Lead Stories
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In a recent issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Dr. Rogerio Lobo, chairman of the ob-gyn department at Columbia medical school, reported that random groups of South Korean women practicing in vitro fertilization had almost double the success rate when a group of Americans prayed for them. Lobo told reporters that he almost withheld his findings because they were so improbable; he had probably failed to account for some variable, he said, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be.
Arrested for public urination last month in Bowling Green, Ohio: Joshua Pees. Escaped this month from the same prison in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, for a third time: Richard Slippery. Pleaded guilty of bank fraud in July at the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux reservation, South Dakota: Manuel Fool Head and his wife, Sandra Fool Head.
Switzerland touched off a controversy in August when it submitted for world-record consideration a cherry-spitting launch of 82 feet, beating by eight feet the old record held by Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause of Arizona. Switzerland uses pits that tend to travel farther and includes in its distance measurement the two-foot follow-through, whereas other spits are measured from the point of release.
Least Competent Criminals
In Merced, California, a man’s pit bull was eaten by his other pet, a 200-pound Burmese python….In Ipswich, England, a 73-year-old man who had spent about $12,000 on driving lessons and received his very first license five months ago had it revoked for driving under the influence….In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a police department helicopter crew came under criticism for landing behind a Krispy Kreme store to pick up a box of doughnuts….And in Cross Timbers, Missouri, a funeral home dumped a body bag containing the corpse of a 74-year-old man on his girlfriend’s front porch after she balked at paying the $1,200 cremation fee.
