A new sports center in Mexico City will be devoted to the revival of ancient Aztec- and Mayan-created games that are rarely played in Mexico because they are dangerous, including a field-hockey-like competition played with a fireball. In another game, "pelota mixteca," players wearing metal-knuckled leather gloves punch a 2-pound, hard-rubber ball that could knock opponents unconscious. One thrill of the flaming-ball game, "pelota purepecha," is that some play it at night on unlighted fields. (In Mayan culture, according to a March USA Today dispatch, the world began with the gods challenging two humans to a ball game, and beating them, at which point the two die and are resurrected as the sun and moon.)

-- Felon-Candidates: (1) John White, now running for sheriff in Roundup, Mont., will be unable to carry a gun if he wins because of a long-ago bank robbery conviction. (2) Convicted felons might be running against each other if they win their primaries in May for county judge-executive in Hindman, Ky. Democrat Donnie Newsome and Republican Randy Thompson were both convicted of election fraud (though Thompson's case is still on appeal). (3) Cynthia Diaz was re-elected town clerk in Coventry, Vt., in March, though still facing 10 felony personal tax-filing counts. (The town clerk is the town's treasurer, delinquent-tax collector and trustee of public money.)

-- The U.S. Senate passed a bill in March to correct a misimpression Congress had in the 1990s when it instituted mandatory sentences for crack-cocaine possession that were about 100 times the sentences for powdered cocaine. Scientists long ago pointed out that the two substances are chemically the same, and the new provisions set crack-cocaine sentences at only about 18 times those for powder.

-- Tackling the Big Issues: (1) The Utah legislature passed a bill in March to, for the first time, legalize the personal collection of rainwater. "Harvesting" rain has been illegal, but now would be allowed, with a state permit, in special state-approved containers. (2) The Tennessee legislature is considering removing a longstanding ban on fish tanks in barbershops. Currently, no "animals, birds or fish" (except guide dogs) are permitted where hair is cut. Opponents said they don't mind aquariums but fear that trendy pedicures by nibbling fish (now in New York and Los Angeles salons) might come to Tennessee.

-- On Jan. 29, more than 200 Alabama state troopers were amassed at 4 a.m. for the purpose of raiding several illegal bingo parlors. The raids were eventually called off, but a University of Alabama professor estimated the staging cost to the budget-shriveled state at $130,000. Said a spokesman for Gov. Bob Riley, "No matter what it costs, the law must be enforced."

-- A December Seattle Times profile of Rachel Porcaro (a single mother with an $18,000-a-year hair-cutting job, raising two kids, living with her parents) centered on the IRS's year-long, full-blown audit of her, and subsequently of her parents, because she was flagged for earning too little money on which to raise a family in Seattle. Ultimately, Rachel and her parents prevailed on every issue except the Earned Income Tax Credit, in that Rachel's kids receive a little too much help from her parents for her to qualify.

Raj Patel's recent appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" was ostensibly based around his work on global poverty and food production, but followers of an 87-year-old Scottish mystic named Benjamin Creme received a different message that Patel was the long-awaited messiah that Creme had been promising would appear to unite humanity. Overwhelmed by the followers during a recent book-signing tour, according to a March profile in London's Guardian, Patel made public denials of any messianic role (which of course only confirmed the sect's certainty that he is the man) and engaged a few in conversation, but, he said, talking to them "made me really depressed, actually."

How much can a shoplifter stuff in his pants? A man seen on surveillance video at a Mobil on the Run convenience store in Bloomfield, Conn., in February fled after stuffing at least 17 cans of Red Bull energy drink down his pants. And in Cairns, Australia, a 51-year-old man was caught shoplifting in March, witnessed by security staff putting three limes and a package of beef tongue in his pants. When cornered, the man (like clowns exiting a clown car) pulled out an additional two onions, three trays of rump steaks and a packet of lamb forequarter chops.

(1) Schoolteacher Lucia Carico, who has been in good standing in Hawkins County, Tenn., schools since 1973, was fired in March over an incident in which she stabbed a 7th-grade student in the arm seven times with a pen (because, she said, he had been unruly, singing and passing gas). (2) Teacher Randolphe Forde was fired in January by the Clayton County, Ga., school board for an October incident in which he allegedly "put a hit" on an 11th-grade student (offering $50).

Sex for One: (1) In February, police in Upper Darby, Pa., said they had to delay processing accused molester Siri Pinnya, 36, because he would not stop masturbating. Said the police superintendent, "We only fingerprinted his left hand." (2) Martin Guerrero, 17, was eventually arrested in his W.T. White High School classroom in Dallas in December after the teacher noticed him staring off into space. When she approached his desk, he shouted, "Ay Mami," and continued masturbating. (3) Shanna Vonfeldt was fired from her job at KUSA Aviation in Beaumont, Texas, but claimed in a lawsuit filed in January that she left only because of boss Kyle Knupple's habit of masturbating in the office.

