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In 1989, a Union Bridge, Md., high school permitted a female student, Tawana Hammond, 17, to try out for its football team under the pressure of a federal statute that bars school discrimination on the basis of gender.

On her first scrimmage, Tawana, a running back, was tackled and suffered massive internal injuries.

In October 1992, she filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the county board of education for its alleged failure to tell her how dangerous football is.

Raleigh, N.C., judge Don Overby, in several recent cases involving juvenile theft, has forced the convicted kid to go home, retrieve his own most prized possession, bring it back to Overby's courtroom, and watch while the judge smashes it up.

San Francisco police arrested Russell C. Sultan in July and charged him with attempting to extort $23,000 from his mother and girlfriend by claiming to have been kidnapped for ransom.

After tracing telephone calls, police, guns drawn, burst into a motel room to find Sultan casually eating fried chicken and watching a 49ers football game.

Sultan said the kidnappers had merely left him alone for a while, and exclaimed to the officers:

- What took you so long?

Long Beach police arrested two small, skinny men in October and charged them with stealing six 45-pound barbells from the Buffum-Downtown YMCA.

The men were struggling to keep the barbells in a small cart that kept tipping over because they were not strong enough to steer it.

Rhett Jacobs, Democratic candidate for the South Carolina House and a man who listed "education" as his top priority, submitted a required campaign disclosure form in October, handwritten, on which he detailed expenses for "filling fee," "campain work" and "litature."

Richard Kyle won his Arizona House seat in November more easily than he had won the Republican primary in September. He and his primary opponent, John Gaylord, had tied and had agreed to settle things with one hand of five-card stud dealt by the speaker of the Arizona House.

Kyle's pair of sevens put him into the general election.

Michael J. Schmidt, 29, set up a hidden video camera at his home near Superior, Wis., because he had been burglarized several times and thought he could catch the culprits in the act.

The burglars came back and were captured on tape, which Schmidt turned over to the sheriff.

Among the items the burglars took from Schmidt's house was a box containing eight marijuana plants.

Schmidt was charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

In October, a cleaning crew accidentally tossed out an exhibit at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The exhibit consisted of 14,000 cigarette butts -- the amount a smoker produces in a lifetime -- crammed into coffee cans. Said the artist, in defense of the cleaning crew, "(The butts) didn't smell very good."

Three maintenance workers in Alexandria, Ind., fixed a massive street-flooding problem in October when they pulled a 200-pound hairball from a manhole. Said one of the men, "We thought we had a goat."

In October, the Swallows Hotel in Gateshead, England, offered 11 chronic snorers a free night's stay so they it could test how well soundproofed the rooms are. The hotel staff tape-recorded the sounds coming from the rooms and promised the loudest snorer a prize.

After police pulled over Kevin Temple, 35, in a routine traffic stop in Bronson, Fla., in October, a police dog sniffing the trunk became agitated. In the trunk and back seat, officers found the following live animals: 48 rattlesnakes, a Gila monster, 45 non-poisonous snakes, 67 scorpions, several tarantulas and small lizards, and a parrot. Temple said they were just pets.

In October, an envelope containing $15,000 in cash was left, anonymously, on a chair at the Detroit IRS office with the instruction to apply it "to reduce the national debt."

Joe Albert Ruiz, 19, was arrested in Santa Maria in September. Police said he had broken into a car in the middle of the night and was in the trunk, disconnecting the rear speakers, when the trunk closed and locked him in.

Neighbors reported strange noises, and a police officer called to the scene heard Ruiz banging on the trunk and yelling:

- Let me out!

In September, the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation reported the development of an odor that makes gamblers bet more. In a study in Las Vegas, slot machines outfitted to emit the odor racked up 45 percent more business.

The neurologist who conducted the study predicted that the scent will become widely used in Las Vegas.

Robert A. Chase, 45, was charged with threatening an 11-year-old boy with a knife in Madison, Wis. The boy was watching Chase play basketball with another adult when the opponent accused Chase of "traveling" (taking steps without dribbling the ball).

To seek an impartial opinion, Chase asked the boy, but the boy agreed that Chase had traveled. Chase then allegedly grabbed the boy, held a knife to his throat, and asked:

- Now. Did I travel?

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) was ordered to pay $333,000 in penalties to Inyo County because DWP's property tax payment arrived late -- after having been sent back for $3.40 in additional postage.

The Ontario Press Council dismissed a complaint filed by Allan Sorensen against the Toronto Sun, which had reported that Sorenson had choked his ex-girlfriend.

Sorensen's complaint was that his reputation was damaged because the Sun engaged in "speculation" that he had used only one hand to choke her (the other being forced into her mouth). In fact, he said he used both hands.

An investigation by the Dallas Morning News revealed the city's public schools employ at least 185 people who have been convicted of felonies, including two convicted murderers.

In response, the school superintendent promised that the city would begin periodic records checks.

Researchers at Cornell University recently patented an artificial dog that would speed up the breeding of fleas for lab use.

Previously, the lab required 25 live, severely infected dogs to breed the 12,000 fleas per day needed in studies of humans' and animals' allergic reactions to fleas.

A Japanese rancher told reporters in Tokyo in July that he herds cattle by outfitting them with pocket pagers (beepers), which he calls from his portable phone.

After a week of training, the cows associate the beeping with eating and hustle up for grub.

Kenneth Jeffries, 24, was arrested in West Haven, Conn., in August for robbing a convenience store. Police reported that he had first offered the clerk $1 for a pack of gum as a ruse and then taken $40 in the robbery.

However, said police, Jeffries returned a minute later and asked, uncertainly:

- Did I pay for the gum?

By that time the clerk had summoned police, and Jeffries was soon apprehended.

In July, Danny Fouts and his wife and her sister, in New York City to appear on the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show to discuss their arrest for shoplifting their wedding supplies on their wedding day in March, were arrested for stealing from the New York Ramada Hotel the TV show had booked them in for their stay.

In Annandale, Va., two armed men rushed the front door of First American Bank just after manager Dwight Smith opened up.

Unknown to the men, the door had locked automatically behind Smith.

The first robber bounced off the door hitting the second man.

They escaped in their van and have not been captured.

The local board of health closed down the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant in South Dennis, Mass., briefly in August for various violations.

The most serious, said officials, was the restaurant's practice of draining water from cabbage by putting it in cloth laundry bags, placing them between two pieces of plywood in the parking lot, and driving over them with a van.

- I've seen everything now. - Said Health Director Ted Dumas.

Wednesday, October 21, 1992
The most popular video in Sweden earlier this year was a 60-minute fireplace fire, shown from the point of ignition until it burns into cinders, and featuring a sound-track of fire-crackling wood. Price: about $35.