In The News...

Big Brothers: A California high school football player allegedly threatened to shoot his coach. "Basketball player Latrell Sprewell, who choked his coach last year, offered to be his mentor." (David Christensen)

A Smoky Win: The L.A. City Council voted to virtually eliminate all outdoor advertising for alcohol and tobacco products. "Yet outdoors is the only place anyone's permitted to smoke anymore." (Johnny Robish)

What's New: The New York Times temporarily shut down its Web site after a hacker broke in and posted slurs and graphic pictures on it. "And to add insult to injury, the hacker then plastered the site's pages with colorful pie charts from USA Today." (Joshua Sostrin)

A Hard Search: UC Berkeley scientists need help analyzing data from the SETI telescope, which can scan 168 million frequencies at once. "Like guys on a Saturday afternoon with a remote in their hands." (Kenny Noble Cortes)

A Rough Ride: A Carnival cruise ship traveling through Hurricane Isis caused many passengers to become violently ill. "Fortunately, the crew was prepared for such a contingency after dealing with Kathie Lee on cruises." (Andy Waits)

He Should Have a Jetta: A teenager is suing Chrysler Corp. after his friends put a hot French frie down his shirt, causing him to jump from his car and get run over by it. "He can't win that case. Written in plain letters on the front of the car is 'Dodge.'" (Bill Williams)

Pray for Him: "It's been reported that President Clinton is going to meet with a minister once a week to help him avoid temptation. The only problem is, she's a really hot minister." (Conan O'Brien)

Playing It Safe: "To prevent any future incidents at the White House, the president's staff has taken some precautions. They've instituted a 'No Open Fly Zone' in the Oval Office." (Paul Steinberg)

Two for One: The Washington Redskins played in front of a record 80,000 fans. "It was Special Prosecutors Get in Free Night." (Hamilton)

Hot Wheels: Recently revealed statistics indicate that Hyundai, Kia and Yugo owners are involved in the fewest accidents. "Reasons being they tend to drive more slowly and carefully, and the car is usually in the repair shop." (Stan Kaplan)

Oh, No!: "Hear about this guy who stowed away in the landing gear of a jet flying from Honduras to Miami? He held onto the wheel on the front of the plane. You know the strange part? The guy had a ticket to fly first class, but he crawled into landing gear when he saw that the in-flight movie was 'The Avengers.'" (Jay Leno)

Pat on the Hand: The IRS has reprimanded more than a dozen senior managers for breaking rules and setting collection quotas. "The IRS commissioner said, 'Rest assured if this happens again, these people will get a stern talking-to and maybe even an icy glare." (Jerry Perisho)

Big Purchase: The TBS network has just purchased a package of 180 "Seinfeld" episodes at a price of $1 million an episode. "Which, if I'm not mistaken, works out to what? About $1.89 per 'yadda.'" (Steve Voldseth)

Slow Poke: Scientists recently extracted DNA from a tortoise. "Ironically, it's very similar to the DNA found in postal workers." (Rudolph J. Cecera)

Lead the Way!: "Last week, Geraldine Ferraro met with her transition team, to help ease her from obscurity into oblivion." (David Letterman)