Instead of throwing the book at a prisoner charged with trying to sell a grenade launcher, a California judge threw a book report at the suspect.

Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers allowed the 23-year-old to go free on bail while awaiting trial, if he’d spend an hour every day reading a book, and a half-hour writing about it.

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What are friends for?

A man in Stockholm, NY, always wanted to know how it felt to be shot.

So he asked a friend to shoot him.

His 25-year-old pal, who used a rifle to fire a bullet into his buddy’s leg, was busted for reckless endangerment. His friend is expected to recover.

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Damn! There goes lunch!

A very disappointed lion at the Oregon Zoo in Portland saw a tasty-looking morsel and roared over to eat it. The only thing that stopped him was a thick wall of glass.

That was very lucky for 1-year-old Jack Baltzor, who was dressed in a black-and-white-striped hoodie.

Since the lion didn’t go for any other kids, keepers thought the beast mistook little Jack for a zebra.

Jack’s mom said he loves cats, and kept saying, “Hi, kitty, kitty.’’

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This gives a whole new meaning to the term “car pooling.’’

A family in LaPuente, Calif., woke in the morning to find a 2006 silver Lexus on the bottom of their swimming pool.

The driver had swum away.

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Well, it did have a bird’s- eye view.

Security authorities in Turkey think they’ve discovered an Israeli spy — a bird called the European bee eater.

An eagle-eyed farmer found the body of the small bird in a field and noticed that one of its nostrils was bigger than the other.

This led the farmer to conclude Israel had planted surveillance equipment in its nose.