Scientists have confirmed that the strange, silvery rock that tore a hole in the roof and landed on the bathroom of the Nageswaran family more than a week ago had been a meteorite. Although about 50 extraterrestrial rocks crash on Earth regularly, it rarely strikes homes.

A Canadian archeologist plans to carry out his excavations in New Brunswick after he came to know that a woman found a spearhead, as old as 10,000 years old, from a nearby area. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. , Joan Rennick found a spearhead seven years ago at Cape Spear, about 31 miles east of Moncton and thought it would be a good piece of jewelry.

Good news for people who have noisy neighbors. A Japanese court has sentenced a woman to a 20-month prison term after her neighbor accused her of inflicting injury by blasting rock music at her house for 2 1/2 years. Court spokesman Takanao Kawasaki said the woman Miyoko Kawahara, was sentenced Tuesday by the Osaka High Court, thus annulling an initial ruling by a lower court that had given her a one-year prison term.

Come Christmas and one can find the Virgin Mary, the three kings and a few wayward sheep as the traditional Christmas nativity scene. But the nativity scenes in Spain have a smartly dressed peasant squatting behind a rock with his rear-end exposed. The statuettes of "El Caganer," known as the great defecator in the Catalan language, can be seen on the mantelpieces of collectors, throughout Spain's northeastern Catalonia region.

In the strangest ever complaint lodged to police, a 50-year-old North Carolina woman said that the crack cocaine she had just purchased wasn't very good. Police arrested Eloise D. Reaves after she approached the Putnam County sheriff's deputy at a convenience store Friday, complaining him that another man had sold her "bad crack" that contained wax and cocaine.