Whatever Happened, Baby Jane Now Has New Name

“Baby Jane,” a 1-year-old girl who was found abandoned on a Brooklyn street, has a new name--and maybe a new mother. Jane is now Jennifer, and Paula Rivera, of Wyandanch, N.Y., who has been taking care of the little girl, hopes to adopt her. “She is very cute. She can walk and she’s happy,” said Rivera, who has two adopted sons. “Sure, I’m going to try to keep her.” Jennifer was an instant hit with the police officers who found her sitting in a stroller after an anonymous woman called the 911 emergency number. So far, no one has reported her missing or come forward to claim her. “It’s very odd,” said Detective Kevin Mahlstadt. “The kid was obviously well taken care of. There was no abuse of any kind.”

--When Don Gilbert of Momence, Ill., compared his $65.50 electric bill for the month of June with the $25.80 bill he paid in June, 1979, he felt there was only one thing to do: He sent Commonwealth Edison a check written on an old white shirt. “Just a mild form of protest,” he said. “I feel they’re taking the shirt off my back. May as well write the . . . check on it.” He won’t do it again, however. It took Gilbert three shirts to write one check. “The first two kept wrinkling on me,” he said. “Had to tape it to the floor.” The company apparently didn’t mind the unusual form of payment: It deposited the shirt, and Gilbert eventually got it back--canceled.

--The Soviet husband-and-wife high-wire artists who defected from the Moscow Circus have decided to forgo a chance to perform with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and have joined a small Miami-based circus instead. Nikolai Nikolski and Bertalina Kazakova, both 35, will join Circus USA as the featured act for a monthlong run beginning Oct. 1. “Miami is our first city in America, our home city, and we want our first performance to be here,” Kazakova said. The couple, who belonged to one of the Soviet Union’s best-known circus acts, slipped away from the Moscow Circus in Argentina on Aug. 4 and flew to Miami, where they were granted political asylum.

--Hans Schnebel’s home gives new meaning to the term back to the earth. The 83-year-old man lives in a 17-by-20-foot covered hole near De Funiak Springs, Fla. The hole, which has been Schnebel’s home for about 10 years, has a bed, chair, table, shelves, electricity and wall-to-wall carpeting--of pine needles. Schnebel is happy with his mole-like existence. His only complaint is that the soil gets gooey after too much rain. “I’m staying here until I die,” he said. “Hopefully, it will be very late.”