President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia (Africa's smallest country) has long believed he had mystic powers, but he said a vision received on Jan. 18 makes it possible for him to personally cure AIDS and asthma, though only on certain days and for a limited number of people. The vision gave him recipes based on seven herbs mentioned in the Quran but authorized him to treat no more than 10 AIDS sufferers, on Thursdays and Mondays, and not more than 100 asthma patients, on Fridays and Saturdays. (Not surprisingly, the government self-reports success.) Jammeh's previous visions included making Gambia rich by exporting oil, but so far no deposits have been found.

-- Chilean artist Marco Evaristti, serving dinner to friends at a gallery in Santiago in January, presented a dish of meatballs that he said had been cooked using liposuctioned fat from his own body. "The question of whether or not to eat human flesh is more important than the result," he said. "You are not a cannibal if you eat art." (Evaristti is the artist who once put live fish in a blender at a gallery and invited guests to push the button.)

-- The Atlantic Theater in the Jacksonville, Fla., suburb of Atlantic Beach planned to stage several dramas this winter, including Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," but following an undisclosed number of complaints from parents who said they were uncomfortable seeing that title, management changed its marquee to "The Hoohaa Monologues." (The change lasted one day, until management realized it was barred by contract from calling the play by another name.)

-- Nathaniel Abraham was convicted of murder in 1998 and incarcerated, but only until he turned 21, which was in January, at which time he was moved into a rent-free apartment in Bay City, Mich., and enrolled tuition-free in Delta College, in a program sponsored by Michigan Rehabilitation Services. Though some criticized such lavish treatment of a murderer, Abraham seemed ready to start his new life, arriving in Oakland Circuit Court for his formal release wearing "a black fur coat, ivory fedora hat, and a ivory and hot-pink pinstriped suit with matching pink tie and shoes," according to a Detroit News reporter.

-- Government Decisions: (1) At the recommendation of the Unipart consulting firm, bureaucrats at the British Revenue and Customs office in Longbenton had strips of black tape applied to their desktops to mark off where certain items should be placed for better organization, according to a January report in London's Daily Telegraph. (2) A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack in North London in January, perhaps assisted by a delay in responding by the London Ambulance Service. According to The Sun, the nearest crew could not be called because European Union labor rules prevent disturbing the crew for any reason during the first 20 minutes of their half-hour break.

-- Questionable Judgments: During an eight-day period around New Year's in the Chicago area, thieves stole tractor-trailers filled with, respectively, broccoli and asparagus.

-- Tacky: (1) U.K. soccer player Glen Johnson, who reportedly earns the equivalent of about $58,000 a week, was arrested at a B&Q store in Dartford after a security guard said he spotted Johnson placing a high-priced toilet seat into the box of a lower-priced seat. (2) Des Moines, Iowa, police detained James Clay in December after a convenience store clerk accused him of putting two hot dogs inside a bun and covering them with enough condiments that the clerk would think he was buying only one dog.

-- More Tacky Crimes: (1) In November, Robert Hanna, 42, of Meadville, Pa., reported that he had just shot a deer and was about to come down from his tree stand when three armed men happened along and deer-jacked him, knocking him to the ground and stealing his bounty. (2) County jail inmate Brian Bruggeman, 38, was arrested in North Platte, Neb., in December and charged with felony assault after allegedly passing gas repeatedly in front of his cellmate (leading to a fight). The "victim," inmate Jesse Dorris, said he had made numerous attempts to stay away from Bruggeman but that Bruggeman purposely sought him out in a dinner line and let him have it once more.

-- Testifying in January against a San Bernardino, Calif., strip club accused of promoting prostitution, licensed private investigator Duane Minard (who was working on contract for the police) admitted that he went too far in gathering evidence. He said he had paid a woman $300 for a legitimate dance in a private room, but by the time she had "finished," he owed her $500 more for "additional" services. He testified that he knew he wasn't supposed to go all the way, but "I didn't have the time to clear my head," he said. "I was aroused. I was waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill."

For two years now, Estrella Benevides, 46, has been painting messages on her house in San Mateo, Calif., and her prolificness has escalated to the point where all outside surfaces (including the roof) are covered with cryptic references to the Bible, conspiracy theories and episodes from her own life, and a local community board gave her a February deadline to remove the writing or pay a fine of $50 a day. Benevides has said she can't remove the messages because they come from God and expose a worldwide mind-control cabal that uses witchcraft and technology, and that this is the only way she knows to warn people. According to court documents cited by InsideBayArea.com, her life has spiraled downward since she lost custody of a young son.

