Lead Stories *New York City special-effects artist Matt McMullen, age 28, has been offering on the Internet his life-size, authentically detailed, steel-skeleton silicone dolls for around $4000 each, plus options. So far, “Real Dolls” Stacy, Natasha, Nina, and Leah are available with a choice of hair and skin color and…

Lead Stories *According to an October communique from the North Korean Communist Party, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, age 55, has been promoted to “Great Leader,” which, according to the official government news agency, is cause for “jubilation,” even in the midst of widespread famine. The news agency added that…

Lead Stories *The University of Minnesota is seeking more “specialists” to work on its three-year, $390,000 program to establish an “odor emissions rating system” for regulating the state’s 35,000 animal feedlots, according to an August Minneapolis Star Tribune story. Sniffers will develop objective standards for types of odors and their…

Lead Stories *In July a group of lawyers and state legislators petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court to halt all executions immediately and appoint a commission to study why, in the twenty years since the state reinstated the death penalty, more death row convicts have subsequently been found innocent and freed…

Lead Stories *In September a judge in Santa Monica, California, ruled that test-tube baby Jaycee Louise Buzzanca, age two, has no legal parents. She is the result of donor sperm fertilizing a donor egg in the womb of a surrogate mother. The judge said John and Luanne Buzzanca are “parents”…

Lead Stories *One of four annual Pennsylvania rattlesnake-bagging tournaments was held in Curwensville in June. (Amateurs in teams of two pay an entry fee and race the clock in an eight-foot-by-eight-foot cage to bag five rattlesnakes; one person holds the bag above knee level while the other puts the snakes…

Lead Stories *Environmentalist blues: The August fire that burned through 700 acres in the Angeles National Forest near Los Angeles was started, said state officials, by an environmentally conscious camper who was dutifully burning his used toilet paper. And in Oregon clean-water activist Patrick Shipsey is awaiting trial for shooting…

Lead Stories *Extreme political protest: At the Eugene, Oregon, city council meeting on August 6, an unidentified man who had been sitting in the audience walked up to controversial Mayor Jim Torrey, leaned over, and vomited on his shoulder. He then walked out, unpursued. One council member who was watching…

Lead Stories *An official at a community health clinic in Rimouski, Quebec, issued a warning in July about the growing numbers of local teenagers who are getting high by injecting beer directly into their veins, a practice that gives a faster rush than drinking and leaves very little odor. *The…

Lead Stories *In July a judge in Doncaster, England, released suspect Martin Kamara, age 43, a black man who had been accused of threatening a financial adviser, because of police impropriety. Cops wanted to put Kamara in a lineup, but no black men could be found who were willing to…

Lead Story *In a kidnapping trial in San Mateo, California, in July, the eleven-year-old victim was asked to identify the man who had abducted her. She gazed around the courtroom, past defendant John Paul Balocca sitting with his attorney, and pointed to juror number eleven. Fortunately Balocca had already confessed…

Lead Stories *In July a St. Paul, Minnesota, jury acquitted the well-to-do Gerald and Judy Dick and an adult daughter of all but one of the shoplifting counts brought against them by Roseville, Minnesota, police, who had charged family members with engaging the services of a personal shoplifter to steal…

Lead Stories *In April DSC Communications of Plano, Texas, filed a lawsuit against ex-employee Evan Brown to force him to surrender a thought. DSC had fired Brown for allegedly not honoring a contract that it says gives the company the right to know any idea Brown had for ten years…

Lead Stories *In July British Labor Party politician Ken Brookman, age 54, was fined $1500 for picking a fight with a man on a train near Cardiff, Wales, and biting off part of his ear. And a week later in St. Mary’s, West Virginia, county judge Joseph Troisi, who had…

Lead Stories *Explaining his June no vote in the California legislature on a bill to ban discrimination against gays, assemblyman-rancher Peter Frusetta told his colleagues: “I’ve seen thousands and thousands of [heifers and] three, maybe at the top four, had the hormonal imbalance … that makes them shy away from…

Lead Stories *It took 26 years, but in June former inmate Frank Smith, age 64, became the first person to win damages related to the deadly 1971 riot at Attica prison, in New York. A jury awarded him four million dollars for injuries inflicted by guards after they recovered the…

Lead Stories *At a May hearing, the Ohio state medical board began considering whether to discipline Toledo pediatrician Gary F. Gladieux, age 43, who was accused of having sex with three women during their visits to his office. The board cited a 1991 American Medical Association ruling that physician-patient sex…

Lead Stories *A California pro-prostitution organization called the National Sexual Rights Council began a fundraising appeal in April for its campaign to get teenage hookers off the streets. For a $250 donation, the Council’s Pretty Woman Committee gives the donor a T-shirt and a membership card, but for $150,000 (which…

Lead Stories *In May the Russian press reported that 76 top aviation officials flying to the U.S. declined to take the national airline Aeroflot because of safety concerns, flying Finnair instead. And in March a rusty Stavropol Airlines passenger jet literally fell apart in the air and crashed, killing 50…

Lead Story *In March, armed with evidence that a drug dealer had been killed with a single gunshot during a robbery by two men, Torrance, California, prosecutor Todd D. Rubenstein obtained separate convictions for both men for firing the fatal shot. Both robbers’ guns had fired, but one missed; a…

Lead Stories *The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported in May that only 946 of more than 10,000 households in Grand Forks, North Dakota, were covered by flood insurance when the recent floods hit. Four months earlier FEMA had begun issuing numerous advisories about imminent flood danger and spent $300,000 on…

Lead Stories *A German television station reported in January that as many as 50,000 former Nazi soldiers (including more than 3000 who live in the U.S.) might be receiving up to $600 a month in German government pensions for World War II injuries, while no comparable government benefit exists for…