Double-teamed x 3
Northwestern hasn't managed to field a Big Ten championship football team in decades, and it is too early to predict this year's chances. But it is safe to conclude that the odds in favor of confusion on the bench have doubled—or perhaps tripled. On hand for preseason practice were six sturdies sharing but three last names—Randy and Rob Dean, Randy and Ron Kuceyeski and Carl and Joe Patrnchak. Even if Coach John Pont manages to get the pronunciations correct, and even if he matches up the right face with the right family, he stands a 50-50 chance of getting the wrong man. All three pairs of players are identical twins.

His bag is alligators
"It's either a house for him or a house of my own," decreed Frau Gramminitsch as her husband Johann's pet alligator Jockl grew larger. No problem. Johann quickly converted an inherited country inn in their Austrian hometown of Waidhoften into an exotic bar, featuring a glass palace for Jockl, now nearly 10 feet long. But Mississippi-bred Jockl requires more than a regal residence. Daily Johann reminds Jockl of his local reputation for benign cuddliness by stuffing him with an anesthetizing snack: 10 pounds of liver, four hens and 25 pounds of fish.

An arrest overturned
It made a classic arrest picture: a Scotland Yard detective sergeant named Grant Smith (right) subduing a student who was demonstrating against South African apartheid. It made an even better court case: the Southampton University student, a Kenyan Asian called Mangalsinh Jadjeda, was found to have a knife on his person and was fined $50. But now, five years later, it turns out that it was the cop, not the culprit, who was the guilty party. "I could not live with my conscience," whimpered Sgt. Smith in finally admitting he had planted the knife on the student. A full investigation has been demanded by the British Home Office.