A woman offering child-care services in Melbourne, Fla., was dismayed to learn in August that a scam pulled on her by a diaper-wearing man in his 40s was not illegal. A man called her, on behalf of his disabled adult "brother," who has a mental age of 5 and poor bladder control, and she began assisting him in her home during the day for $600 a week. She was later outraged to learn that the "brother" was really the caller and was actually normal (except for his perversion). However, as Brevard County Sheriff's officials told Florida Today, since the woman consented to changing diapers and was fully paid for her services, they were unable to charge the man with a crime.

-- At press time, Rhode Island legislators were scrambling to fix an oversight in state law that came to light only earlier this year. While the state treats 16 as the age of sexual consent and the age at which most child labor laws no longer apply, the under-18 sex-worker law bans only "prostitution" and "lewd" activities, leaving girls age 16 and 17 free to work as strippers. (Nudity, by itself, is not "lewd" under constitutional law.) Other Rhode Island laws bar under-18s from, for example, serving drinks, working with power tools or buying pornography. (The city of Providence is also now trying to fix its own ordinance in which prostitution appears to be illegal only for streetwalkers, thus legalizing the trade for those working indoors.)

-- The August issue of Gourmet magazine highlighted the apparently high quality of sushi prepared and sold at a BP gas station near the intersection of Ridgeway and Poplar in Memphis, Tenn. A sushi chef works on-site and reportedly sells 300 orders a day.

-- Uganda's independent national newspaper, The Daily Monitor, reported in May the arrest of hunter Nathan Awoloi, who was accused of forcing his wife to breastfeed his five puppies after their mothers, who were essential to his occupation, were killed. When Awoloi was released on bond, Caroline Odoi, Ugandan coordinator for the ActionAid International anti-poverty agency, led protests demanding his re-arrest because of evidence that one of Mrs. Awoloi's own babies, who was nursing at the same time as the puppies, died of symptoms that resembled rabies. Police said the investigation was continuing.

-- Admitted gang member Alex Fowler, 26, of Jasper, Texas, was arrested in July and charged with an attempted home-invasion robbery that went bad. Tough-guy Fowler, who has the words "Crip for Life" tattooed on his neck, was chased from the house by the 87-year-old female "victim" pointing a can of Raid insect repellant at him, threatening to spray.

-- Hong Kong's largest political party, the Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress, said it was only trying to alert vulnerable women in August when it publicized a list of shopping mall locations in which females ascending stairs or escalators are particularly susceptible to having "upskirt" photographs taken surreptitiously by cell phone cameras. A spokesman said that perverts probably already knew about the locations.

-- In April 2008, Jeanette Jamieson of Toccoa, Ga., finally paid off her state income tax lien (covering 1998 through 2005) of $45,000, but a year later was indicted for failing to file state tax returns for 2006 and 2007, when her income was at least $188,000. In Jamieson's day job, she runs a tax preparation service. Also, for the past 24 years, until defeated in 2008, she was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.

-- According to the Detroit Free Press, City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson is a fierce advocate for getting more money to the impoverished city from state and federal grants, but was herself shorting the city treasury. Municipal records revealed that somehow she managed to be billed only $68 a year in property tax for a well-kept home in a neighborhood where her neighbors' property tax ranges from $2,000 to $6,500 annually. She told the newspaper she never realized she was paying too little and assumed the low amount was because of "tornado damage," even though Detroit's last tornado was in 1997.

(1) Cussing Is Good for You: A study by psychology researchers at Britain's Keele University in July showed that people who swear in response to a danger are better able to endure pain than those who use milder language. (2) Urinate in the Shower to Save the Forests: The Brazilian environmental group SOS Mata Atlantica this summer began encouraging people to urinate in the shower to save the Atlantic Rainforest (one avoided flush per day saving 1,100 gallons of water a year).

Theresa Winters, 36, who lives in Luton, England, with her unemployed boyfriend, Toney Housden, is pregnant (and chain-smoking) with her 14th child (his 12th) and remains totally dependent on public assistance, which officials estimate has totaled "millions" of pounds. Social workers recently removed the kids still living with her (five were born with disabilities), and Winters defiantly told The Sun in July that, if they also take away her 14th in November, she and Housden will just keep making more until she gets one to keep. Housden said he would "love" to go to work, but only for "the right reasons" (specifically, not, he said, to earn money for family counseling because that is the government's responsibility).

The most recent examples of men who decided to steal money only after they had already identified themselves: (1) Jarell Arnold, 34, in line at the Alaska USA Federal Credit Union in Anchorage in August, showed his ID in order to check his balance, took the account slip from the teller, wrote his holdup note on it, gave it back and escaped with $600 (but only briefly). (2) A long-time customer of Penny Lane Records in Sydenham, New Zealand, picked out a CD in August, asked the clerk to reserve it, and even wrote his name and address on it to make sure they held it. Moments later, he saw an opportunity, grabbed cash from the cash drawer and fled (but only briefly).

