Science teacher gets $6,250 grant to count roadkill

Brewster Bartlett got money from the National Science Foundation to begin his classroom roadkill monitoring project in 1993. This spring, students in a fifth-grade class counted every dead animal they passed on buses to and from school for nine weeks. They tallied 190 creatures, including 10 skunks, 35 gray squirrels, 22 birds, eight rabbits and 56 corpses they labeled URPs, for "unidentified road pizzas." [Wall Street Journal]

Condom Isle

Source:  Czech E-Zine "black ice" (Issue #1)
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Oceanographic scientists say they have discovered a vast, floating "reef" of the world's disposed condoms in the middle of the South Pacific, about halfway between Tahiti and Antarctica. The phenomenal mass is almost two miles long, an eighth of a mile wide, and in places up to 60 feet deep, the oceanographers say.

Mason Froule, Australian marine biologist at his country's Oceanographic Laboratory Outpost on Macquarie Island, South Pacific, said the bizarre accumulation is explained by a scientific term called "like aggregation" -- that is, the massing of similar objects over short or longer periods of time due to wind or ocean currents, magnetic fields, buoyancy and other conditions.  "It's fairly common in the world's oceans," he said: natural events such as red tides, for example, are instances of "like aggregation."   "People with pets that shed lots of hair can see it in their own homes," Froule added. "The dog sheds everywhere in the room, but after falling out, the fur soon collects in a few clumps and masses."

Froule said ocean "reefs" of styrofoam and detergent residues have been observed in the South Pacific and elsewhere for many years, but they are usually broken up by storms before they become large or hazardous.  He believes the huge concentration of condoms, not reported before, is more resilient than other aggregating" ocean materials, and may have been developing for decades.  Froule said parts of the newly discovered reef are matted together so densely that "you could almost land a plane on it."  "I suppose it would be funny if it didn't pose the hazard it does to marine life and navigation," Froule stated. "I pity any freighter, submarine, or dolphin, for that matter, that might run into it."

The biologist said he and his Australian scientific colleagues will have the reef mapped by satellite and monitored from now on to see if it expands, breaks up, or drifts from its current location (reported at 63 degrees latitude and 154 degrees longitude).  Froule said there would not be much point in trying to break up the pulpy mass with explosives or other devices.  "It seems pretty indestructible," he said.

The world's industrialized nations are estimated to consume and dispose of nearly 300 million condoms a year.  Industry analysts say about a third of the discards become waterborne.

So, you think you're having a bad day?

The following is taken from a Florida newspaper:

A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio, and his wife was in the house in the kitchen.  The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle, and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear.  The man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door, and the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house.

The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her husband laying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle laying next to him, and the patio door shattered.  The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance.

Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of long steps to the street to direct the paramedics to her husband.   After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital, the wife uprighted the motorcycle and pushed it outside.  Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, the wife obtained some papers towels, blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet.

The husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home.  After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle.  He became despondent, went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and smoked a cigarette.  After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated.

The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming.  She ran into the bathroom and found her husband laying on the floor.  His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs, and his groin.  The wife again ran to the phone and called for an ambulance.

The same ambulance crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the street.  The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him to the street.  While they were going down the stairs to the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the husband had burned himself.   She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out.  He fell down the remaining steps and broke his ankle.

1998 DARWIN AWARDS

For those not familiar with the Darwin Award, it’s an annual honor given to the person who provided the universal human gene pool the biggest service by getting killed in the most extraordinarily stupid way.   As always, competition this year has been keen.  Some candidates appear to have trained their whole lives for this event!

THE WINNER:

PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant, Stefan, 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs, and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly - and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!  Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud.  "The sheer force of the elephant’s unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock, and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern.   "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated.  It seems to be just one of those freak accidents."

OTHER DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES:

• In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 8-inch wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
  
  
• In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
  
  
• Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it.  Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand.  People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on.  Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
  
  
• In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing.   Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
  
  
• According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flakvest Berrena was wearing.
  
  
• Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Del., as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
  
  
• In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
  
  
• In September, a 7-year-old boy fell off a 100-foot-high bluff near Ozark, Ark, after he lost his grip swinging on a cross that marked the spot where another person had fallen to his death in 1990.
  
