Pranks

Sarah Palin mistakenly thought she was speaking with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday when a pair of well-known Canadian comedians managed to get her on the telephone. The prank call was made by Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel, who are known as the Masked Avengers. Audette, the Sarkozy imitator, discussed with Palin the state of her campaign and said that one day he could see her as president.

Three juveniles were arrested in Redlands on Wednesday after San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were told that they planned to set off a smoke bomb and explosive devices at Redlands East Valley High School and had written a plan stating those intentions. An explosive device was found at the home of one of the students, but authorities had no details about the students' alleged motives, other than disrupting school.

A comedy team impersonating a Canadian government delegation -- and one member wearing an Osama bin Laden costume -- breached security cordons around the hotel where President Bush is staying, embarrassing Australian authorities. Security in Sydney has been excruciatingly tight in advance of this weekend's summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, with most of the downtown area swathed in riot fencing.

A woman who faced up to 90 days in jail for registering her dog to vote has agreed to a deal that could remove the charge from her record. Jane Balogh, 66, won't be prosecuted on the charge of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant if she does 10 hours of community service, pays a $250 fine and avoids violating the law for the next year, District Judge Mariane C. Spearman said Wednesday.

Legal consultants warned the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday that taxpayers risk being hit with a judgment of $7 million or more if the city loses a discrimination lawsuit brought by a black firefighter who was fed a firehouse spaghetti dinner secretly laced with dog food. With the start of trial in the case now less than two weeks away, the council spent two hours debating a last-minute settlement offer behind closed doors.

Even in death, Chet Fitch is a card. Fitch, known for his sense of humor, died in October at age 88 but gave his friends and family a start recently: Christmas cards began arriving -- written in his hand with a return address of "Heaven." The greeting read: "I asked Big Guy if I could sneak back and send some cards. At first he said no; but at my insistence he finally said, 'Oh well, what the heaven, go ahead but don't [tarry] there.'

From the waist up, they looked like perfectly normal commuters. That wasn't good enough for police. Eight pranksters who dropped their pants and showed their underwear on the subway were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. All were ultimately released, said the stunt's organizer, Improv Everywhere. The group said more than 160 riders participated in the fifth annual No Pants Subway Ride.

Beleaguered pre-dawn commuters on Metrolink's Riverside line traveling to L.A.'s Union Station on Thursday were treated to yet another on-the-seat flier announcing delays and convoluted route changes caused by Union Pacific track repairs. But this latest update, printed on official-looking Metrolink stationery, was a fake. The early April Fool's prank riffed on the long delays that commuters to Los Angeles have had to endure while Union Pacific upgrades tracks across the region.

In the ongoing battle of the nerds between Caltech and MIT, the latest volley has been fired from a 130-year-old cannon. Actually, the latest volley \o7is \f7a cannon. Massachusetts pranksters, posing as professional movers, stole the beloved Fleming Cannon -- traditionally fired at each year's commencement -- from the Pasadena campus last week.

Cannon retrieval may not be rocket science, but a group of intrepid, cross-country-trekking Caltech students has learned it isn't much easier. On Monday, two dozen of the Pasadena-based scholars used more brawn than brains here to recover a 111-year-old cannon that Massachusetts Institute of Technology pranksters had swiped from Caltech last month. Shortly after 7 a.m.