Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez (Alice, Texas, pop. 19,000) and her twin sister were indicted in January for hiding evidence in a dognapping case. Saenz-Lopez had agreed to baby-sit a shih tzu but, alarmed by the dog's sickliness, she kept it and lied to the owners that it had died. When it was spotted at a local grooming service, Saenz-Lopez and her sister allegedly began a cover-up that included the mayor's once pretending to be her sister. The mayor told her lawyer that if not for her husband, she would go to jail "for the rest of (my) life" rather than give the dog back. Most recently, Saenz-Lopez reported that the dog had run away, but many of her constituents are skeptical.

-- Among the accusations that emerged from an FBI investigation of the U.S. government's beleaguered Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (according to a December Washington Post report) is that the deputy director of that office, Ginger Cruz, a self-described Wiccan, had been threatening to place hexes on employees if they co-operated with outsiders' evaluations of the agency. (She was cleared of those charges by the internal SIGIR staff.)

-- A commercial, pre-packaged ham-and-cheese sandwich using one slice of bread is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which conducts daily inspections under its jurisdiction, but a ham-and-cheese sandwich on two slices of bread falls to the Food and Drug Administration, which inspects plants about once every five years. That anomaly surfaced in the current presidential campaign and was verified by a Congressional Quarterly-St. Petersburg Times "Politifact" researcher in December. A USDA official admitted to the Times that there "is no rationale or logic" behind the distinction: "(I)t's an issue that makes it look like we don't know what we're doing."

-- Political Campaign Strategies: (1) Lee Myung-bak was elected president of South Korea in December, perhaps attributable in part to his organization's spraying a sharp fragrance they call "Great Korea" in the air at campaign events and then on election day at polling places, hoping for an olfactory influence on undecided voters. (2) Matthew Lajoie, 21, could have used chemical help in his race for an at-large school board seat in Brunswick, Maine, in November. He spent the campaign trying to convince voters that he is a changed man from the one who had amassed 18 criminal convictions in the previous two years. (He lost but received 10.5 percent of the votes.)

-- Samina Malik, 23, was convicted in a British court in December and given a suspended nine-month sentence for having amassed a large collection of how-to books on terrorism. She came to authorities' attention as the self-described "lyrical terrorist" who writes poetry glorifying the Islamic mujahadeen fighters who specialize in beheadings. (From her "How to Behead": "Tilt the fool's head to its left / Saw the knife back and forth / No doubt that the punk will twitch and scream / But ignore the donkey's ass / And continue to slice back and forth.")

-- In January, the Centre for Recent Drawing art gallery in a London, England, suburb scheduled a series of 55 works by artist Jordan McKenzie, 40, called "Spent," even though they consist merely of canvases onto which he had ejaculated and covered with carbon sprinkles. McKenzie maintained that the works were "heartfelt and delicate."

-- The Austin (Texas) Police Department announced in January that it had suspended Officer Scott Lando, 45, based on preliminary indications that he had been hiring a prostitute while on duty. According to a search warrant affidavit (disclosed in the Austin American-Statesman), Lando had paid for the woman's services in part by giving her free rein over part of Mrs. Lando's closet, declaring that his wife "would never miss" some of the items.

-- Chutzpah: (1) Georgia Ann Newman, 36, was arrested and charged with battery on a police officer after she not only spit on a Charleston, W.Va., officer but, as he was leading her away, wiped her nose on his uniform shirt. (2) Teresa Walker, 44, was arrested in Cincinnati in October in the course of a minor traffic stop because, while the ticket was being written, she allegedly called the police department on her cell phone to complain that the officer was writing too slowly. She later denied the officer's charge that she had threatened to "shoot" him if he didn't speed it up, but only to "sue" him.

Satellite-navigation is undoubtedly a boon to drivers, but reports are accumulating of incidents in which drivers turned over too much discretion to the technology. For example, in January in Bedford Hills, N.Y., a visiting Silicon Valley computer technician absentmindedly obeyed his car's global positioning system and wound up, stalled, on railroad tracks, where a passing Metro-North train smashed into it (after the man had exited).

(1) In October, Syracuse, N.Y., dentist George Trusty was sued in federal court after a drill bit snapped off and lodged near a patient's eye, allegedly because Trusty was dancing to the song "Car Wash" on the radio while tending to the patient. (2) In January, former Skokie, Ill., eye doctor's assistant Joseph Vernell Jr. was sued after a patient complained that, in a dark room "exam," Vernell was detected licking her toes (but then explaining that he was actually "checking (her) sugar level").

Too Late: According to police in Honolulu in January, it was Ellis Cleveland who robbed four banks within a five-day span, and that's what an officer said to him as they arrested him. Responded Cleveland, "Four. I didn't do four. I only robbed three banks. But it doesn't matter because I'm not talking to you guys. I want a lawyer." Police later said that Cleveland was not counting the attempted robbery on Dec. 31 of the Bank of Hawaii because, after three different tellers tried unsuccessfully to decipher his holdup note, Cleveland gave up and walked out empty-handed.