  
• An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut. [San Jose Mercury News]
  
  
• James Burns, 34, a mechanic in Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns wrapped in the drive shaft. [Kalamazoo Gazette]
  
  
• Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear. [Hickory Daily Record]
  
  
• Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawyers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the association. [UPI, Toronto]
  
  
• A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body, but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage. It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut in his nearly airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized. [Bloomburg News Service]
  
  
• Michael Anderson Godwin had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted. [The News of the Weird]
  
  
• A cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30pm. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited. [The Indianapolis Star]
  
  
• Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store; paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had lodged and choked him to death. [AP, St. Louis]
  
  
• Poacher Marino Malerba shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell on him. [Unknown]
  
  
• A man at a party popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police said Wednesday. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during a party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and was trying to explode it," Payne said. "It wouldn't go off, and this guy said, 'I'll show you how to set it off.'" [Associated Press, Kincaid, WV]
  
  
• A man cleaning a birdfeeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said inspector D`Arcy Honer of the Peel regional police. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said. [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]

DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• In Guthrie, Oklahoma, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a shot from his 22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.
  
  
• In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
  
  
• Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, in September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of dynamite that blew up in their car.  While driving around at 2 a.m., the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that the window was closed.
  
  
• Taking "Amateur Night" Too Far:  In Betulia, Colombia, an annual festival in November includes five days of amateur bullfighting.  This year, no bull was killed, but dozens of matadors were injured, including one gored in the head and one Bobbittized.  Said one participant, "It’s just one bull against a town of a thousand morons."
  
  
• Doctors at Portland`s University Hospital said Wednesday an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye during an initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants Pass, OR. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Roberts` right eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said that if Robert had tried to pull the arrow out, he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this." [UPI, Portland, OR]
  
  
• A Vancouver man arguing over a love triangle accidentally shot himself in the groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said the man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting match early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants, the gun went off. Police were called to the hospital after the man in his 20s was brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the victim, who is expected to survive. [The Calgary Sun]
  
  
• Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center. The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded east toward the White River bridge. After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right, exiting the pavement and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his ball off, or we might both be dead," stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder. Upon being notified of the wreck, Poole's wife, Lavinia, asked how many frogs the boys had caught, and did anyone get them from the truck. [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]

Thief gets an earful - and a fair cop!

LONDON

Calvin Sewell's ears were his greatest asset when robbing at least 13 London homes of property worth nearly $100,000.  By pressing an ear against front doors, he could tell if a home was empty before breaking in and helping himself.  But while Sewell's keen sense of hearing provided him with a lucrative career in burglary, it also proved his undoing when he became the first thief in Britain to be trapped by his earprints.   Police dusting for fingerprints found no trace of the robber who was meticulous about wearing gloves and leaving behind few clues.  But they found ear prints   —  which are unique to individuals  —  on the front doors.   Police made a mould of the ears and used them to link Sewell to the crime scenes.   Judge David Elfer said he couldn't help but admire a "long and sometimes very successful" criminal career.  But that didn't stop him jailing Sewell, 25, for a year on five burglary charges.  Det-Const. Alan Hodgson said the earprint was not taken seriously at first.

It's All in the Heart

by Amanda Gore, The West Australian

First, the story of a nine-year-old girl who received the heart of an eight-year-old girl who had been murdered.  The nine-year-old, from the day she had the transplant, started having receding nightmares of being murdered.  Not only were these dreams vivid enough for her to describe accurately the murderer, she also knew his name.   The man, after investigation, was subsequently convicted of the crime. 

Or consider the married couple  —  both doctors  —  who were driving home from dinner.  They were in the middle of an angry argument when the car crashed and he was killed.  His heart was used in a transplant.  The wife was so distressed she hadn't made peace with her husband that two years later her life was in tatters.  She begged to meet the recipient of her husband's heart so she could at least make peace with his heart.  The recipient, a non-English-speaking Spanish boy and his mother, agreed.  The doctor's wife asked if she could touch the boy's chest.   As she did, she began sobbing, asking her husband's forgiveness and repeating a word that the two of them invented to symbolize the end of a fight. The word was "copathetic."  The mother of the boy was translating these words and at the end of the outpouring of grief, he asked his mother: "What does that word 'copathetic' mean?  I have been saying it for the last two years."  He didn't speak English, and it was an invented word.