-- Police in Lilburn, Ga., were called to the cemetery adjacent to Luxomni Baptist Church at 2:40 a.m. one morning in January to investigate reports of a man screaming for about two hours. They found Ezekiel Dejesus-Rodriguez, 24, pinned under a gravestone (with a bloody, broken leg) and said he had apparently been knocking over headstones for fun until one fell on him.

-- Bright Ideas: (1) Kurt Husfeldt, 46, and two others were arrested in Lindenhurst, N.Y., in January in possession of 14 stolen electronic devices that they apparently assumed were cell phones. However, they were global positioning devices from a nearby municipal facility, and police had followed their signals to Husfeldt's home. (2) Patrick Burr, 36, and his wife Heather, 33, were arrested in Provo, Utah, in December and charged with conspiracy to rob the Utah Community Credit Union, after an ex-partner turned them in. The informant said the Burrs had planned to make their getaway by floating on inner tubes down the Provo River, but that plan collapsed after their car (containing the inner tubes) was impounded.

(1) In December in Jerusalem, Israel's Green Leaf Party organized the first joint Israeli-Arab conference promoting the legalization of marijuana, which a party spokesman said would create a "common (cultural) identity" that could lead to peace. (2) In January, India's largest political party, the Bharativa Janata Party, sponsored compulsory yoga classes in public schools, but opposition was strong, with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board working side by side with various Christian organizations such as the Catholic Church of Madhya Pradesh.

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Steaks from Waygu cattle in western Australia were already revered by gourmets worldwide (noted for their marbling), but recently an exporter went a step further: The choice grains fed the cattle are now being soaked in a 2004 cabernet merlot, according to a January dispatch from Sydney in London's Sunday Telegraph. "Our biggest problem is going to be meeting demand," said the managing director of Margaret River Premium Meat Exports, even though the best cuts of steak might run the equivalent of about US$90. Plans are to feed each cow a liter's worth of wine daily during its last 60 days.

-- Doctors Gone Bad: (1) The British General Dental Council found David Quelch guilty in January of professional misconduct for pulling two teeth of a patient, against her will, without anesthesia, because she had complained about previous treatments. He supposedly said, "That'll teach you ..." (2) However, the patient at Romania's Panduri Urology Hospital was not at fault (according to United Press International, from a January story in Bucharest's Sunday Telegram) when surgeon Naum Ciomu lost his temper at his own sloppiness and chopped off a 36-year-old man's penis. Ciomu later admitted that he had overreacted. Nonetheless, the Romanian doctors' union complained that Ciomu's fine (the equivalent of about $190,000) was unwarranted.

-- "The world's most dangerous road," according to a November BBC News dispatch, is a 50-mile stretch of winding, mountain-hugging cliff three miles above sea level, running from La Paz, Bolivia, to the country's Yungas region. At least 200 people a year reportedly die on the road, which is about 10 feet wide with no railing and frequent confrontations when wide-load vehicles meet from opposite directions. Furthermore, bad Andes Mountain storms wash away parts of what road does exist. Bolivians frequently pray to the goddess Pachamama for safe passage.

-- (1) Transgendered patient Gina Tilley filed a lawsuit late last year against New York City plastic surgeon David Ostad (who has been cited by state medical authorities 11 times and sued 14 times), complaining that her 2004 saline breast implants had shifted to her armpits. (2) The fire alarm at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England, sounded one night in December, attributed to a diet of brussels sprouts fed to a turtle. Marine biologist Sarah Leaney of the Centre explained that the turtle's resulting flatulence probably created bubbles that raised the water level enough to trigger the alarm.

-- Settling the Gender Wars: (1) German cancer researchers, writing in a January journal article, reported that any exercise helped ward off breast cancer in pre-menopausal women but that housework-type exercise worked for all women and was superior to job-based or leisure-based exercise. (2) A female chimpanzee, Judy, escaped at the Little Rock (Ark.) Zoo in January and, as she moved about, was observed entering a bathroom, grabbing a brush, and cleaning a toilet. She also wrung out a sponge and cleaned off a refrigerator, according to an Associated Press report.

-- Florida state Sen. Gary Siplin was convicted in August of grand theft for paying employees state funds to work on his re-election campaign, but according to senate rules, he retains his office while his case is on appeal. The first bill Siplin introduced for the new legislative session in January would make it easier under state law for convicted felons to have their voting rights restored.

-- The Mexican government is scheduled to consider, as early as March, a proposal from its states' migrant assistance offices to hand out satellite-tracking devices to its citizens who plan to emigrate illegally to the United States, so that they could be located in case of emergency after crossing the border. Skeptics, according to a January report in the San Antonio Express-News, wondered how vigorously the U.S. Border Patrol would assist in rescues.

