Taken from the NEWS OF THE WEIRD column by Chuck Shepard.(c) UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

* In April the Kentucky legislature approved a bill to permit preachers to carry concealed weapons in church. Some ministers had claimed they needed protection when transporting their offering-plate proceeds, but the executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches said she was "appalled" by the legislature's decision.

* A report issued by a California legislative committee in April called for changing the state law that actually permits motorists legally to use fictitious names on their driver's licenses. The provision was intended to help Hollywood stars who have stage names, but it is finally dawning on people that it is an easy law to abuse.

* Among the chilling incidents recorded within a week before or after the Jonesboro, AK, shootings in March, according to police:
Covington, LA (boy, 12, and others, planting bombs in school); Cleveland, OH (boy, 4, brought loaded gun to day-care); Daly City, CA, (boy, 13, fired a shot at the principal); Queens, NY (boy, 8, took loaded gun to school); Indianapolis, IN (2 boys, each 8, took loaded guns to school); Kennewick, Wash. (boy, 12, had a hit list of teachers and students to kill); Millersville, MD (3 boys left 3 unrelated bomb threats, and a fourth was arrested for plotting to kill a classmate); Greenville, NC (boy, 11, threatened to shoot several classmates); West Lafayette, OH (boy, 15, had a hit list of teachers and students to kill); Fond du Lac, WI (boy, 14, shot up a school door because of a bad report card). Also, when the Jonesboro Two were jailed, their neighbor was a 13-year-old boy accused of shooting a classmate in the face.

* Montana District Judge Diane Barz, commenting in October on the recent trend of ordinary defendants in Billings to use the language and legal arguments of the Freemen housed in jail there: "[The Freemen]'re contaminating our good criminals."

* Steve Thompson, wildlife biologist at Yosemite National Park, telling the New York Times in November that the cause of the 600 car break-ins by bears in 1997 mostly was food left in the seat: "My problems start when the smarter bears and the dumber visitors intersect."

* In March, a 24-year-old man was struck and killed in the fast lane ofI-80 in Vallejo, CA, when he ran across the highway to retrieve a baseball cap that had blown off his head. Two weeks earlier, a 20-year-old Guatemalan sailor, riding on a crewboat on the Mississippi River near New Orleans, LA, drowned after jumping into treacherous waters to retrieve his baseball cap.

* In March, the Oregon Lottery Commission awarded a $124,000 contract to a company to advise it on how best to restore its gambling games to operating status in case of a catastrophic earthquake or asteroid collision, with a goal of having video poker back up within two hours of a disaster. Several critics suggested there might be more pressing problems after an earthquake, but the Commission pointed out that gambling generates $1 million a day for the state.

* According to authorities at the Hampton, V A, jail in March, a civilian attendant from the jail's canteen was pushing a cart full of snacks past the locked cell of Anthony Tyrone Darden, 21, when Darden reached through the bars, hit the man on the head with a broom handle, and took two packs of peanut butter crackers. Darden was apprehended pretty quickly, and the Nabs were confiscated.

* In March, Don Graham asked a technician- friend to have a look at the stereo cassette recorder he said he paid $60 for at a Bountiful, UT, store but whose buttons wouldn't stay down when Graham pressed them. Problem: Four pounds of cocaine (value $200,000) had been wrapped in a two-year-old Miami, FL, area newspaper and duct-taped to the inside, jamming the buttons. Police are investigating.