Appeal: Lawyers for former Washington Mayor Marion...

Appeal: Lawyers for former Washington Mayor Marion Barry asked a federal appeals panel Tuesday to overturn his six-month jail sentence for cocaine possession, saying the judge was biased. Attorneys R. Kenneth Mundy and William Kunstler charged that U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson failed to allow Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to observe Barry’s trial. U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Trosman said Barry was “sentenced fairly.”

* Look at That: A “crying” statue of a saint has been carted off to a laboratory for tests to determine whether the tears are miraculous or mundane. Our Lady Rosa Mistica, a statue in a church in Louveira, Brazil, has reportedly cried 21 times since Feb. 13 last year. A university team headed by Badan Palhares, known for helping identify the remains of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, placed it in a hermetically sealed room to discourage condensation. And to discourage intruders, Palhares holds the only key.

* Old What’s-His-Name: More than eight of 10 French people cannot spell the name of their president, Francois Mitterrand, even after he has been in office almost 10 years. A survey for Paris Match magazine showed that 84% of the 1,000 people questioned gave an incorrect answer when asked to spell Mitterrand’s name.

* Serendipity: An overlooked decimal point at a New York bank brought a windfall to schoolchildren of two impoverished Chinese villages. The foreign exchange department of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. sent $10,000, instead of $100, to the schools for buildings and scholarships after a newspaper story about the schools’ plight elicited contributions, including a check for $100 from a Morgan Guaranty employee. The bank discovered the error after converting the dollars into yuan but later allowed it to stand. “It’s just a fortunate occurrence for the school,” said bank spokesman Richard Mahony.