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Russell Wayne Upton Jr., Reno, Nev., March (charged at last in a 1995 murder); Kenneth Wayne Scott, Fort Worth, Texas, March; John Wayne Wilson, Bethel Springs, Tenn., March; Robert Wayne Hurst, Knoxville, Tenn., January; Bart Wayne Johnson, Pelham, Ala., December. Murder trial completed, awaiting delayed judgment: Steven Wayne Hillier, Canberra, Australia, April. Convicted of murder: Kevin Wayne Dunigan, Sacramento, Calif., November; Michael Wayne Wesley, Eugene, Ore., November. Appeal denied: Kelly Wayne Dozier, Houston, April (convicted of a 2006 murder).

(1) Itinerant contractor Billie Bobbie Harrison, 24, was charged in Spartanburg, S.C., with indecent exposure in February, after he approached a homeowner, lowered his pants, and offered to pave her driveway later if she would have sex with him. (2) Hemingway, S.C., police, responding in March to shots fired at the BT Express gas station, apprehended James Scott after he and Jackie Dollard had finished cleaning a chicken. Witnesses said Scott and Dollard fought over who got to keep the chicken.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" TV audience in June (1998) that the city of Orlando, Fla., was taking a big risk to sponsor the recent "Gay Days" festival. "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes," he said, "and I don't think I'd be waving those (Gay Days logo) flags in God's face if I were you." Homosexuality, he said, "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor." (In fact, 1998's first hurricane, Bonnie, made landfall two months later in North Carolina, near the Virginia Beach, Va., headquarters of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.)

Lax on Perverts: In February, the Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners relicensed Scott Fredin even though he is still registered as a sex offender following a 2003 conviction for fondling two female patients during "examinations." Released from jail in 2006, he had re-applied to the board, which then found him "rehabilitated." He agreed to several restrictions on his office practice, but the board declined to order him to disclose his crime to patients. (And in March, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners finally expelled Dr. David Livingston, whom it had licensed in 1992 despite knowledge of his sex-crime-related expulsions in two states and his being labeled a "violent sex offender" by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.)

-- Ralph Conone, 68, was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, in March after witnesses identified him as the man who several times had walked up behind young children, punched them on the head when their parents weren't looking, and walked away as if nothing had happened. According to police, Conone confessed that he had been punching children in public since January because he liked the "excitement" of getting away with something.

-- Police who were called to a home in Charleroi, Pa., in February arrested Linda Newstrom, 49, for allegedly swinging a baseball bat (reportedly, a genuine Louisville Slugger) at her 21-year-old son, Jeffrey, because he had come home drunk. (She whiffed on the first two swings but connected on the third.) Newstrom told police, "I brought him into this world, and I'll take him out of this world."

-- Roberta Feinsmith, 67, who had been fired by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, filed a wrongful-discharge lawsuit in February, claiming that, despite glowing job reviews for 12 years, she was terminated because of her age and because she complained to other workers about her recently hired supervisor's "constant barrages of ... flatulence."

-- In February, a one-armed man swiped a single cufflink from the CJ Vinten shop in Leigh-on-Sea, England, and in March, a one-legged man swiped a single Nike trainer shoe from a store in Barnsley, England. The one-armed man is still loose, but the one-legged man was arrested.

-- A popular TV chef in Italy was fired in February after musing on the air about the historical popularity of gourmet cat meat. According to Beppe Bigazzi, 77, cat stew is best cooked after leaving the meat under running water for three days to tenderize it. "I've eaten it," he said, "many times." Bigazzi later explained that he was referring only to a tradition in Tuscany in the 1930s and 1940s and never intended to encourage eating cats today, but apparently his bosses could not endure the public outcry.

-- Unintelligent Design: (1) China's Yangcheng Evening News reported in March that a 6-year-old boy in Ha'erbin City, with 15 fingers and 16 toes, had surgery to get down to 10 and 10. (2) In March, Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou Village in China's Henan province, was reported to have a "rough patch" of skin on her forehead that had recently grown to a length of 2 1/2 inches in the shape of a horn. (However, dermatologists in the U.S. point out that the condition is not all that rare.) (3) In February, the parents of Deepak Kumar, 7, of Belhari in India's Bihar state, sought financial help for surgery to remove the parasitic twin joined at the hip with the now-eight-limbed boy. (His father told an Agence France-Presse reporter that he rejected suggestions that Deepak remain as is so that villagers could worship him as a deity.)

