Malvern Primary School in Huyton, Merseyside, England, recently banned play with regulation soccer balls because they are made of leather.
“Football,” it ruled, must be played with less-dangerous sponge balls.  
Amazingly,
these haven’t
swept the market
The German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur reported in November of 1992 on Japanese inventor Kenji Kawakami’s “New Idea Academy,” which featured his own innovations and counted among his most successful products:
• A portable washing machine that straps onto the user’s leg (swirling the clothes with each step)
• A travel necktie with room for writing utensils and a calculator
• Padded booties for cats so they can dust the floor while walking around
• And a “solar flashlight” that provides a strong beam of light as long as the sun is shining.
Hoaxer pulled
the meat over
the eyes at
Weird News
Two weeks ago in this space, News of the Weird fell for a hoax (for only the fifth time in 22 years, covering more than 20,000 stories). The seller of meat-flavored water, originally reported as a legitimate entrepreneur by AOL News, is apparently engaged in quite elaborate “performance art.” I am duly embarrassed, and I apologize to readers.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)