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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 […]

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 […]

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. In January, former Skokie, Ill., eye doctor’s assistant Joseph Vernell Jr. was sued […]

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 […]

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 […]

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”: […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]