At press time, Hong Kong's High Court was still pondering the final recipient of the estate of the woman once thought to be Asia's richest, Nina Wang, who died in 2007 and left several billion dollars either to charity (a 2002 will, written in Chinese) or to Tony Chan, her personal feng-shui master (a 2006 will, written in English legalisms). Chan was her spiritual teacher and companion and assisted her in "contacting" her beloved late husband, and after she died, Chan also claimed that the two were lovers. Chan had reportedly convinced Wang to burn cash for good luck and to hide jewels in feng-shui holes dug around Hong Kong. The will Chan produced was termed a likely forgery, according to testimony by Chan's own handwriting expert.

Adventures With Lubricants: In January 2004, a National Park Service ranger arrested Marvin Buchanon for drug possession along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. Buchanon had been discovered sitting in a truck one evening, naked, covered with baby oil and with women's underwear at his feet. And four months later, Roger Chamberlain, 44, was arrested in Binghamton, N.Y., after having allegedly smeared 14 containers' worth of petroleum jelly on nearly every inch of the walls and furniture of a Motel 6 room (and who was found shortly afterward at another motel, his own body covered with the substance).

Lonely Japanese men (and a few women) with rich imaginations have created a thriving subculture ("otaku") in which they have all-consuming relationships with figurines that are based on popular anime characters. "The less extreme," reported a New York Times writer in July, obsessively collect the dolls. The hardcore otaku "actually believes that a lumpy pillow with a drawing of a (teenage character) is his girlfriend," and takes her out in public on romantic dates. "She has really changed my life," said "Nisan," 37, referring to his gal, Nemutan. (The otaku dolls are not to be confused with the life-size, anatomically-correct dolls that other lonely men use for sex.) One forlorn "2-D" (so named for preferring relationships with two-dimensionals) said he would like to marry a real, 3-D woman, "(b)ut look at me. How can someone who carries this (doll) around get married?"

-- Thousands of Koreans, and some tourists, uninhibitedly joined in the messy events of July's Byryeong City Mud Festival, which glorifies the joys of an activity usually limited to pigs. Mud wrestling, mud-sliding, a "mud prison" and colored mud baths dominated the week's activities, but so unfortunately did dermatological maladies, which hospitalized 200 celebrants.

-- National Specialties: (1) In May, Singapore's Olympic Council, finding no athlete good enough, declined to name a national Sportsman of the Year. (2) A survey of industrialized nations by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development revealed that Japanese and Koreans sleep the least, while the French spend the most time at both sleeping and eating. (3) A Tokyo rail passenger company, Keihin, installed a face-scanning machine recently so that employees, upon reporting for work, can tell whether they are smiling broadly enough to present a good impression.

-- The director of a child advocacy group told The Associated Press in June that, since 1975, at least 274 children have died following the withholding of medical treatment based on religious doctrine. In one high-profile case this year, the father of a girl said turning her over to doctors would violate God's word (she died), but in another, a Minnesota family that had trusted their son's cancer to prayer, based on advice from something called the Nemenhah Band, changed course and allowed chemotherapy, which so far appears to have prolonged the boy's life.

-- The Shinto temple Kanda Shrine, near Tokyo's version of Silicon Valley, does a brisk business blessing electronic gadgets, according to a July dispatch in Wired magazine. Lucky charms go for the equivalent of about $8.50, but for a personal session, the temple expects an offering of the equivalent of at least $50. The Wired writer, carrying a potentially balky cell phone, approached the shrine with a tree branch as instructed, turned it 180 degrees clockwise, and laid it on the altar. After bowing twice and clapping his hands twice, he left, looking forward to a glitch-free phone.

-- They Took It Too Far: (1) Maryland corrections officials, hoping to improve juvenile rehabilitation by a kinder, gentler approach to incarceration, opened its New Beginnings Youth Center in May. The lockdown facility had declined to use razor wire, instead merely landscaping its chain-link fences with thorny rose bushes. After one inmate easily escaped on the second day of operation, razor wire was installed. (2) Bride Lin Rong wed in August in China's eastern Jilin province, walking down the aisle in a dress that was more than 7,000 feet (1.3 miles) long (rolled up in a wagon behind her).

-- Britain's National Health Service of Sheffield issued a "guidance" to schools this summer to encourage teaching students alternatives to premarital sex, including masturbation. According to the Daily Telegraph, the leaflet (titled "Pleasure") contains the slogan "(A)n orgasm a day keeps the doctor away" and likens the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, and exercising, to the benefits of masturbating twice a week.

