Pranks

A former star athlete at Calvary Chapel High School has sued the school, its basketball coaches and former teammates for allegedly throwing him overboard from a sailboat during a school trip to Honolulu. The lawsuit was filed by Chase J. Lubbock, who was a star basketball and baseball player for the private Christian school and under 18 when the incident happened. Lubbock's action states that he hit his head on the vessel.

Two teen-agers who set another boy afire as he waited in a high-school cafeteria lunch line said their actions were intended as a prank, authorities said Thursday. The two youths were behind Benjamin Goldhammer in line on Wednesday at Agoura High School when one boy ignited Goldhammer's shirt with a cigarette lighter, said Lt. Jim Glazar of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

In a courtyard on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, sparks flew as a student wielding an electric saw sheared the metal roof off a brown Capri car. On a brick-lined walkway, others dipped a combination lock into a bucket of liquid nitrogen, then smashed it gleefully to smithereens. Near the cafeteria, underclassmen with miniature fire hydrants hanging from their necks erected a 10-foot plastic temple to the "Great Dog God Fred."

The Dodgers, whose collection of prominent players with strong personalities makes for a potentially explosive clubhouse atmosphere, already have experienced some internal problems, two involving Kirk Gibson. Thursday afternoon, before the Dodgers' first spring exhibition game, Gibson angrily sprinted off the field and left the Dodgertown premises after having been a victim of the kind of clubhouse pranks to which most players are occasionally subjected.

Mike Morasky was a 14-year-old farm boy who knew more about chickens than politics when he got a job as a page in Montana's House of Representatives. His first job was to organize the bills for the day's agenda. Not knowing where else to begin, Morasky sorted the legislators' paper work according to color--a decision that led to chaos on the House floor.

Charges against New York Met outfielder Vince Coleman might be filed today or Wednesday by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Greg Somes, deputy district attorney of the complaint division, said Monday that he had talked with arson investigator John Little about an incident in which Coleman tossed a powerful explosive device from a vehicle driven by Dodger Eric Davis as it pulled away from a group of fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot. The incident occurred at 4:10 p.m.

A practical joke forced hundreds of Cal State Fullerton students to take final exams on the grassy quadrangle and in the football stadium Friday as the sheriff's bomb squad searched the science building for traces of a toxic substance. Early Friday morning, custodians accidentally exploded pellets of nitrogen triiodide someone had hidden under fifth-floor bathroom toilet seats in Miles D. McCarthy Hall, the largest building on campus.

Korean pop star Psy -- you know, the guy who made your parents ask "what is a 'Gangnam Style' " -- is back with the follow-up to the incredibly popular song. "Gentleman," is another foot-stomping, frenetic dance groove built around a basic chorus. The video delivers more cheeky irreverence from the pop star. In the video, Psy channels his inner “mean girl” and pulls off an array of sophomorish pranks, including dialing up a woman's treadmill, preventing a man from going to the restroom, kicking a soccer ball away from kids and digging in his backside and putting his fingers in someone's face.

Four Marin County high school students were suspended after they allegedly released dozens of chickens in school hallways as part of a senior prank and eight of the birds died, school officials said. The seniors at Redwood High School in Larkspur, north of San Francisco, could be barred from graduation ceremonies and face animal cruelty charges for their involvement in the prank, according to school and animal control officials.