* In April the Iowa Supreme Court turned down inmate Kirk Livingood's attempt
   to sue Phillip Negrete based on the state's domestic abuse law. Negrete is
   Livingood's cellmate and, according to Livingood, beats and torments him.
   [Des Moines Register, 4-18-96]

 * The New York Times, in a May story on the commercial usefulness of cow
   parts, reported that not only are the gallstones exported (at $600 an ounce
   to the Far East, as aphrodisiacs and jewelry), and hearts (27 cents a pound
   to Russia, for sausage), but so are cow lips (58 cents a pound to Mexico,
   where they are shredded, spiced, and grilled for taco fillings).
   [N. Y. Times, 5-5-96]

 * In April, Ms. Gabriella Villa was finally discovered, dead of natural
   causes, in Monza, Italy, approximately seven years after she died at age 47.
   She had passed away in her home, but neighbors and her estranged husband had
   assumed that she had simply moved to another town. (Seven years appears to
   be a new record for an undetected death in the home.)
   [Northwest Florida Daily News, 5-1-96]

 * The Italian Justice Ministry admitted in March that a notorious prisoner had
   escaped: Palestinian terrorist Youssef Magied al-Molqi, 34, who was
   convicted in 1986 for one of the most heinous crimes of the decade - the
   Achille Lauro hijacking, during which he shot American Leon Klinghoffer and
   pushed him overboard in his wheelchair. Al-Molqi was free on a 12-day leave
   for good behavior and failed to return.
   [Dallas Morning News, 3-3-96]

 * In February in Elizabeth City, N. C., the first hearing was held in former
   attorney Reginald Frazier's lawsuit against the state bar association for
   disbarring and imprisoning him. Frazier's choice of attorney to represent
   him was C. C. "Buddy" Malone of Durham, N. C., whose own license was
   recently suspended for five years by the state bar.
   [Durham Herald-Sun, 2-7-96]

 * Reuters news service reported in February that Brazilian farmer Mariano Jose
   da Silva, of the northern town of Encanto, had caught his wife with her
   lover in 1983 but that the two trysters had imprisoned him ever since in a
   back room, feeding him sparingly, until he was freed by inquiring relatives.
   Da Silva said he would not prosecute the two and has "no hard feelings."
   [Bangkok Post-Reuters, 2-29-96]

 * In March, The Sunday Oklahoman profiled Oklahoma City homemaker Mary
   Clamser, 44, whose deterioration with multiple sclerosis had been abruptly
   halted in 1994 when lightning struck her house while she was grasping metal
   objects with each hand and wearing her metal leg brace brought on by the
   disease. Suddenly, she began walking easily, and though doctors told her the
   condition was probably only temporary, she still walks easily today. As if
   that weren't enough good luck, Clamser, in order to fly to California for a
   TV interview in April 1995, was forced to cancel a local appointment she had
   made at the Oklahoma City federal building for 9 a.m. on April 19.
   [The Sunday Oklahoman, 3-17-96]

 * In a Calgary, Alberta, courtroom in April, business executive Earl Joudrie
   testified that his wife Dorothy had shot him six times and then ridiculed
   his failure to die immediately. After Earl, who was bleeding badly, asked
   Dorothy to come sit by him, she replied, "Well, how long is it going to take
   you to die?" and "You haven't changed your will, so I'll get everything."
   Joudrie said that a few minutes later, Dorothy changed her mind and called
   an ambulance.
   [Globe and Mail, 4-24-96]

 * According to a 911 tape played at his preliminary hearing in Las Vegas, NV.,
   in March, Roy Holloway called the emergency number because he was frustrated
   at his inability to kill his wife. Said he, to the operator, "I've tried to
   strangle her about four different ways. She won't die." Asked the operator,
   Why are you trying to kill her? "Because I don't like her," said Holloway on
   the tape. Why not just divorce her? "Isn't it a lot easier just to kill her?
   But she won't die. [G]od, she keeps breathing."
   [Las Vegas Sun, 3-20-96]

 * Almost 600 delegates from 17 countries attended the first World Conference
   on Auto-Urine Therapy ("auto" not meaning "automobile" but rather "self-,"
   as in "your own") was held in Goa, India, in February. Adherents of the
   5,000-year-old therapy claim that urine's hormones, enzymes, vitamins, and
   minerals are so rich that urine can cure illnesses such as tuberculosis and
   cancer. A widely recommended treatment combines a glass of fresh urine a day
   along with body massages using stale urine at least four days old.
   [Globe and Mail, 2-24-96]

 * In February in Little Rock, Ark., Heather Sherrard threatened to file a
   criminal complaint against KATV consumer reporter Dewayne Graham for
   harassing her. After filing a TV report, with Sherrard's help, on how to
   change the code on garage door openers, Graham allegedly went back twice to
   Sherrard's house on his own and opened the door using the old code. He then
   allegedly left a message on Sherrard's answering machine, scolding the woman
   for not taking his professional consumer advice.
   [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2-16-96]

 * In December, a Wall Street Journal report described the "Polish method" for
   destroying the 48,000 tanks (that weigh up to 34 tons each) left in Eastern
   Europe that must be turned to scrap under a 1990 treaty. Since it is
   impractical to blow them up or to melt them, Poland manufactures nine-ton
   balls, lifts them with hoists containing electromagnets, and drops them onto
   the tanks, flattening them. Said an American diplomat, after the process was
   described to him, "Wow, that must be really satisfying."
   [Wall Street Journal, 12-26-95]

 * In February, three Army recruiters in Leesburg, Fla., were jailed after they
   trashed the adjacent Navy recruiting office with a crowbar, injuring two
   Marines, because a female potential Army recruit had been given a better
   deal by the Navy.
   [Atlanta Journal-Constitution-AP, 2-23-96]

 * In April, the California Senate president revealed that Republican Sen. Don
   Rogers, facing bankruptcy four years ago, filed a declaration denying that
   he owed the $150,000 in federal taxes that the government claimed. The
   reason, he wrote, was that he was not a "citizen" under the 14th amendment
   to the U. S. Constitution because that provision applies only to former
   slaves; rather, Rogers said he possessed a "white man's citizenship." This
   year, Rogers renounced the declaration, claiming he had received bad tax
   advice.
   [San Jose Mercury News-AP, 4-24-96]

 * In May, Minneapolis artist Judy Olausen's hardcover photographic essay,
   Mother, finally hit the bookstores. Olausen's project made News of the Weird
   in June 1993 as a work-in-progress, after she took her initial photos,
   featuring her mother, then 70, portrayed in a series of a passive,
   subordinate characters. Included were her mother kneeling on all fours with
   a pane of glass on her back ("Mother as Coffee Table") and lying alongside a
   highway ("Mother as Road Kill"). Said Olausen in 1992, "My brothers think
   I'm torturing my mother," but actually, "I'm immortalizing her."
   [U. S. News & World Report, 5-6-96; Advertising Age Creativity (supplement),
   7-6-92]