By Devin D. O'Leary

MARCH 23, 1998: 

Dateline: Canada--The three surviving Dionne quintuplets, now 63, have accepted a $2.8 million settlement from the Ontario government for turning them into a tourist attraction. The so-called "miracle babies" were born in 1934 and quickly gained international fame. Following their birth, however, the five Dionne children were removed from their parents by government officials claiming they would be exploited. The Ontario government then turned around and exhibited the quints themselves for paying customers--a situation which continued three times a day for nine years.

Dateline: Germany--A knife-wielding, wheelchair-bound robber failed to knock off a Magdeburg, Germany, savings bank last Wednesday. Police said a female employee ignored both the knife and the request to hand over money. Instead, she raised the alarm and the would-be robber fled. The disabled 26-year-old was apprehended by police outside as he tried to roll away.

Dateline: Washington, D.C.--The Government Accounting Office admitted last week that the federal food stamp program paid out some $8.5 million in benefits to 25,881 dead people from 1995 to 1996. Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana was the first to make a bold political stand against such practices, saying it was "intolerable" for food stamps to be sent to dead people.

Dateline: Pennsylvania--A group of 35 Philadelphia middle-school students used their school bus radio to call for help after their bus driver, in an apparent drunken stupor, plowed past all their stops and led concerned parents on a rambling one-hour chase.

Dateline: North Carolina--The tiny town of Lizard Lick, N.C., has beat out its competition to become the official launching point for a brand new Nintendo video game. Executives from Nintendo chose Lizard Lick over competitors like French Lick, Ind., as the perfect place to unveil their newest video game--which features cartoon dinosaurs that grab goodies and pick off enemies with super-long tongues. Charles Wood, Lizard Lick's unofficial mayor, said this was the most exciting thing to hit the 1,300-resident community since the state replaced the town's one stop light last year.

Dateline: South Carolina--This week's Criminal Mastermind Award goes to a South Carolina. man recently sentenced to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine for running an automobile chop shop. The man was caught by local police because he ground the original vehicle identification numbers off engine parts and replaced them with his own social security number.

Dateline: South Carolina--Daniel Rudolph, the brother of suspected abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, purposely lopped off his own hand last Sunday with a circular saw. Eric Robert Rudolph has been the target of a nationwide manhunt since the Jan. 19 bombing of the New Woman All Women clinic in Birmingham, which killed an off-duty police officer and critically injured a nurse. The FBI is reportedly trying to suppress a videotape Rudolph made of the maiming, fearing the film could make its way to the Internet and become a touchstone for anti-government groups. Daniel Rudolph was apparently upset with his brother's treatment by the FBI. In the tape, Rudolph states that the amputation was being done to "send a message to the FBI and the media." ... What, that the Rudolph family is all a bunch of wackos?

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