What about the the scenario when Dr Pearsall arrived in Auckland?  He received a phone call from a doctor at the leading hospital asking for advice about a transplant patient who was dying and covered in hives.  The recipient was the doctor's father and they were bewildered by his condition.  Dr Pearsall asked if the patient was allergic to anything, to which the answer was no.  He suggested checking if the donor had any allergies.  Yes  —  to penicillin, and his reaction was to break out into hives.  Dr Pearsall then asked about the color of the recipient's eyes.  They were blue.  But before the operation they were brown.  And the donor had blue eyes. 

It is apparently common for recipients to have the same allergies, food cravings, memories and eye color as the donor.

I'm a man.  I can handle it.

JENKINS TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA, USA

A 38-year-old man passed away, a couple of hours after going to the home of a friend to see his snakes.  According to the friend, the man had playfully reached into a cobra's tank and picked up the snake, and was bitten.  Refusing a ride to the hospital, the man said "I'm a man, I can handle it," and instead went to a bar, where he had three drinks and bragged to patrons that he had just been bitten by a cobra.  An hour later, he was dead.

Tug-of-war contestants lose arms

TAIPEI

Doctors have reattached the arms of two men who had the limbs severed during a tug-of-war contest in Taipei.  Contest organisers said the injuries occurred when the rope on which they and the other 1,500 participants were pulling snapped.  A hospital spokesman said doctors had reattached the arms but were unsure whether the men would regain full use of the limbs.  Forty others were also injured in the accident.  The Taipei city government is investigating the cause of the accident, but local media said the rope used was unable to wlthstand the force of 1,500 people tugging on it.  The tug-of-war contest was held in a park to celebrate Taiwan Retrocession Day, which marks the anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan after World War II.

Driven to distraction

LONDON

British doctors say they have successfully treated a 44-year-old woman who was prone to repeated and uncontrollable orgasms.  "They were neither pleasurable nor satisfying and often came on at the wheel of a car," the doctors wrote in the Lancet medical journal.  "Sexual seizures are rare and, owing to their nature, may be presented to physicians late," wrote Dr Robert Will and Dr Paul Reading of Edinburgh's Western General Hospital.  The woman suffered from the uncontrollable orgasms every two weeks over three years.  The orgasms were not pleasurable because they were out of her control.  They were linked to a bad headache two years ago.  The woman was given a drug used for epilepsy, and the unwelcome orgasms have not returned.

Tarantula mistreated

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, UK

A Birmingham magistrate told a 22-year-old man spiders had feelings and fined him £50 for cruelty after he left his pet tarantula without food and water for nine days when he moved hurriedly out of his home because of debts.

Eyebrow shooting

LONDON

British police were hunting a gunman who shot two men while they tried to shave off his eyebrows as a joke.  The shooting happened when a group of about 20 youths returned to a central London flat after a night's drinking and discovered two of the crowd were strangers.  One of them fell asleep and others in the group tried to shave his eyebrows.  The man woke up pulled out a gun, shot and wounded two of the would-be barbers and fled.

I Don't Believe It   --  Richard Wilson's Book of Absurdities

(by Pam Brown)

In 1977, Philip Ryan was so keen to impress his wife on their honeymoon that he vaulted over the fence of their holiday bungalow -- forgetting that there was a 170m drop on the other side.  Exit Mr. Ryan.  Losing the odd husband would not have bothered Adrienne Cuyot, who in 23 years managed to become engaged 652 times and marry 53 times.  The oldest couple to divorce have been Ida and Simon Stern.  She was 91 and he was 97. 

Moving on to blunders and botch-ups, there is the case of Sicilian Antonio Percelli, who was being buried in a local cemetery when he jumped out of his coffin. His mother-in-law got such a fright that she had a fatal heart attack and was buried in his place.

More on the subject of death and injury: An American newsreader called Christine Chubbock shot herself in front of the cameras some years ago.  When her notes were checked they revealed that she had allowed time in the schedule for her death, so that other programs would not start late.  A Parisian grocer was jailed for two years in 1978 for stabbing his wife with a piece of hard cheese.  A husband who strangled his wife because she kept waking him in the night to ask him to help her with the crossword was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. 