(1) The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services issued a warning in January to residents of the city of Ringwood that they should limit their intake of squirrel to no more than twice a week (children once a month). (A toxic waste dump is nearby.) (2) Dan Gulley Jr., 70, and David Brooks Jr., 62, fought in January in Atmore, Ala., and according to police, Gulley pulled out a gun and shot Brooks. The two were arguing over how tall the late singer James Brown was.

(1) According to police in Hartselle, Ala., Daniel Brown, 22, wore a ski mask to hide his identity from his grandfather when he staged a home invasion-robbery in January, but when he burst in, he yelled, "I need your money, and I mean it, Pa-Paw." (Nonetheless, when arrested, Brown denied that he was the man behind the mask.) (2) Glenn Vickers, 53, allegedly intoxicated, wildly tailgated a driver in January on Interstate 64 that happened to be Kanawha County, W.Va., sheriff Mike Rutherford in an unmarked car. After jockeying behind Rutherford for a while, Vickers peeled off at an exit and flipped Rutherford the finger, but immediately crashed into a guardrail.

"I was 6 when I first became aware of my desire to lose my legs," wrote "Susan Smith" in London's The Guardian in January. "The image I have of myself has always been one without legs." News of the Weird has reported several times on people with "body identity integrity disorder" (apotemnophilia), which leads them to remove one or more limbs (or men their scrota). The worst part, said "Smith," was having to kill her leg, by freezing it in dry ice for at least four hours (she tried twice before it succumbed to an infection), because surgeons cannot ethically amputate a healthy limb. (A 1998 News of the Weird story involved a de-licensed San Diego surgeon who illegally removed limbs of needy men.)

-- Unsavvy: In 2003, Bryn Mawr College student Janet Lee had apparently not watched enough movies or television to understand that drug smugglers often use condoms (swallowed by human "mules") to get cocaine and heroin into the country. Lee attempted to board an airliner with several flour-filled condoms that she said her classmates and she employed to squeeze as stress relievers and said she was astonished to be arrested at the Philadelphia airport and jailed for three weeks until the lab could verify that the substance was flour. In January 2007, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay her $180,000 to settle her lawsuit for her wrongful detention.

-- Britain's National Phobics Society said in November it would launch a campaign to help the estimated 4 million people in the U.K. who are fearful of using public restrooms. According to the NPS, in serious cases, sufferers intentionally avoid liquids and even deprive themselves of good jobs because the workplace restroom situation is unsatisfactory. "(I)t's certainly no laughing matter," said a spokesman.

-- Texas judge Keith Dean, recently defeated for re-election, decided as he was cleaning out his desk in December that he would order the release of a man that he controversially sentenced to life in prison in 1990. Tyrone Brown was 17 when he committed a $2 robbery, and Dean put him on probation but changed it to life in prison when Brown shortly afterward tested positive for marijuana. (The Dallas Morning News in a series of 2006 articles had reported that Dean had failed to additionally punish a murderer who had tested positive for cocaine several times after his release on probation.)

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Jennalee Ryan of San Antonio last year began selling choice human embryos, ready for prospective mothers to implant after having chosen from Ryan's catalog describing the contributors' education, attractiveness and medical history. "We're just trying to help people have babies," she told The Washington Post in January, and at less cost than full in-vitro procedures (since she has eliminated the risk of failed fertilizations). But, said a bioethicist, "It's like you're ordering a computer from Dell." (Ryan said she does not take custom orders.) Of her emphasis on well-educated, good-looking contributors of sperm and eggs, she said, "Who wants an ugly, stupid kid?"

-- We License Fishing, But We Can't License Parenting? (1) Shawn Mohan, 20, was arrested in January for shooting his infant son several times with a BB gun. Mohan said it was an accident, but the St. Charles County, Mo., sheriff pointed to similar bruises on the baby's face, left arm, hand, foot, hip and buttocks, and said Mohan was on probation for an earlier child-endangerment conviction. (2) Samaritans stopped on Interstate 465 in Indianapolis in December to help a wandering 3-year-old boy wearing only a diaper and T-shirt. Police tracked down his mother, Nancy Dyer, in her filthy apartment, where her 2-year-old daughter was eating spaghetti off the floor. Dyer's first reaction to news about her son: "Oh, he got out again."

-- For two months late last year after a pair of convicted murderers escaped from Sudbury prison in England, the local Derbyshire police refused to release their pictures. According to the police, "Photographs of named people that are in police possession are classed as data, and their release is restricted by law" to instances where there is a "proper policing purpose." Derbyshire authorities said that since the escapees had probably left the area, there was no such purpose, and the photographs should be kept confidential.

