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● Serena Yen, a member of the 24 Hour Fitness gym in Houston, complained to KTRK-TV in July that she had been inadvertently shut inside recently at about midnight while using an upstairs exercise machine, when employees locked up for the night. A spokesman at the company's headquarters said that "24 Hour" does not refer to the hours of operation.

● As urban sprawl gobbles up land that previously surrounded farms and ranches, some new homeowners are getting feistier about rural noises and smells that disturb their enjoyment of country life. Kimber Johnson paid an extra $80,000 to get the premium view for her land near Phoenix, but complained in July about a farm's routine summer buildup of manure 300 feet away, lasting until the corn crop is picked. The problem also exists in the French village of Cesny-aux-Vignes, where in August the mayor simply banned all complaints from urban newcomers about braying donkeys and loud farm equipment. (Occasionally, the newcomers win, as in Washington County, Minn., in June when the sheriff cited farmer Karyl Hylie for having a cow guilty of "excessive mooing.")

Verle Dills, 60, was arrested in Sioux Falls, S.D., in July after police found numerous homemade videos of Dills having sex in public with "traffic signs." And Jeff Doland of Uniontown, Ohio, was arrested in July, caught in an Internet sting after he flew to Miami thinking he had arranged to pay a "mother" to let him photograph her two adolescent daughters while she periodically pushed them underwater (because he "liked watching the bubbles").

Just before Patricia Nilsen committed suicide last year, she cashed out her estate and left the money (about $300,000 in CDs) to famous 1960s singer Connie Francis, a move that was, said Nilsen's relatives, an abrupt departure from her previous plans. The relatives accuse Francis of manipulating Nilsen, but Francis said she hardly ever spoke to or wrote her. Francis described Nilsen as a huge fan who wrote to her frequently, perhaps giving Nilsen, said a relative, "the insane delusion" that Francis was her best friend (though there was no formal evidence of mental illness). Francis offered to split the proceeds with the family and to donate to Nilsen's favorite charity, but the family said no, and Francis recently filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach, Fla., to prevent the family from holding up her money.

Jazmine Roberts, 19, was apprehended by a Neiman Marcus security guard in White Plains, N.Y., in August and held for police after she allegedly walked out of the store with a $250 pair of jeans and raged against the guard. According to a police report, Roberts was under the impression that once she walked out the door, she was immune from arrest, telling the guard, "It's too late. I already left the store."