Off The Wire


News We Just Couldn't Pass Up

An ex-policeman was arrested in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, for drugging
people with spiked lemonade so he could steal their cars.

A prostitute stole more than $4,000 in jewelry from her customer at a
Bangkok brothel, then fled the establishment wearing only a towel, a
Thai newspaper reported.  She jumped into a waiting taxi while the
customer also gave chase wearing only a towel.

A robber fled a Magna, Ill., bank with about $4,500 in cash he snatched
from a teller's drawer, but only after leaving some obvious clues to his
identity.  At the time of the robbery, he was cashing a $12.19 payroll
check, which had his name printed on it.  He left the check at the bank,
with the ID he was using to cash it.

A Paris court fined far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen one franc for a
cruel campaign prank in which he displayed a portrait of a Socialist
opponent on a platter as if she had been beheaded.

Hard-core pornography is banned in Texas prisons.  So are hate writings
as well as magazines that could teach inmates how to build weapons.
Also off-limits  The Texas Almanac.  The annual book of lists,
statistics and boiled-down information isn't permitted because its maps
are so detailed that prison officials fear they could help escapees.

Nearly 100 Chinese and foreign book lovers who took their passion for
the printed word too far were charged with shoplifting at a Beijing book
fair.

El Nino, the weather pattern blamed for drought, storms and floods
world-wide this year, also helped trigger key historical events,
including the French Revolution, according to a recently published
book.  It says the devastation crop failures in France in 1787-88, which
led to unrest and the revolution a year later, was El Nino's fault.

Compiled by Ivan Weiss, The Seattle Times, September 19, 1998




Thanks to Keith E. Sullivan