-- Supervisors at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle, England, issued a directive in March to short-handed staff on how to ease their telephone workload during the busy midday period. Workers were told to pick up the ringing phone, recite a message as if an answering machine ("Due to the high volume of inquiries we are currently experiencing, we are unable to take your call. Please call back later.") and immediately hang up.

-- The city health office in London, Ontario, created an online sex-education game that officials hope will appeal to teenagers in that its messages are delivered by a cast of iconic superheroes. According to a February report by Canwest News Service, the players are Captain Condom (who wears a "cap"), Wonder Vag (a virgin girl), Power Pap ("sexually active") and Willy the Kid, with each fighting the villain Sperminator, who wears a red wrestling mask and has phalluses for arms. The characters answer sex knowledge questions and, with correct answers, obtain "protection," but a wrong one gets the player squirted with sperm. At press time, the game was still accessible at www.GetItOnLondon.com/.

-- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals almost never encounters an "improper" conviction, but managed to ease up in February by taking the death penalty off the table for double-murderer Charles Hood, who had been sentenced to die by a jury in Plano in 1990. Hood had learned in subsequent years that his prosecutor and his judge had had a sexual relationship during his trial, but both denied it, and courts refused to investigate. Finally, by 2008, both had confessed to the affair, but the Court of Criminal Appeals still declined to call the trial unfair. In March 2010, several days after a New York Times report on the case, the court found a technical, face-saving ground on which to lessen Hood's sentence (while still ignoring the issue of the affair).

-- Despite Texas' severe pro-conviction history, one man actually received a full pardon in February. Tim Cole had been convicted of rape in 1986, though relentlessly proclaiming his innocence, and a 1996 confession to the crime by another man did not move officials to re-investigate. When a DNA result (ordered in 2008) confirmed the 1996 confession, Cole's innocence could no longer be ignored. In March 2010, Gov. Rick Perry issued a full pardon, but Cole could not enjoy it. He had died in prison in 1999 after wrongfully serving 13 years, the last three despite the fact that the actual rapist had already tried to turn himself in.

Not Much of a Challenge for Cops: (1) William Edmunds, 32, was charged with DUI in March when his car weaved up to the guard gate at the loading dock for the Montgomery County, N.Y., jail, and he asked if this was the Canadian border crossing at Niagara Falls (more than 250 miles away). (2) Travis Neeley, 19, was arrested in Lake City, Fla., in March for burglarizing a car, caught red-handed by the owner, who used the remote control to lock Neeley inside. Neeley tried several times to unlock a door and exit, but each time, the owner relocked it before Neeley could get out, and he finally gave up and waited for police.

In 1990, News of the Weird reported on a "cargo cult" on Tanna, one of South Sea islands comprising the republic of Vanuatu. "Cargo" comes from the cults' belief that the food and supplies that Americans brought to World War II military staging areas arrived by divine guidance, and they continued to worship the empty cargo containers long after the war was over, hoping their prayers would restock them. In May 2004, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, violence broke out on Tanna when breakaway Christians, calling the cargo business nonsense, fought with supporters of "John Frum," the iconic American who symbolizes continued worship of cargo lockers. About 25 people were hospitalized, and police had to be dispatched from Vanuatu's capital of Vila.

-- More Texas Justice: In March, juries in Smith County and Matagorda County sentenced Henry Wooten and Melvin Johnson III to 35 years and 60 years in prison, respectively, for possessing small amounts of drugs (but enough under Texas law to allow jurors to infer an intent to distribute). Wooten, 54, had 4.6 ounces of marijuana (same penalty as for 5 pounds), and Johnson had 1.3 grams of crack cocaine (about half the weight of a U.S. dime). (Wooten's prosecutor actually had asked the jury for a sentence of 99 years.)

-- In February, the undergraduate dean's office at Yale University disclosed that it was formally soliciting anonymous, first-person reports of student sexual experiences to publish on a school Web site, as "strategies for creatively navigating Yale's sexual culture," according to an advisor. "There is a real need for students to have space to think about what happens to them and what they want to have happen," she said. "Sex@Yale" would contain "70 to 80" specific perspectives, she said, but critics suggested the anthology might grow to resemble Penthouse magazine's often-ridiculed "Forum" section of lascivious fantasies.

-- It's Good to Be a British Welfare Mother: Under the government's Local Housing Authority, Essma Marjam, age 34, unemployed and the mother of six, is entitled to rental assistance for a five-bedroom home, and the only suitable one she could find is in an exclusive London suburb in which her neighbor is Sir Paul McCartney. Luckily, the generous allowance (equivalent of more than $9,000 a month) covers the rent on the nearly $3 million (U.S. equivalent) mansion. (Additionally, according to the Daily Mail, Marjam's non-housing government benefits total the equivalent of about $22,000 a year.)