-- Latest Questionable Grants: (1) Welsh artist Sue Williams was awarded the equivalent of about $33,000 in June, from the Arts Council of Wales, to explore cultural attitudes toward women's buttocks, especially "racial fetishism" in African and European culture. Williams said she will create a series of plaster casts of buttocks to work with, beginning with her own. (2) In July, the National Institutes of Health awarded $3 million to the University of Illinois Chicago to identify the things that cause lesbians to drink alcohol. It will be very important, said research director Tonda Hughes, to compare why lesbians drink with why heterosexual women drink. (This is a different NIH grant from the ones reported in News of the Weird in June, to study why gay men in Argentina drink and why prostitutes in China drink.)

-- (1) Chicago police arrested motorist Daniel Phelan, 27, in August and charged him in connection with a three-week spree of drive-by rock-throwing at other cars. Officers discounted ordinary road rage as a cause, in that Phelan appeared to have been driving around during that time with an arsenal of rocks in the passenger seat. (2) A 22-year-old man was arrested in Kitsap, Wash., in August after tossing a barrage of rocks at people, leading some to chase him until police intervened. The man explained that he is preparing to enter Ultimate Fighting Championship contests but had never actually been in a fight and wanted experience at getting beaten up.

-- (1) The Supreme Court of Spain tossed out assault charges against Henry Osagiede in August because of unfairness by Madrid police. Osagiede, a black man, was convicted after the victim identified him as her attacker, in a lineup in which he was the only black man. (2) Six Ormond Beach, Fla., motorcycle officers, detailed to chaperone the body of prominent Harley-Davidson dealer Bruce Rossmeyer from the funeral home to the cemetery, accidentally collided with each other en route, sending all six riders and their bikes sprawling.

-- (1) "Spitting Contests": A man was almost killed in Rodgau, Germany, in July when, attempting to show friends he could spit a cherry pit the farthest off of a balcony, made a running start but accidentally toppled over the railing. He was hospitalized with hip injuries. (2) "Assistance Monkeys": Evidence of the dexterity and usefulness of monkeys (for fetching objects for disabled people) came from the Plants & Planters store in Richardson, Texas, in July. The store owner, seeking to combat recent burglaries, installed a surveillance camera, which revealed a monkey scaling the fence, scooping up plants, flowers and accessories, and handing them to an accomplice waiting on the other side.

-- (1) Two 22-year-old men were accidentally killed in Mattoon, Ill., in May during an outing in which an open-top double-decker bus was used to transport guests. Several people were standing in the top tier, but investigators said only the two tallest men were accidentally hit when the bus passed under Interstate 57. (2) A 23-year-old man drowned in Corpus Christi, Texas, in February, when he sought to back up his claim in front of "friends" that he could hold his breath underwater for a long period of time.

In early 2003, several news organizations profiled 70-year-old Charlotte Chambers, who was a reserve defensive back for the Orlando Starz of the Independent Women's (tackle) Football League. Said the Starz chief executive, "Last year, I thought I should tell the other teams to go easy and not hit her too hard. But now I'm afraid she's going to hurt somebody." Said the 5-foot-4, 140-pound Chambers, "I say, 'You better hit me (first), because I'm laying you out.'"

Donald Duck may be a lovable icon of comic mishap to American youngsters, but in Germany, he is wise and complicated and retains followers well past their childhoods. Using licensed Disney storyline and art, the legendary translator Erika Fuchs created an erudite Donald, who often "quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences, and is prone to philosophical musings," according to a May Wall Street Journal dispatch. Though Donald and Uncle Scrooge ("Dagoberto") speak in a lofty richness, nephews Tick, Trick and Track use the slang of youth. Recently in Stuttgart, academics gathered for the 32nd annual convention of the "German Organization for Non-Commercial Followers of Pure Donaldism," with presentations on such topics as Duckburg's solar system.

-- The preferred "disciplinary" tactic of Tampa, Fla., high school assistant principal Olayinka Alege, 28, is to have underperforming students remove a shoe so he can "pop" their toes. Five students at King High School complained, triggering a sheriff's office investigation, but Alege was cleared, and indeed, the students admit that the popping is painless (though "weird," said some). One apparently incorrigible student said his toes had been popped 20 times. However, the principal recently ordered Alege to stop.

-- Chicago banker George Michael, seeking to avoid $80,000 a year in property taxes, decided to call his $3 million mansion a "church" and apply for tax exemption as pastor, and in July 2008, his application was somehow preliminarily approved by the Illinois Department of Revenue. According to a Chicago Tribune report, the application included a photograph of the "church," which was just a shot of an outer wall of Michael's house with a large cross on it, except that the cross was later discovered to have been merely placed on the photograph in marker pen. In July 2009, a state administrative law judge finally reversed the earlier approval.

