抖阴ap

(1) The prime suspects (and their addresses) in a July murder-robbery in Washington, D.C., were actually known to police a month earlier (thanks to a tip from a previous robbery victim), but police didn’t pick them up until after the murder, according to a July Washington Post report. (2) In June, the D.C. inspector general reported that the mugging death of a former New York Times reporter involved “complacency and indifference” by almost all police and rescue personnel involved, from ambulance crew to investigating officers to hospital doctors, resulting in the victim, who was severely beaten, being treated merely as a street drunk. (3) In June, the D.C. police’s crime-solving average went down as investigators found 119 more unsolved crimes that had been originally written up only as “injuries.” [Washington Post, 7-18-06] [New York Times, 6-17-06] [Washington Post, 6-2-06]

(1) The New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics ruled in July that judges can, if they wish, carry guns in the courtroom if they are otherwise permitted by state law, provided the judges are “patient, dignified and courteous.” (2) Filing a lawsuit in Santa Ana, Calif., in May, Jinsoo Kim said he had a valid contract in which Stephen Son promised to repay the $170,000 that Kim had invested in Son’s Korean corporation, especially considering that the promise was written entirely with Son’s blood. [Seattle Times-AP, 7-16-06] [KCAL-TV-AP (Los Angeles), 5-30-06]

(1) “Houdini,” the 12-foot-long Burmese python in Ketchum, Idaho, that accidentally swallowed a large electric blanket in July (and electrical cord, after pulling it from the wall) (Veterinary surgeons managed to remove the whole thing, leaving Houdini in good condition.); (2) “Crash,” the pelican that smashed into a car in Malibu, Calif., and had undergone a month’s rehabilitation (only, when finally released in July, to collide beak-first with some rocks, before successfully lifting off) (Wildlife officials said Crash may have been disoriented from eating toxic algae.); (3) “Barney,” the Doberman pinscher guarding a children’s museum near Wells, England (who lost control and chewed up almost $1 million worth of rare teddy bears in August, including one once belonging to Elvis Presley). [Seattle Post-Intelligencer-AP, 7-19-06] [Los Angeles Times, 7-21-06] [The Independent (London), 8-2-06]

Police in Groningen, Netherlands, announced that a 40-year-old man whom they had previously counseled had once again resumed his compulsion to rummage through garbage seeking discarded tampons (and leaving notes for the discarders) (July). And Paul Zakszewski, 54, was arrested in Salem, Mass., for having allegedly made audio recordings from women’s restroom stalls (July). And Denver schoolteacher Mark Asimus was arrested and charged with offering to pay one teenage girl to bloodily beat up another, merely so that he could watch (June). [Expatica.com (Amsterdam), 7-11-06] [WHDH-TV (Boston), 7-25-06] [KUSA-TV (Denver), 6-13-06]

News of the Weird has mentioned several times those “yogic fliers” (who sit cross-legged and, by Transcendental Meditation, “fly” by levitating their posteriors). In July, two weeks after Israel began its retaliatory attack on Hezbollah, a former Israeli army colonel, Reuven Zelinkovsky, was critical, alleging that a squadron of yogic fliers could provide a “shield of invincibility” around the country, just as effective as a military campaign. TM experts use the formula of the square root of 1 percent of a country’s population as the critical mass of fliers necessary to affect the national spiritual consciousness (for Israel, 265 fliers). [Agence France-Presse, 7-26-06]

(1) At commencement this year at Gallatin High School in Nashville, Tenn., the principal had the valedictorian arrested for trying to make a speech that was reserved for the senior class president. (2) The Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported skyrocketing absentee rates at local high schools this spring because of a new district policy that the lowest possible semester grade would be 50, even for those missing every class (meaning that a grade as low as 80 for one semester could be averaged with a no-show 50 to reach the minimum-passing grade of 65). [WTVF-TV (Nashville), 5-24-06] [Buffalo News, 6-9-06]

Eighty such themes have occurred so frequently that they have been “retired from circulation” since News of the Weird began publishing in 1988, and for the next few months, they’ll be reviewed here.

Nowadays, too many burglars coming in from the roof seemingly get stuck in vents or chimneys. And even if burglars get inside, sometimes they fall asleep on the job. And visitors to court houses (not only suspects but ordinary citizens) sometimes forget about their drug stashes when the security guard has them empty their pockets. And some driver’s license applicants, perhaps a little too anxious, pull up in front of the examining station and then accidentally crash into it. Those stories certainly used to be weird, but no longer.

Thanks This Week to Perry Levin and Bill Hudgins, and to the News of the Weird Editorial Advisors.

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

COPYRIGHT 2006 CHUCK SHEPHERD