Fighting back: In London, 35 Greenpeace protesters rushed onto the floor of the International Petroleum Exchange in February, intending to paralyze oil trading on the day the Kyoto environmental initiative took effect, but, unexpectedly, the traders turned on them, punching and kicking the protesters until they ran for their lives.

Family values: Beverly Fisher, 48, was arrested in Smyrna, Ga., in February for allegedly throwing cans of beer at one son and beating another because he had refused her request to roll marijuana joints for her. And police in New York charged in February that when Christopher DiMeo robbed the jewelry store in Glen Head and murdered a salesperson (one of an alleged string of brutal jewelry store robberies and murders), his mom, Maryann Taylor-Casey, was driving the getaway car.

Overly obedient: Matthew Porter, 25, was arrested on the Bear Creek Park Frisbee Golf Course in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine, Texas, in February, and charged with possession of marijuana after a police officer said he smelled dope in a group of men that included Porter. Porter had no marijuana on him at the time, but while the officer was checking the men's identification, Porter's Labrador retriever, J.D., emerged from an adjacent pond, apparently having obediently (though unwisely) ''fetched'' a plastic bag containing 4 grams of marijuana.

- Compiled by Chuck Shepherd