-- Alan Rosenfeld, 64, a New York City lawyer and real estate entrepreneur, is also a full-time schoolteacher, although he has been prohibited from teaching since 2002 because of accusations of leering at female students. He is thus a "rubber room" teacher whose union contract requires full salary and benefits even though the Schools Chancellor has barred him from the classroom as a "danger" to students. The Department of Education pays him $100,000 a year plus health care (plus retirement benefits worth at least $82,000 a year). The New York Post reported that Rosenfeld reports to "the room" each day but works exclusively on his business affairs.

-- In January, Aretha Brown, 66, who has lived in the same house in Callahan, Fla., (pop. 962) for 30 years, suddenly became unable to leave her yard unless she crawled between CSX railroad cars blocking her access to the road. Tracks had always been in place, but the railway only began storing train cars on them this year. CSX told The Florida Times-Union that it would soon build Brown an access road to the street.

-- The entertainment manager at Thorpe Park in Surrey, England, announced in February a contest seeking foul-smelling urine. The park has introduced a live action horror maze based on scenes from the "Saw" movie series and decided that it was missing a "signature stench" to "really push the boundaries" of disgustingness. Manager Laura Sinclair suggested that submissions' pungency would be enhanced after consumption of such foods as garlic and asparagus and offered a prize of the equivalent of about $750 for the winning urine.

-- The Times of London reported in February that at least six local government councils have been so avid about enforcing street-parking rules that they have issued tickets to vehicles registered to their own governments. In at least two recent incidents (involving Islington and Kingston), the councils pursued collection all the way to traffic court (though only in the latter case did the adjudicator actually require the council to hand over a fine to itself).

-- Seventh-grader Rachael Greer was suspended from River Valley Middle School in Jefferson, Ind., in February, even though she apparently did exactly what her parents and the school want kids to do ("just say 'no'" to drugs). When a classmate handed her a prescription pill in gym class, she immediately handed it right back. Nonetheless, an assistant principal, after investigating the incident, suspended her for five days because she had touched the pill. (He expressed regret but said it is school policy.)

-- A recent epiphany caused millionaire Austrian businessman Karl Rabeder, 47, to be depressed about his wealth, and by February, he was in the process of giving away an estate worth the equivalent of about $5 million. Two luxury properties are for sale, with proceeds going to charities he established in Central and South America, and he plans to move into a small hut in Innsbruck. "Money is counterproductive," he told a reporter. "I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish or need." (According to London's Daily Telegraph, Rabeder's wife was with him at the time of the epiphany, but the story curiously is silent about her view of his decision.)

-- Embarrassing: (1) In March, on duty on opening day of the jail at the new Adair County judicial center in Columbia, Ky., sheriff's deputy Charles Wright accidentally locked himself in a cell and was fired after he tried to shoot open the lock. (2) A Collier County, Fla., sheriff's deputy suffered a broken ankle when he and a colleague accidentally locked wheels while patrolling in Naples on their Segways.

-- It wasn't pretty, but sheriff's deputies in Montcalm County, Mich., got their man on March 3. Mark McCuaig, in court on an earlier charge, became unruly and escaped from two different sets of officers (despite a Tasering). Another court officer tried to stop him outside, but McCuaig got loose (despite being maced). He locked himself inside a van, but officers surrounded it, broke a window, and Tasered him again, yet couldn't stop McCuaig from driving off. After a high-speed chase, state troopers disabled his tires with "stop sticks" but couldn't apprehend him before he reached his home, where he barricaded himself. Officers surrounded the house, and four of them (plus a police dog) entered, but McCuaig escaped and got into another vehicle. Finally, after another chase, he was forced off the road, Tasered a third time, and subdued.

-- Robert "Prince Mongo" Hodges had been disturbing people, and sometimes running for office, for 10 years before he came to News of the Weird's attention in September 1992 by attracting nearly 3,000 votes in a campaign for mayor of Memphis. Since then, the perpetual performance artist (always "333" years old, always from the planet "Zambodia") has been annoying his neighbors in Memphis, and in Fort Lauderdale and Volusia County, Fla., usually as revenge for their complaints about his quixotic property maintenance. Last year, he built a deck on his Volusia home, without a permit, and neighbors complained, thus provoking Hodges recently to dump a mountain of sand in his front yard and to install clotheslines covered with women's panties. Currently, he faces various county code violations.

-- Once oddities but now increasingly common are reports of prisoners storing larger and larger inventories of valuables in their rectums. However, one accounting from a jail in Amarillo, Texas, might still be a record. A man was arrested in November 2000 with $12,300 inside (eighty $100 bills, two $50s, and money orders worth $4,200). The cash record before that was believed to be a Florida State Prison inmate who had only $2,000 (although he also had room for six handcuff keys and an assortment of razor and hacksaw blades in a pouch).