After Emmalee Bauer, 25, was fired by the Sheraton hotel company in late 2006, she sought unemployment compensation from the Iowa agency that offers benefits to employees terminated through no fault of their own. However, the judge noted that Bauer had written a 300-page journal, during office hours, chronicling her efforts to avoid work. Among her entries: "This typing thing seems to be doing the trick. It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important," and, "Once lunch is over, I will come right back to writing to piddle away the rest of the afternoon," and, "Accomplishment is overrated, anyway." (Her claim was denied.)

The school system in Hagerstown, Md., issued a written reprimand in December to the parents of a 5-year-old kindergarten boy who had pinched a classmate's buttocks, terming his behavior "sexual" harassment. Said his dad: "He knows nothing about sex. There's no way to explain (to him) what he's been written up for." Also in December, the principal of a preschool in Bellmead, Texas, issued an in-school suspension to a 4-year-old boy after he hugged his female teacher's aide with his face in her chest, which was termed "sexual contact and/or sexual harassment" (though following complaints, the offense was changed to "inappropriate physical behavior").

-- Daring young men use the danger of moving cars for attention, especially if there's a video camera rolling. An 18-year-old Topeka, Kan., man became the latest "Jackass"-imitating casualty when he bailed out of a car going 35 mph in October and suffered a serious head injury. Other video performers go "ghost riding the whip" (letting their cars coast in neutral while they climb onto the roof to dance), with at least two deaths reported. In the newest craze, Jonathas Mendonca, 22, was hospitalized in critical condition in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in January after "skiing" (holding onto the back of a car) on Interstate 95 at 65 mph.

-- In September, according to sheriff's officials in Buffalo, N.Y., Thomas Montgomery murdered a 22-year-old workplace colleague in a love triangle involving a West Virginia woman, except that two of the three triangle characters were nonexistent. Montgomery, age 47, was pretending to be a young Marine in online conversation with the woman, 45, who was pretending she was her 18-year-old daughter. The murder victim had also struck up an online conversation with the woman, apparently making Montgomery jealous, but the victim, ironically, was the only one in the triangle who wasn't someone else.

-- In January, a hospice in Britain run by Sister Frances Dominica approved the wish of a 22-year-old man (born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy), who wanted to lose his virginity before he died. The Douglas House hospice arranged for a prostitute to visit him at his family's home, and the man said afterward, "It was not emotionally fulfilling, but the lady was very pleasant."

The Washington Post, examining 135 cases of disability by "stress" among Washington, D.C., police officers, found only 16 that resulted from specific incidents, such as gunfire, with the rest due to "common workplace tensions" ("arguments with colleagues, shift changes, disciplinary actions" among them). According to an internal police memo, the department's generous disability benefit would be "unheard of in private industry and public service," and the department's rate of officers unable to work is, for example, several times higher than Baltimore's, according to the Post's October report.

(1) The allegedly drunk 23-year-old driver who caused a collision in Lynn, Mass., in December: Mr. Chansavong Y (whose name really is Y). (2) Convicted of attempted murder of his former girlfriend's current boyfriend in Cocoa, Fla., in December: Mr. Taj Mahal Owens. (3) The legislator seen erupting toward the speaker of Taiwan's parliament in January and throwing her shoes at him: Ms. Wang Shu-hui. (4) The man whose death in August left a vacancy on the Vidor, Texas, school board: Mr. Ivan Croak.

-- Easy Collars: (1) Nicholas Raber, 19, was arrested in Annapolis, Md., in December for punching a police officer and dashing up a flight of stairs after yelling, "You'll never catch me." The officers were aware that upstairs exits were locked and so waited patiently for Raber to come back down and be handcuffed. (2) Mitchell Sigman, 22, was arrested and charged with robbing the Village Pantry in Elkhart, Ind., in November, after the clerk-victim identified him as a regular customer and one who had recently filled out an application to work there.

-- Failures to Keep a Low Profile: (1) College student Cory Shapiro, 19, was arrested in January after he flagged down a police officer to complain that he had been overcharged for drinks at the Athens, Ga., bar Bourbon Street. (2) Sunday school teacher Edgar Selavka, 49, was arrested after he reported to police in Northampton, Mass., in January that someone had stolen his backpack from church; shortly afterward, police found the backpack in a nearby restroom, with its contents on the floor, including at least 11 child pornography photos.

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Michael Wayne Poe (Dayton, Tenn., October); Timothy Wayne Widman (Pittsburgh, Pa., September); John Wayne Peck (Beaverdam, Va., October). Murder warrants issued recently: Bradley Wayne Hamrick (Longview, Wash., September); Billy Wayne Hayes (Nashville, Tenn., December); Christopher Wayne Luttrell (Henderson, Ky., October). Ordered re-sentenced for a 2001 murder: Gary Wayne Kleypas (Topeka, Kan., December).

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)