News of the Weird has mentioned several times (last in 2001) the federal court order requiring the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to rectify decades' worth of negligence in administering the Indian Trust Fund, which might involve as much as $2.5 billion. Included in a 2001 court order was a prohibition against BIA's maintaining a department Web site until it proves that it can secure all the records necessary for the court-ordered accounting, and according to a Boston Magazine story in January (reporting on the bureau's handling of a Massachusetts casino), the agency still lacks department-wide Internet access. However, there is one room on the fourth floor of the bureau's Washington, D.C., office that is connected to the Web, but e-mailers and Googlers have to leave their desks and go to that office.

Recent Playdates: Marion County, Fla., January (image of Jesus on a slice of raw potato); Tampa, Fla., January (image of Jesus on a slab of granite); Houston, January (image of Jesus on another slice of raw potato); Meadow Lake, N.M., December (image of Jesus on a sprayed-on wall covering); Homestead, Fla., December (image of Jesus on a chest X-ray); Port St. Lucie, Fla., November (image of Jesus on a pancake); Houston, October (image of Jesus on a bathroom towel); Forest, Va., August (image of Jesus on a smudge of driveway sealant); Manchester, Conn., August (image of Jesus on a kitchen cabinet door); Lodi, Calif., August (image of Jesus on a backyard fence).

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

A startup Massachusetts dating service has the usual questionnaires about likes and dislikes, but bases compatibility specifically on how one person smells to another (straights and gays accommodated). Eric Holzle's ScientificMatch.com tests each person's "major histocompatibility complex" (MHC) genes, the science behind which dictates how one person will translate the scent of another (with similar-processing people less compatible). (In one famous study, women preferred the smell of T-shirts from men whose MHC was the most different from their own.) Holzle predicts a higher success rate than for ordinary dating agencies, but at a fee of $1,995 per client.

Michael Windisch, proprietor of the Maltermeister Turm restaurant in Goslar, Lower Saxony, Germany, solved what has become a crisis for other restaurants since the state extended a smoking ban in August. Windisch opened three holes in an outer wall so that, in cold weather, a smoker need not venture outside but can stick his head and arms through the holes and puff away while remaining inside (according to a December report in Der Spiegel).

-- In December, the city of Bangalore, India, staged its fifth annual marathon, with an elite group of runners that officials thought would bring the city recognition in the world racing community, but problems occurred, the least of which were the city's ubiquitous potholes and pollution. At about the 20 km mark, the leaders were chased down the street by barking dogs snapping at their heels. Twice during the race, runners were forced to stop and take breaks because impatient motorists were disregarding traffic controls to reclaim their roads.

-- Egypt's competitive spirit, combined with a recent surge in piety as some in the Middle East strengthen their commitment to Islam, have led many men to suddenly sport dark calluses on their foreheads ("raisins") as a signal of perhaps-overenthusiastic daily praying. The five prayers require, in all, 34 contacts with the ground (of forehead and nose), and additional personal prayers add to the total, according to a December New York Times dispatch from Cairo. Rumors persist that some men use sandpaper to darken the calluses to appear even more pious.

-- Noxious Substances: (1) State and federal authorities descended on Quality Pork Processors of Austin, Minn., in December after 11 workers contracted a mysterious neurological illness, which apparently came from inhaling the mist that results from blowing hogs' brains out with compressed air. (2) New York City apartment house doorman Jonah Seeman was suspended in December after excessive complaints about his bad breath. His job, said a resident, is opening the door, "not ... his mouth." (3) Maurice Fox, 77, said in December he would comply with the wishes of the Kirkham Street Sports and Social Club of Paignton, England, to sit only by the front door so he could excuse himself when he needed to pass gas, which management said had become a problem.

-- A neighborhood yard sale in Cocoa, Fla., in December offering children's furniture and toys took place at a home at which two registered sex offenders reside with their mother (though it was unclear where the items came from). A probation officer checked periodically to see that the men did not venture outside, where some unsuspecting adults, and their children, browsed the inventory.

-- Douglas Hoffman, 61, was sentenced in January to as much as five years in prison for staging a small-scale terror campaign among his neighbors in Henderson, Nev., to mask his own vandalism in destroying over 500 trees to get a better view of the Las Vegas Strip. At first, according to prosecutors, Hoffman cut down just the trees that affected his own view, but to divert attention, he cut down others in the subdivision and then sent threatening notes suggesting that an extremist militia would continue to attack their property, finally promising "chemical, biological and nuclear mass destruction."

