News of the Weird

STORIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE HEADLINES

NITTING PATTERN

Bootle: If only the mother of young Joe and Catherine Parsons had been a reader of this column, then tragedy would have been averted. As reported a couple of weeks back, the mother of Jennifer in Florida had no sooner doused her daughter in kerosene to kill head lice, than the child caught fire. Despite that, on Merseyside, the mother of these children was so rash as to use SulcoM on her children's scalps. Drops of it splashed on a nearby fire and they, too, were severely burned.

SLAVES TO LOVE

Singapore: Saifon Ngammoo, a hooker, thought that her lover, Tengku Badlishah, was subdued on her birthday, but they had argued earlier in the day when she laughed that his present of a Rolex was not a new one. Incensed, he then went and killed Sally Eng, a beautician, for her diamond- studded watch. "I love him so much," says Ms Ngammoo, who often used to give him back the $130 that bought her services.

Romania: Christina Barcea was no sooner married than jailed. Her notion of something borrowed went too far. She had got her wedding dress on credit under a false name in Sibiu - but the canny store owner noted the date of the wedding, and police visited all weddings that day until they found the bride and the dress.

GROWING PAINS

Philadelphia: Gettysburg College has introduced a system by which parents can track their children's student life. By logging on to the College's website, they can discover grades, telephone bills, and bookstore purchases - as many were doing, anyway, because they had got hold of their children's passwords.

Florida: Jennifer Conce, 17, has been suspended from East Lake High School in St Petersburg. She now studies at home over a speakerphone. Her crime? A sip of sangria on her first day of work experience at a decorating firm, where somebody had a leaving party.

New York: Zero-tolerant Mayor Giuliani deems it "one of the jerkiest rulings. This is, like, nuts." An unfortunate expression: he refers to the State Supreme Court's permitting a strip club to continue, and within 500ft of a church - moreover, it admits children. The Ten's World Class Cabaret, on East 21st Street, discovered a loophole in Guiliani's recent decree that such "adult entertainment" clubs could continue only if a mere 40 per cent of their floor space were given over to these anatomical displays. The child signs a form to say that he will not be harmed by the sight of naked breasts. "We don't encourage them," says the club's lawyer. "We're not sitting there booking bar mitzvahs."

DUTCH TREAT

Holland: Tense, nervous headache? Have a cucumber. Genetic engineering takes on a new dimension with the discovery that aspirin, if given to young cucumbers, prevents their root walls from thickening with growth- inhibiting water.

OVER THE WALL

Indonesia: You can hardly blame 106 prisoners from breaking out from Merdeka Penitentiary in Palenburg on Sumatra island. The guards forgot to lock the gates after inmates' families had left. Merdeka means "freedom"; only three prisoners have been recaptured.

RICHER DUST

Maryland: Venice offers a pleasant view of Chesapeake Bay and residents are outraged by recent pollution. As Pam Folderauer puts it, "who wants to be cooking hamburgers on the grill and have a breeze come and pepper them with a dead person's ashes?" Somebody might even bite into a half- pounder and get a lump of uncremated human bone.

At first they thought that an estate agent was showing people the Bay, but the smooth-suited gentleman turned out to be in the business of scattering ashes on the residents' private beach.

Sheffield: Harry France's last wishes have been carried out. His ashes, mixed with more palatable groundbait, were used by his son on a fishing trip.

Nottingham: officials at Flintham sent a questionnaire about victims of crime to "The Occupier, Burial Ground."

North Carolina: A bank teller, Melinda Cain, was just back at work after her husband Jerry died - when he walked in. At least, Sidney Smith did so, and presented such papers as a Social Security document to open an account in Jerry's name. For an hour Smith insisted to police that he was Jerry, rather than having seen his obituary, got a copy of the birth certificate, and taken the scam from there. Jerry had been a regular at Jefferson Church of Christ, whose choir director says, "Maybe the Lord sent him in that bank to be caught."

New York: "It's a very good runner." David Myers, a salesman, got his foot not only in the door, but into the operating theatre at Beth Israel Medical Center, which has been fined $30,000 for allowing him to demonstrate new equipment during an operation on a woman who was there for treatment of a benign uterine cyst - and died: too much saline was pumped into her after she suffered cardiac arrest, the result of Myers's equipment putting too many amps of electricity through her.

Mississippi: The Silver Cross Nursing Home of Brookhaven and Ace Pest Control are being sued by grief-stricken relatives of Nell Rein, who died after being stung by hundreds of fire ants. Ace denies any responsibility: it was hired to deal only with the outside of the building, not with her bed.

Washington: Servicemen do not need to see service in Iraq to risk death. Army surgeons and doctors do not have to meet the standards of those who operate on civilians.

INJURY TIME

Milwaukee: The ENO is not the only company to suffer a real on-stage stabbing. In the Florentine Opera Company's production of Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, there was no time for the lover of Canio's wife to take a bow. He was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery after the dagger- blade failed to retract.

ARTIZOOANS

Arizona: Beep! Beep! Chances are that any roadrunner in Tucson is an emu. Thousands were farmed or kept as pets until the bottom fell out of a market thought to be clamouring for meat with half the fat of beef. Birds that once fetched $6,000 a pair have performed as badly as Laura Ashley shares: you'd be lucky to get $60 now. Ed Hannen of Reid Park Zoo comments, "the meat does not taste good, the leather is poor, the feathers are useless, and the cosmetic industry is still undecided over the worth of their oil. They don't fetch, they don't do tricks. You feed and feed them and you don't get any gratification out of it."

Thailand: As part of an anti-rabies campaign in Naskhon Ratchasima province, Manolp Tummuangkhon beat 34 rivals in a dog-barking competition.

South Africa: it was meant to be a pleasant outing to Gamorki Game Farm's zoo for Tiaan Strydom, but her grandfather had to spring into action after she was snatched by a lion. He twisted the animal's muzzle until the child was freed.

Arizona: Mattresses and tyres were donated to Phoenix Zoo for Ruby to lie upon during an operation to remove a dead, 320lb foetus. The elephant, famous for her way with a paintbrush more engaging than Mark Rothko's, had netted the Zoo more than $500,000. Seven vets, and equipment donated by nearby hospitals, could not save her. RIP.