About half the students who attend the Jewish primary school King David, in Birmingham, England, are Muslims, and in fact, their parents work hard to get them in because they so respect the school's ethos and its halal-like diet. All students learn Hebrew, recite Jewish prayers, and celebrate Israeli independence, but there is a Muslim prayer room, also, and Muslim teachers are hired for Ramadan. However, confided one parent, the school tries to keep a low profile so as not to inflame the religious rabble-rousers.

Robert "Drew" Stephenson, on trial in Fort Worth, Texas, in January for "torturing" an ex-girlfriend, acknowledged her severe burns but said it wasn't his fault. He said the two were having sex in a house that had no heat, and to warm himself, he ran the flames of a lantern up and down his arm. According to him, his girlfriend said she wanted to be warmed up with flames, too. (He was convicted, and in February, after four other women testified that he had beaten them, was sentenced to life in prison.)

-- In February, two anti-whaling activists (one from Australia, one from Los Angeles), intending to attack a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica with a bottle of acid and a smoke bomb, got lost in the fog in their small dinghy and were rescued with the help of several boats, including the whaler. However, as soon as the activists were safe, one thanked the Japanese crew but said, "I guess we're back on schedule, and we'll be pursuing you again." Shortly after that, the activists approached the whaler and tossed the acid onto the deck, injuring two crew members.

-- It is well-known that Saudi Arabia still prohibits women from driving cars (or riding in them unless accompanied by a male relative), but a December Associated Press dispatch from Riyadh reported on female automobile salespeople (who are successful in selling to females, who can own cars as long as someone else drives). Also, in January, a holding company owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal hired a female pilot for one of its jets. The woman, Capt. Hanadi Zakariya Hindi, flies with no restrictions but still requires a male relative to get her to and from the airport.

-- In January in Austin, Texas, a 45-minute delay occurred between when a nighttime 911 call was made to report a building on fire and the time firefighters arrived. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the delay could have been due to uncertainty about the seriousness of the "fire," in that the building in question, with smoke spewing from it, was Bert's Bar B-Q (which of course has smoke spewing from it frequently). This time, though, the building was destroyed.

-- William Davis filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the Murfreesboro, Tenn., police in December because, when they raided his home after complaints from neighbors, they seized and destroyed the 114 dead cats and one dead dog that Davis kept in freezers and which he said had "emotional value" for him. In addition, according to the petition filed in Chancery Court for Rutherford County (and uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com), the carcasses were potential business property, in that he was planning to start his own pet cemetery, and also one of the cats, he claimed, was destined for the Guinness Book of World Records because it had been so large at birth.

-- We're Smart, You're Not: A group of so-called "gifted" eighth-grade students filed a lawsuit in 2003 against the Beaubien School in Chicago because officials denied them their "right" to wear a "Gifties" T-shirt. The school, with similar numbers of "gifteds" and regular students (who, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, are referred to as "tards"), works to tamp down divisiveness and controversy between the two groups. However, said one giftie, "There's a certain point when you have to stick up for your rights," and not only was a lawsuit filed, but when it was tossed out by the first judge to hear it, the students appealed, and argument was heard in January at the U.S. Court of Appeals.

(1) Josie Medlock, 59, imprisoned two home improvement contract workers and two supervisors in her home in East Dene, England, in December and refused to let them out until they promised to finish her kitchen remodeling by Christmas. A local government mediator worked out a compromise, according to London's The Sun. (2) Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara, of Portugal, died in 2001 with a 13-year-old will leaving his entire estate (including two residences) to be divided among 70 people he had randomly selected from the Lisbon phone book, with explicit instructions that his relatives would get nothing. (According to a January 2007 Agence France-Presse dispatch, the outraged relatives are still challenging the will.)

-- (1) The Netherlands broadcaster SBS 6 was scheduled to launch a reality TV show in February, "Love at Second Sight," which has been described as a dating show for the "visibly disfigured." An SBS 6 spokesman said the show's goal is to fight prejudice (which is why the producers changed the name from its original, "Monster Love"). (2) Southern California filmmaker Dominic Scott Kay filed a creative-control lawsuit in January against the financial backer of his short film, "Saving Angelo," starring family friend Kevin Bacon, which he wanted to enter in independent festivals but was kept from by the financier. Dominic Scott Kay is 10 years old.

(1) George Dalmas III, 48, a 20-year, mid-level CIA employee, pleaded guilty in Fairfax, Va., in December to breaking into 10 homes and stealing many items of expensive jewelry, plus 1,074 pairs of women's underpants, all of which Dalmas carefully maintained, in that, said the prosecutor, he was most of all a pack rat. (2) In December, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals petitioned to have convicted Chicago-area bestialist Dwayne Page, 27, banned from further contact with animals (even though Page might already have moved on to a substitute fetish five months earlier, according to a probation officer, by browsing Web sites "relating to diapers for sexual arousal").

Joshlynn Leigh, 30, was arrested in December at a Pennsylvania state police barracks as she arrived for fingerprinting in preparation for being hired by the agency. Leigh was discovered to have driven to the barracks in a stolen car (the same one that was the subject of a warrant against her in Georgia for auto theft).

Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise made News of the Weird in 1997 and 2001 as he struggled to create an impervious grizzly bear-fighting suit, to mixed success. Over the last two years, he has invested $15,000 to create what he calls the "first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armor" to protect Canadian soldiers in combat. He told the Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator in January that he was ready to put the suit on and face high-powered rifle fire. In addition to the armor, the outfit contains a knife, a transponder, a recording device and emergency morphine.

Ms. Pan Alying, a schoolteacher in China's Shandong province, had her purse snatched in January (containing her mobile phone, bank cards and cash) and decided to try pleading with the thief by sending text messages to her stolen phone. According to Xinhua news agency, she patiently sent 21 sympathetic notes to the man, with no answer, but the day after the last one, she found a package at her door containing her purse and all its contents intact, with a note, "I'm sorry. ... I'll correct my ways and be an upright person."

(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.)

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.)