LEAD STORIES

* In February, a California Court of Appeal upheld the 1995 ruling of a
judge in Marin County that admitted to probate the will of Sam Zakessian,
leaving $2 million to his girlfriend rather than to relatives.  The lower
court was persuaded that scribblings on a 4"x 4" piece of paper contained
the deceased's instructions, despite their being hard to read in the first
place and then overwritten with what appear to be obliterations.  The court
said the overwrites were Mr. Zakessian's initials written 21 times (some
rotated, some sideways, some upside-down), three different dates (one
sideways over three lines of text), and two signatures written diagonally.
The appeals court conceded that the will "is not easily described."

* In March, the New York Times reported on a recent spate of what it called
really bad Japanese TV shows, among them one in which bikini-clad young
women attempt to crush aluminum cans by squeezing them between their breasts
and another in which a young child was brought on stage and told that his
mother had just been shot to death--for the purpose of seeing how many
seconds would elapse before he started crying.  Said a leading TV critic,
"The more nonsensical [the programs] are, the more interesting I find
them."

* In February in Charlotte, N.C., skydiving instructor J. C. Cockrell lost
by default a lawsuit filed by a former student, Erin Crabtree, 21, who had
accused him of fondling her breasts during a tandem jump in which he is
harnessed to her and she must hold on to the parachute lines above her head.

* Jeremy Dean and his parents, of Burney, Calif., filed a lawsuit in January
against Shasta County for at least $700,000 for Jeremy's total disability
that resulted from a car crash.  Dean and some friends had been out drinking.
Dean was in the back seat of a car and had stuck his head out the window to
vomit just as the driver veered off the road ramming Dean's head into a
tree.  The lawsuit claims that it was the county's fault that the tree was
so close to the road.

* Saddam Hussein filed a libel lawsuit in February in Paris against the
magazine e Nouvel Observateur for its September 1996 story in which he was
described by other Arab leaders as stupid and incompetent and referred to,
among other things, as an "executioner," a "monster," a "murderer," "a
perfect cretin," and a "noodle."

* In February, the electric co-op in the Philippine province of Illocos
Norte shut off power to the refrigerated crypt of former president
Ferdinand Marcos because his wife, now a member of the legislature, is
about $215,000 behind in the electricity bill.  The government will not
permit Marcos to be buried in Manila because he was suspected of having
appropriated billions of dollars during his 20-year reign that ended in
1986.  Shutting off power, said Mrs. Marcos, was "the ultimate harassment,
the harassment of the dead."

* According to a trade association of prostitutes in Harare, Zimbabwe,
massive layoffs in the economy have led to an oversupply of women taking up
prostitution and a reduction in men's spending power, causing them either
to ignore prostitutes or to visit bars only to drink and flirt before going
home to the wife.  To save their jobs, the association recommended in
January that prostitutes raise their price from about $2.80 to about $4.60
but also requested that wives loosen the pursestrings to allow husbands to
spend more when they go out.

* In February, the Palm Springs (Calif.) Regional Airport Commission issued
hygiene rules for cab drivers serving the airport, including requiring
drivers to shower daily with soap, brush with toothpaste, and eat breath
mints.  After vociferous complaints, the Commission softened the specifics
on "fresh breath" and "pleasant body odor."  Said cabbie Ken Olson to the
Commission, "You're not my mother."

* Six nurses at a government health care for the disabled facility in
Barrie, Ontario, were fired in December for disobeying new countywide rules
that required them to provide sexual assistance to their patients (e.g.,
helping them masturbate, positioning couples for sex, assisting to put on a
condom).  In January, the agency said it would reconsider the rules, but
the women remain jobless and have filed a lawsuit.

* In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, Calif., as he
fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing.
Death was caused when the large flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to
keep his hands free) crammed against the base of his skull as he hit the
floor.

* In October, Richard E. Clear, Jr., 32, was arrested in Tampa, Fla., for
shooting his gun toward a neighbor who had complained about Clear's barking
dog.  Clear runs a martial-arts studio and advertises his experience in
"stress management."

* On September 29 in rural northeast Vermont, the car in which Michael
O'Keefe, 44, was riding was hit by a 700-lb. moose.  O'Keefe was taken for
treatment of cuts and returned to the road a few hours later in his own
truck, which was then hit by another moose.