NewsQuirks 705 Year-end Review

The slumping economy, preparation for war with Iraq and the elections dominated media coverage this year. There were plenty of less noticed stories, however, which perhaps were even more indicative of what's really going on in, not just in the United States but the world over. Here are the quirkiest news dispatches that crossed our desk in 2002.

Asstrologist of the Year

Ulf Buck, 39, a blind German psychic, claimed to be able to tell people's futures by feeling their naked buttocks.

Chatterboxes

When Levi Strauss & Co. introduced a new line of its Dockers pants fitted with "anti-radiation" pockets for protection against cellphones, company spokesperson Cedric Jungpeter insisted, "We're not implying in any way that mobile phones are dangerous."

Japanese cell-phone maker NTT DoCoMo said it is developing a lip-reading phone to rid public places of noise caused by rude users shouting into handsets.

Curses, Foiled Again

Fugitive Michael LaRock, 22, eluded authorities for a year before calling police in Ticonderoga, N.Y., to boast that he would never be caught. He pointed out he would hang up within three minutes because he knew how phone numbers could be traced. He forgot about Caller ID, however. Police almost immediately tracked LaRock to a number in Auburn, Ga., and notified local police, who got the address from the number and arrested him. Los Angeles police arrested Tyrone Jermaine Hogan, 20, after he tried to carjack a vehicle carrying a judo club from Florida International University. Hogan jumped into their minivan at a gas station and started to drive off. The students piled on the suspect and hit him several times, then put him in a body hold until police arrived.

Adam J. Kelly Jr., 34, an employee of the Dragon Garden Chinese Restaurant in Houma, La., broke into the restaurant after it had closed but found the owner and another worker still inside. He grabbed a meat cleaver and threw it at them, causing minor injuries but leaving himself without a weapon. The victims grabbed Kelly, pounded him with a chair and a pipe, then called the police.

Federal agents in San Antonio, Texas, arrested Humberto Perez, 31, for falsely claiming that his truck was stolen and receiving cash for a new one after he called a radio show to brag about the crime. FBI agent Steve McGraw was listening to the Spanish-language program "What Is Your Biggest Lie?" when the caller recounted details of his scam. He also supplied the time and place of the incident, enabling McGraw to check stolen vehicle reports and identify Perez.

When police showed up at a Boston pizza restaurant where two armed men were holding several employees hostage while waiting for the time lock on the safe to open, the gunmen ditched their weapons and pretended to be hostages. The real hostages quickly pointed them out. When police in Tulsa, Okla., chased burglary suspect Edward Jerome McBride, 37, to the Arkansas River, he jumped in hoping to evade capture. Instead, he drowned because his pockets were stuffed with jewelry, and he wouldn't let go of a duffel bag full of stolen goods that weighed nearly 50 pounds.

Altruists of the Year

Workers at Romania's ARO Campulung car factory volunteered to help the plant erase its $20 million debt by selling sperm after they learned that a fertility clinic in Timisoara was offering donors $50 a visit. Trade union leader Ion Cotescu hailed the solution as "one that even the best economists have never thought of."

When Guns Are Outlawed

Authorities in Madeira Beach, Fla., charged Frank J. Ashmus, 46, with stabbing Garth Spacek, 42, in the stomach with the bill of a swordfish after an argument.

Pig and a Poke

Keaton Lynch Brown, 18, a contestant in Georgetown College's "Belle of the Blue" beauty and scholarship pageant, told police that Kathy Wallace, director of student activities at the Lexington, Ky., school, attacked her during a pageant rehearsal because her talent presentation included a lasso demonstration that ended with her roping a stuffed pig. "There was some controversy," fellow contestant Suzanne Lunsford, 20, said, "over whether her talent was ladylike."