The law is another rich source of humor.  In Minnesota, it is illegal to hang men's and women's undergarments on the same line.  And in Indiana there was once a law prohibiting people from traveling on buses within four hours of eating garlic.  To this day it's illegal to have a nude dummy on display in New York, and in Arizona, it's illegal to hunt camels.  And if you live in California you can't buy a mousetrap without first getting a hunting license.

The book, I Don't Believe It -- Richard Wilson's Book of Absurdities, is published by Michael O'Mara Books and costs $7.95. 

Catching gropers no easy task

TOKYO  (by Juliet Hindell)

Police want women-only railway carriages to combat the problem of sexual assault.  A record number of such cases is being reported, and segregation is seen as the only answer.  Tokyo's rush-hour trains are the ideal hunting ground for gropers.  They are so packed that it is easy to get near women and claim a jolt of the carriage pushed one body too close to another.  That is the excuse many gropers use when accused by their victims.  Most women in Japan say they have been molested on a train at least once.  Yumiko Sakama, 24, from Tokyo, estimates that it has happened to her more than 300 times.  Now she carries a needle to stick in attackers and writes "Pervert" in red lipstick on the backs of gropers' suits. 

In the first half of this year alone, 34 men were arrested for groping on trains, double the number of last year.  The rise in the numbers is partly due to a poster campaign urging women to speak out.  "They say molesters are probably a Japanese phenomenon," said Yumi Kakisako, a woman police officer.  "At any rate, there's very little perception in Japan that molesting girls on trains is wrong."  But women-only carriages may not be the solution.  They were tried 10 years ago but dropped when women who traveled in mixed carriages complained they were more of a target than ever. 

Choking cat dials for emergency help

MIAMI

A cat which may have been within a whisker of choking to death on his flea collar managed to call the 911 emergency operator for help from police.  Tipper tried to slip off his flea collar while he was alone at home.  But the nine-month-old black-and-white cat only managed to work part of it into his mouth, and began to choke, Deputy Jack Espinosa, of the Hillsborough County sheriff's department, said.

Whether by luck or design, Tipper was able to knock a home telephone off its hook.  Then he stepped on the speed-dial button that his owner, Gail Curtis, had programmed to dial the 911 emergency number.  Within minutes, a sheriff's deputy was at the door to help.

"I've had more fun with this story," Deputy Espinosa said, offering to play the emergency dispatch tape recording.  On the tape, Tipper is clearly heard meowing as best a cat can with a collar caught in its mouth.  And dispatcher Elena Arroyo is heard exclaiming, "Oh my God, it s a cat on the phone."   The call was traced, and Deputy Joe Bamford raced to Ms. Curtis' mobile home and found the cat on the phone.  Deputy Bamford and a handyman wrapped Tipper in a towel and performed an emergency collar removal.

Ms. Curtis said that Tipper had always been a smart cat.  "I just hope he doesn't start dialing long-distance," she said.

Cabbie counts costs of vagrant's scam

TOKYO  (by Andrew Butcher)

Funny forgers

As forgers go, David and Gary Gross have a bit to go.  They counterfeited $4.5 million, and federal agents said the printing on the funny money was "poor."  But that's not what got the two in trouble.  A store owner had called the agents to report that the men had bought the kind of linen paper used in currency, then asked him if he had any green ink that "matched the ink on a one-dollar bill."

Doctor's grave error

Purloin of pork

Condom spill snarls traffic

CORTE MADERA, CALIFORNIA, USA

A box containing about 5,000 condoms fell off a truck and scattered over a busy freeway, halting two lanes of traffic for a half-hour, the California Highway Patrol said.   One officer estimated that more women motorists than men stopped to scoop up the condoms scattered over two lanes of Highway 101 in Marin County.  "Evidently, there was a very large case that came off the back of a truck," Officer Mark Peischke said Friday.  "They bounced off and exploded and ... burst open.  We filled two garbage cans."  Several motorists stopped to take some of the Pet brand condoms' with women outnumbering men about 5-1, Officer Mike Turnham said.  The spill halted traffic for about 30 minutes on two lanes of the freeway, officers said, adding that no one came forward to claim the condoms by late Friday.

Theft was height of absurdity

The long and short of it

On the graveyard shift

Record groom leaves 29 wives cold

Husband had eye for another

RIYADH

A Saudi woman who donated an eye to restore her husband's sight has ended up losing him to another woman.  The man could not stand the sight of his wife being one-eyed and decided to remarry.