-- John Hayes, 46, a Marietta, Ga., middle school coach, was arrested in December and charged as the person who drove a group of his students around at night so they could vandalize various Christmas yard decorations (in one case, leaving reindeer entangled in "sexual positions"). A neighbor whose display was wrecked pursued Hayes' truck, caught up to him, and asked, "Are you crazy?" Hayes responded, allegedly, "It's just a bit of fun."

(1) Washington, D.C., firefighter Gerald Burton faced suspension in December for disobeying a direct order by fighting a blaze he had come across while driving his fire truck to a training class. A supervisor had ordered him on to the class, but Burton and his partner put out the fire (limiting damage to $150,000), along with the dispatched crew, which arrived shortly after Burton. (2) In December, as the director of the District of Columbia's Youth Rehabilitation Services spoke before the City Council on the successes of his special unit tracking down escapees, one on-the-run youth watched from the audience a few feet away, unknown to the director, according to a Washington Post report. (Another 19-year-old ran away in September and was unaccounted for because a female YRS officer, unknown to her superiors, had subsequently married him and was keeping him at their home, according to the Post.)

Authorities in Valentine, Neb., have been on the lookout since November for the vandal who has approached several storefronts at night and, apparently with Vaseline smeared over his nude body, pressed himself against windows and doors. A radio station called the person "the buttcheek bandit" (although some speculate there may also be a copycat). Asked Valentine police chief Ben McBride, "Who in their right mind would do something like that?"

Clumsy: (1) A 26-year-old accused shoplifter was hospitalized in Grand Rapids, Mich., in January after he got into a scuffle with a department store security officer. He had allegedly stuffed some knives under his clothes, and when he was knocked to the ground, he accidentally fell on several of the blades. (2) Josue Herrios-Coronilla, 18, was arrested in Durham, N.C., in January and charged with DUI after he accidentally drove through a yard in a residential neighborhood. He then abandoned his car and hitched a ride, but at a later traffic stop, police identified him by his shoes, in that when he ran out of the yard, he had stepped in several piles of the resident's dogs' droppings.

Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre makes News of the Weird periodically (the latest in May 2007) because the six Christian denominations that share its management become involved in petty but elaborate disputes. A similar problem arises at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics share space at the site thought to be the birthplace of Jesus, and in December, when some Orthodox faithful wandered into the Armenian section during Christmas season, officials of both faiths squared off and flailed at each other with brooms before being separated by Palestinian police.

Elderly drivers' recent lapses of concentration, confusing the brake pedal with the gas: A Varnell, Ga., woman, 81, drove through the front office of an insurance agency (August). A Wausau, Wis., man, 80, crashed through a wall of a Burger King (September) (and then got out and ordered breakfast). A Cedar Rapids, Iowa, woman, described as "elderly," crashed into a dentist's office (August). A woman, 76, drove through the front entrance of Massachusetts's Brockton Hospital (October) (killing the chief of radiation oncology and a receptionist). A Soldotna, Alaska, woman, 73, crashed into a hair salon, knocking a customer across the room (November). A Coral Springs, Fla., man, 71, drove through a back yard, went airborne over a swimming pool and crashed into the house (October).

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Joshua Hoge, a schizophrenic confined to Washington's Western State Hospital, is claiming at least part of his late mother's estate even though he's the one who killed her in 1999. Washington law prevents profiting from the "unlawful" and "willful" taking of another's life, but Hoge was found "not guilty by reason of insanity," and the legal issue is still unsettled. Furthermore, according to a January report in The Seattle Times, it appears that the mother's estate consists almost totally of the $800,000 the estate won in a lawsuit against a county health clinic because it was negligent in delaying Joshua's medications, which probably led to his killing her.

-- Mr. Coll Bell, a New Zealander who invented a composting toilet supposedly superior to a septic system and who wanted permission from the Auckland Regional Council to install one at a campground, said an ARC bureaucrat had queried him on whether the worms he uses would be traumatized by the volume of work required in the annual two-week period of intensive campground use. Coll told Agence France-Presse in December that vermiculture expert Patricia Naidu had assured him that the worms would be "happy."

-- Convenience-store manager Carol Mendenhall told reporters in December that among the police citations she had recently received for a disturbance at her home in Dibble, Okla. (pop. 282), was one for allowing her four goats to have sex in her front yard in public view, which was illegal in Dibble. She admitted that her billy goat, Adam, had been attending to three females who were in heat at the same time. (The city council has since repealed the ordinance, following a campaign Mendenhall conducted.)

-- Police in Mount Lebanon, Pa., said in December that no illegal acts were involved, but some parents still want to know why the nondenominational Christian Mount Lebanon Young Life club had staged a teenagers' social event during which boys wore adult diapers, bibs and bonnets and sat in girls' laps while being spoon-fed. Said youth minister O.J. Wandrisco, the skits were not "dirty," but "to break down the walls and let (the kids) have fun." A previous skit involved, according to a parent, kids eating chocolate pudding out of diapers.

