As is usually the case when Wal-Mart announces the intention to build a new store, community supporters — pushing for jobs, an enlarged tax base and shopper convenience — battle community opponents —trying to save mom-and-pop retailers.
When plans were announced for a northeast Washington, D.C., location, it was the local Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Brenda Speaks, who produced a brand-new reason for opposing such a store.
Young people, she told an anti-Wal-Mart rally, would be more likely to get criminal records because, with a big corporation around, they could less resist the temptation to steal.
His rights
should still be
in the slammer 
British drug dealer Luke Walsh-Pinnock, 22, recently released after a prison stint, threatened to sue police in the Kilburn neighborhood of London after officers distributed a leaflet near his mother’s home warning that Walsh-Pinnock was once again free.
Walsh-Pinnock said he felt “humiliated” by the leaflet, in violation of his “human rights.”
Not all ideas
are ‘good’ ideas   
Three people were hospitalized in Bellevue, Wash., when their van stalled and then exploded as the ignition was re-engaged.
They were carrying two gallons of gasoline in an open container and had been feeding the carburetor directly, through an opening in the engine housing — between the seats — when the van was in motion.
It was not reported why they were doing it that way.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)