-- The Economy Is Working: (1) Carole Bohanan was hired among 300 applicants by the Wookey Hole tourist facility in Somerset, England, in July to be its witch-in-residence, at a pro-rated annual salary of the equivalent of about $83,000. The witch's job is to linger in the caves full-time during tourist season, looking like a hag and cackling. (2) Officials in Heath, Ohio, might have solved their budget problems. The town (population 8,500) reported in July that its new, six-intersection traffic-camera ticketing system issued 10,000 citations in its first four weeks. (Nonetheless, officials admitted that was too many and were discussing how to ease up.)

-- The Economy Is Failing: (1) A 36-year-old woman pleaded guilty to prostitution in Oklahoma City in June, for giving oral sex to a Frito-Lay employee in exchange for a case of chips. (2) In an interview with the Toronto Star in June, a 36-year-old drag queen, who said he usually gets $60 for oral sex, was lately receiving offers as low as $5. Said "Ray": "I didn't spend two hours getting my makeup on and all dressed up for ($5)."

-- "Goose barnacles": A 6-foot-long log composed of hundreds of barnacles, locked together, washed ashore near Swansea, Wales, in August. Each of the barnacles uses tentacles for snatching food, and a 6-foot mass of snake-like appendages, writhing simultaneously, terrified local beachgoers. Scientists said goose barnacles usually remain on the ocean floor.

-- "Tubifex worms": Using a flexible-hose camera, public utility officials in Raleigh, N.C., inspected a faulty water pipe under the Cameron Village shopping district in April and found a pulsating, tennis-ball-size mass attached to a pipe wall. Local biologists identified it as a colony of tubifex worms that navigated the system until finding a propitious feeding spot. Officials have attempted to assure residents that the worms are somehow no threat to water quality.

(1) In April, researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City reported the ability to encase scorpion venom in "nanoparticles" that were somehow able to guide the venom intravenously to the human brain, to attack tumors, potentially doubling the venom's success rate. (2) A team from Britain's University of Warwick announced in April that it had built a speedy, fully functioning Formula 3 race car using biodegradable ingredients in the frame (including carrots, potatoes and soybean foam) and chocolate oils in the fuel.

(1) A 114-pound tortoise, part of the Zambini Family Circus performing in Madison, Wis., in July, escaped. He actually made good time on his dash for freedom, covering two miles in six days before being spotted. (2) About 20 men were present for a Belgian body builders' championship in May when three anti-doping officials arrived unexpectedly and requested urine samples. Every single contestant abruptly grabbed his gear and fled, according to press reports, and the event was canceled.

According to prosecutors in Britain's Preston Crown Court in July, Christopher Monks, 24, wanted two things (based on transcribed Internet chat room dialogue): his parents killed and his penis bitten off. As the Internet is fertile ground for communities of sexual aberrants, Monks easily found a man, Shaun Skarnes, 19, who was searching to accommodate someone on the latter desire and who allegedly agreed to kill Monks' parents in exchange. However, Skarnes botched the killings, and Monks, himself, is still intact.

No Respect: (1) The latest community to challenge the taboo about disturbing a graveyard is Peoria, Ill., where the Lincoln Branch Library is planning an expansion, though on land that was a 19th-century burial ground. By law, all bodies must be preserved, but each exploratory dig turns up more bodies, driving up costs to the city. (2) Neighborhoods near the Wimbledon tennis tournament in suburban London are typically clogged in June, as visitors scramble for parking space. This year, nearby St. Mary's Church sold parking for 20 pounds a day (about $33), even though the space offered was directly above gravesites in the church's cemetery.

Latest Playdates: Las Vegas, August (Jesus on a sticker on woman's toilet lid); Bryan, Texas, July (Mary on a bird dropping on the side mirror of a pickup truck); Ravena, N.Y., June (Jesus in a coffee stain on a mason jar); Dallas, May (Jesus-shaped piece in a bag of Cheetos); Harlingen, Texas, May (Mary's image on a dry-cleaning company's press); Calexico, Calif., April (Mary on the griddle of the Las Palmas restaurant); New Gloucester, Maine (Jesus on the neck of a guitar); Sudbury, Ontario, April (Jesus on a maple leaf being raked); Netherlands, April (Jesus on a Kit Kat bar). (Only the news report of the Bryan, Texas, sighting indicated that pilgrims were actually visiting the site to pray.)

Among the exhibits at the Impulse to Collect show at San Jose State University in February 1998 were Chris Daubert's "Chromatic extrusions rodenta" (rats' droppings following their ingestion of various of his oil paints), Maryly Snow's collection of 696 toothbrushes (each catalogued on 13 attributes), and Bob Rasmussen's variety of unrelated items containing red X's. Among the exhibits rejected were a man's huge mass of dryer lint, another's assortment of cat snot on slides, and yet another's 15-year collection of umbilical cords. Said organizer Theta Belcher, on what makes a real collector: "They take it that one step too far."