no country will issue him a visa, in a dilemma reminiscent of that of Merhan "Alfred" Nasseri, who has been chronicled several times in News of the Weird since 1988 (and in the recent movie "The Terminal") and who remains at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. The tribesman is convinced that his only chance of repatriation will be lost if he leaves the airport, but at press time, he was continuing to examine options while making his home in an airport chair.

Robbers stole $70,000 from the Lucky Dollar Casino in Greensburg, La., in November, and, acting on a deal-seeking tip from one of the robbers, police checked a creek near Baton Rouge, where two of the three moneybags were recovered. A search downstream turned up the third, which had been carried away by beavers and used in the construction of their dam, with apparently all of the money still inside. Jacqueline Wall, 25, was charged, and at least one other arrest was expected.

Joel Crytzer, 63, was charged with marijuana possession in November in Butler, Pa., when officers spotted some on the floor of his car, which they had stopped because Crytzer had been cruising down the road, seemingly oblivious of the fact that his car had only three tires. And Kevin Martzett, 39, was charged with robbery in Cass County, Neb.; according to police, besides taking money from the victim, he also forced the victim to cash a $75 government check made out to "Kevin Martzett."

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

"Anal-wart researcher" (visual inspection being the only way to detect anal cancer from the human papillomavirus) heads Popular Science magazine's second annual November list of the worst jobs in science. However, "worm parasitologist" can be just as challenging, especially for anyone studying the Dracunculus medinensis (which can settle in humans to a length of 3 feet and then must be removed carefully after its thousands of offspring burst through the skin). Other contenders: "tampon squeezer" for the study of vaginal infections; a Lyme-disease "tick attractor" (who must sing, to keep bears away, while trolling in the woods); and "monitors" at warm-climate landfills (where garbage has been reduced to steamy, liquid condensates).

Perhaps the strangest election result this year was in Orange County, Calif., where a school board seat went not to the favored establishment candidate but to an unknown, Steve Rocco, who never campaigned or even appeared in public. (He did tell a friend after the election that he would appear at the board meeting on Dec. 9.) Among the little information known about him: His candidate registration included one page of (according to the Los Angeles Times) "densely typed text cut and pasted together, and filled with rambling prose," and several years ago, he hosted a 17-episode interview series on public-access TV while wearing dark glasses.

In November, four University of Memphis basketball players, who share an apartment on campus, reported a break-in, with items missing (according to the police report obtained by WPTY-TV) including $6,000 worth of shoes, $4,000 of custom-made shirts, $6,000 of trousers and $40,000 of mink coats.

(1) The September nomination of Michael Kostiw as executive director of the CIA was withdrawn almost immediately when The Washington Post revealed that he, while in a previous stint with the agency, had been caught shoplifting a $2.13 package of bacon from a Langley, Va., grocery store. (2) While demonstrations about Iraq usually either support the troops or criticize U.S. involvement, a group of porn-video actresses staged an idiosyncratic protest in August in Los Angeles, denouncing the U.S. military for offering breast implants to female soldiers (as a way to help keep combat surgeons sharp for battle-related plastic surgery). (One sign read, "Honk if you love natural breasts.")

-- Asking for Trouble From the Spirits: Kenneth Rabalais, 19, was charged with desecrating a grave in a suburb of New Orleans after he opened the crypt of a young relative, believing that other relatives had buried "tribute" money and drugs to help ease the deceased's transition to the afterworld. (Apparently, the deceased left un-tributed.) And in Hawaii, Wal-Mart opened a store in October despite warnings that it had been built on an ancient grave site (and, indeed, the remains of 44 bodies turned up during construction). (Wal-Mart said it is protecting the remains while it seeks state approval to re-bury them.)

-- Colin Hancock, a convicted drug dealer serving time in Perth Prison in Scotland, filed a lawsuit in October, asking the equivalent of about US$55,000 because of an improper rectal exam (responding to his symptom of urine blockage) given by a prison physician. Dr. Alexander MacFarlane said he was forced to use, as lubricant, milk from a bowl of porridge because that was all the prison had on hand.

-- In August, a pilot, cruising over Forest Grove, Ore., on assignment, reached out the window to scatter the cremated ashes of a man over the Mountain View Memorial Gardens, but the 4-pound bag slipped out of his hand, eventually crashing through the roof of Barbara Vreeland, who lives near the cemetery. The deceased's family paid for the damage, but Vreeland later told a reporter, "I think some of (him) is still in our attic."

-- The child pornography collections allegedly belonging to two men were inadvertently exposed in separate incidents in October. Robert Medvee was arrested in Frederick, Md., on 96 counts after workers spotted a stash as they were making repairs on his home following recent tornado damage. And part of the collection of the late Todd Darow was spotted by police, who had gone to his home in Livonia, Mich., to inform his widow that Darow's body had been found (at a church where he was a part-time custodian). (A search of the house turned up a more extensive holding, including videotapes of children being molested in the church restroom.)

In October, Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear research officials evicted Roy M. Moore, 56, who had been living for years, apparently undetected, in a hard-to-access cave on the grounds (though not in a high-security area of the property). Moore had equipped his cave with a wood-burning stove, solar panels, a bed, a glass door and satellite radio. And in Houston in October, police calling at the home of Ronnie Luhn, 37, regarding the theft of a newspaper vending box, arrested him after finding 181 of them crammed floor-to-ceiling in the one-bedroom house he shared with his wife and three children.

(1) Frances Lea Shaw, 41, was charged with arson of her home in Greensburg, Pa., in August after police and firefighters discovered that her most valuable household items (clothes, TV set, microwave oven) had already been placed in the yard under a heavy tarp by the time they arrived at her burning home. (2) John DeWitt, 18, fled from a security guard at the Orlando Ale House (Orlando, Fla.) in September after the guard suspected he was about to burglarize the building, but DeWitt's flight ended when he climbed into what he thought was a garbage can in order to hide but which turned out to be discarded restaurant grease.

News of the Weird reported in 2002 on a rooftop brawl in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre (under joint control of six Christian faiths, whose adherents sometimes get snippy with each other), when a cleric placed a chair in an area reserved for another faith. In September 2004, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox clerics had a fistfight (resulting in at least five injuries) after a Catholic left a door open during an Orthodox service. (Coincidentally, on almost the same day in Bedford, Ohio, police said that more than 100 Sikhs were involved in a brawl over proper clerical dress at the Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Temple.)

Three of these four things really happened, just recently. Are you cynical enough to figure out the made-up story? (a) A California Highway Patrol officer ticketed the operator of a Jeep off-road vehicle driving on Interstate 5 while tending to two hamburgers cooking on a portable grill. (b) A Texas state representative had his house and yard toilet-papered by a group of adult women who were supporting his opponent. (c) A Louisiana man arrested for indecent exposure confessed to police his longstanding hobby of photographing himself nude in unusual locations. (d) Police called to a Utah man's house to stop him from slitting his wrists also found the man's mother trying to commit suicide by automobile exhaust in the garage.

In October, with the homeowner away on vacation, Beverly Valentine, 54, broke into a house in Douglasville, Ga., and made herself totally at home, commandeering owner Beverly Mitchell's clothes, having the utilities changed to her name, ripping out carpeting, having a new washer and dryer installed, and painting a room, among other changes. When Mitchell returned after 17 days in Greece, she was of course dumbfounded that her key wouldn't work. Valentine has not yet explained, but a former neighbor said she has had some "problems."

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)