-- In November, accused armed robber Steven McDermott, 49, was finally captured after leading California Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase in a commandeered taxicab, causing two minor collisions before McDermott fled on foot. When McDermott was finally cornered, officers said, he reached toward his waistband, leading one officer to shoot him, though the object McDermott was reaching for turned out not to be the gun used in the robbery but a sex toy, tethered to his belt loop.

Ingrates: (1) "Get in here and do your (word omitted by the Allentown Morning Call) jobs, you dumb (omitted)," said Donald Reidnauer Sr., 56, after summoning police to investigate a BB pellet fired at his house in Richland Township, Pa., in November. "I pay taxes. I am your boss. Get in here and do your jobs or I'll have to kick your (omitted)." Reidnauer then lunged at officers and was arrested. (2) Marjorie Kelley, 50, called 9-1-1 in Sarasota, Fla., in January after feeling chest pains, but she requested that no sirens or lights be used by the ambulance. When EMTs arrived using sirens and lights, Kelley reportedly jumped up and chased them down the street, wielding a rolling pin, according to WWSB-TV.

-- In Dhanbad, India, Judge Sunil Kumar Singh has been trying to settle a 20-year-old land dispute involving temples of the Hindu gods Ram and Hanuman and has become impatient, according to a December BBC News dispatch from Patna. One priest claims the land belongs to him, but most locals say the temples own it, and Judge Singh, exasperated, recently placed ads in local newspapers asking Ram and Hanuman to come to court personally and address the issue.

-- Judges Fond of Probation: (1) An unnamed Children's Court judge in Melbourne, Australia, sentenced eight boys to probation in November even though he had found them guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, setting her hair on fire, spitting and urinating on her, and filming the episode. (There was no jail time, but the youths were assigned to a rehabilitation program teaching "positive sexuality"!) (2) Britain's Judge Francis Gilbert in November sentenced a 28-year-old woman to probation for her eighth conviction for false claims of rape, involving seven men over a six-year period. In one case, police said, she called them "every two or three days" to keep the investigation alive.

-- A Jury Fond of Probation: A Brownsville, Texas, jury in December found Traci Rhode guilty of shooting her husband to death in his sleep, but rejected the prosecutor's recommended sentence of 60 years, opting instead for 10 years' probation and a $10,000 fine. (She did serve two days in jail after the guilty verdict was announced, but before sentencing, but Rhode's lawyer was outraged even at that: "Can you imagine the shock," he told the jury, "of being locked up for two days in a 4-by-8 cell with cement walls, in isolation?") Texas subsequently passed a law banning probation as the punishment for murder.

Serious Substance Abuse: (1) Bill Long, a former member of the county council in Daytona Beach, Fla., was charged with DUI in December after he, allegedly speeding, hit another car. "When officers arrived at the scene," reported WKMG-TV (Orlando), "(Long) was found drinking ... suntan lotion." (2) Joseph Cardillo, reportedly a certified therapist in tantra, kundalini and other spiritual arts, was arrested by sheriff's deputies in Boulder, Colo., in November for, among other things, drinking an 8-year-old girl's urine, which he allegedly caught in his cupped hands, according to a report in Boulder's Daily Camera.

Ronald Stach, 41, climbed to the roof of the Canton Station bar in Baltimore on Dec. 11 and remained until Christmas Day, protesting the poor showing of the Baltimore Ravens football team. As such, Stach called attention not just to the Ravens, but also to himself, and thus inadvertently alerted his former wife as to his whereabouts so that she could renew her years-long quest for at least $40,000 in back child support. Kelly Stach said she was especially incensed at a TV interview in which Ronald lamented how much money he had spent on Ravens memorabilia. Shortly after that, a second woman came forward, claiming Ronald also owed her $12,000 in back child support.

The desire of some deaf parents to create deaf children (and deny them subsequent sound-creating implant surgery, to assure that their kids are raised with the benefits of the deaf lifestyle and support of the "deaf community") made News of the Weird in 1995 and 2002. According to a December report in The Times of London, one provision of the UK's pending Human Tissue and Embryos Bill would prevent embryo-screening couples from creating "designer" babies, but the British Deaf Association is campaigning for an exception to allow deaf parents to choose specific embryos more likely to yield deaf children.

(1) According to a report in Britain's Bolton News in December, the House of Lords has recently been discussing the need to reduce the thickness of slices of bread, which Baroness Gardener of Parkes said would help alleviate Britons' alarming levels of obesity. (2) TV's Weather Channel recently released a CD comprising 12 of what it called the most popular jazz selections that play on its "Local on the 8s" weather screens (tunes presumably requested by those who watch the Weather Channel often enough to actually have favorites). [Bolton News, 12-1-07] [CNN-AP, 11-26-07]

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)