The venerable 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei was honored at a gallery in Florence, Italy, in February to mark the 400th anniversary of his transformative work, which was widely discredited at the time (as contradicting the Bible) and which subjected him to vicious slanders. The exhibit includes Galileo's only preserved body part: one of his middle fingers.

Expensive electronics

Yale University student Jesse Maiman, 21, filed a lawsuit against US Airways in March because someone stole the Xbox console from his luggage, for which he wants $1 million.

In Lonnell Worthy's lawsuit against Bank of America, filed in November in California, Worthy values his now-ruined iPod playlist at $1 trillion.

Crime family

After Elizabeth Russell, 45, and her 13-year-old daughter were arrested in February in Hartford, Conn., and charged with shoplifting from a Kohl's department store, her husband, Daryll, 47, and son, Jonathan, 19, arrived at the police station to bail them out. However, a quick check revealed that both Daryll and Jonathan had warrants against them for violating probation, and were arrested. Said a police lieutenant, "I don't ever recall having four related people in lockup at the same time."

Postage due on bad news

In December, Idaho State University sent certified-mail letters to its adjunct faculty to disclose (as required by law) that some of them would soon be laid off. However, only the first-class mail fee was billed to the university, leaving each professor to pay on receipt the certified-mail surcharge in order to find out what the university would send them that was so important. The Idaho State Journal reported that it was the Postal Service's error.

Jailers not paying attention

Christian Colon, 21, had a plea deal worked out to testify against alleged murderer Joel Rivera in exchange for a lighter sentence, but suddenly decided in February that he would not take the stand. The change of heart came right after Colon was accidentally housed in the same Milwaukee County Jail holding cell with Rivera. With no plea deal, Colon got 46 years.

A 23-year-old inmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary was found beaten to death in March after being mistakenly assigned to the same cell as his ex-partner-in-crime, against whom he had testified in a 2002 murder trial.

Least competent criminals

Alleged bank robber Feliks Goldshtein was arrested after a brief chase by police, who were summoned to National City Bank in Stow, Ohio, in January. Employees may have been tipped off because Goldshtein, wearing a ski mask, had waited patiently in a teller's line and only displayed a gun when he finally reached the counter.

Romeo Montillano, 40, who was being sought in the December robbery of a Kmart in Chula Vista, Calif., pleasantly surprised the cops when they learned that a "Romeo Montillano" had registered for the upcoming police officers' exam on Feb. 25. Indeed, he showed up, and he was arrested.

Seriously?

When a supporter of the animal-rights organization PETA contributed, for a fund-raising auction, a towel that had recently been used by actor George Clooney, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk had what she thought was a better idea: extracting Clooney's perspiration from it and using the sweat to flavor a tofu dish. "I can see people having parties to try CloFu," she said. Clooney rejected the idea, according to a March Washington Post report.

Culinary flair

At least four culinarily daring food emporiums in the U.S. serve deep-fried pizza, including the takeout Pizza Snobz in Wilson, Pa., though owner David Barker admits the specialty is more common in Scotland. The key point, he said, is to begin only with frozen pizza; otherwise, the cheese soon slides off into the fryer.

News of the Weird classic

From a May 1999 police report in The Messenger (Madisonville, Ky.), concerning two trucks being driven curiously on a rural road: A man would drive a truck 100 yards, stop, walk back to a second truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the first truck, stop, walk back to the first truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the second truck, and so on, into the evening. He did it, he told police, because his brother was passed out drunk in one of the trucks, and he was trying to drive both trucks home, at more or less the same time. Not surprisingly, a blood-alcohol test showed the driver, also, to be impaired.