Six Inventors Admitted To National Hall of Fame

True story: It was late in his shift, and Los Angeles policeman Kelly Benitez could have ignored the old Ford Thunderbird with an expired license. But rather than let the minor infraction go, he signaled for the car to pull over. What happened next is now the stuff of legend around the LAPD. The driver turned out to be the father Benitez last saw when he was a baby. The two had been searching for each other for 29 years. The elder Benitez, a school teacher, embraced his son so warmly that other motorists stopped to render assistance, thinking the cop was being assaulted.

OK, you're in Milwaukee and feel - um - imprisoned by the clothing styles in most of the stores. What to do? Well, for $69 you could buy one of designer George Keppler's new fashions: a blaze-orange jumpsuit on the back of which is stamped "Milwaukee County Jail." Much to police dismay, they've become popular. After one buyer was taken off a bus on suspicion of being an escapee, however, Keppler agreed to stop making them for a while. But, looked at another way, if some future wearer is arrested for a real crime, that's one less piece of prison garb the county would have to issue. Six Inventors Admitted To National Hall of Fame

The National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, recently inducted six new members as part of its effort to celebrate the creative and entrepreneurial spirit. Best known among them is Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and established the Nobel Prize. The new members and the inventions that won them hall-of-fame status:

S. Joseph Begun, first tape recorder for broadcasting

Douglas Engelbart, computer mouse

James Fergason, liquid crystal displays

Kary Banks Mullis, process used to identify and reproduce DNA

Alfred Nobel, dynamite

Henry Timken, tapered roller bearings