Surreal Estate: Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani's 27-story private residence (37,000 square feet, 600 employees serving a family of five), reported to cost about $1 billion. According to an October New York Times dispatch, there are "terraces upon terraces," "four-story hanging gardens," "airborne swimming pools," and a room where "artificial weather" can be created. Ambani and his brother inherited their father's textile-exporting juggernaut but notoriously spend much of their time in intra-family feuding. A local domestic worker told the Times (after noting that both she and Ambani are "human being(s)") that she has difficulty understanding why the Ambanis have so much while she struggles on the equivalent of $90 a month.

-- Stacey Herald, 36, of Dry Ridge, Ky., is 28 inches tall, with a rare condition called Osteogenisis Imperfecta, which causes brittle bones and underdeveloped organs -- provoking doctors' warnings that childbirth could cause the fetus to crush Stacey's lungs and heart (and produce a baby susceptible for life to broken legs and arms). However, to the delight of husband Wil, 27 (and 69 inches tall), Stacey recently gave birth to baby No. 3 and promised more. The middle child, 2, without OI, is already a foot taller than Stacey, but the other two are afflicted, with the recent one (according to a July ABC News report) 5 inches long at birth, weighing 2 pounds, 10 ounces.

-- Prolific: (1) In October, police arrested a man arriving at the Madras, India, airport from Sri Lanka, bringing precious stones into the country in his stomach. After employing laxatives, police recovered 2,080 diamonds. (2) William Wright, 54, was arrested in St. Petersburg, Fla., in October and charged with using a hidden camera in a ladies' room to photograph a young girl. Charges are still pending from 2009 when police said Wright had taken "upskirt" photos of more than 2,300 women.

-- Safari World, the well-known and controversial zoo on the outskirts of Bangkok, has previously stupefied the world (and News of the Weird readers) by training orangutans to play basketball, ride motorbikes and kickbox (while outfitted in martial-arts trunks). In a photo essay in November, London's Daily Mail showcased the park's most recent success -- training elephants to tightrope-walk (where they prance on a reinforced cable for 15 meters and then, displaying astonishing balance, turn around on the wire).

(1) Ms. Rajini Narayan's lawyer told the court in Adelaide, Australia, in September that she killed her husband by accident after intending only to torch his penis for alleged infidelities. The lawyer said she might have lost control of the gasoline she was holding when her husband said, "No, you won't (burn me), you fat dumb bitch." (2) In May, when a fox terrier answered a call of nature in the yard of notoriously lawn-fastidious Charles Clements, 69, in Chicago, Clements confronted the dog's 23-year-old owner. That led to mutual bravado, which continued even after Clements pulled a gun. The dog-walker was killed immediately after shouting (according to witnesses), "Next time you pull out a pistol, why don't you use it."

-- Convicted sex offender David Parkhurst, 27, was arrested in October in Palm Bay, Fla., and charged with sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl. According to police, when they asked her about any "physical characteristics" of Parkhurst's body so that they could substantiate her story, she said only that he had a "Superman-shaped shield" implant on his genitals (which was later verified).

-- More than 4,450 activities are federal crimes, and 300,000 federal regulations carry potential criminal penalties, according to an October feature by McClatchy Newspapers, and to illustrate its point that Congress has gone overboard in creating "crimes," McClatchy pointed to a Miami seafood importer. Abner Schoenwetter, 64, just finished a six-year stretch in prison for the crime of contracting to purchase lobster tails from a Honduran seller whom federal authorities learned was violating lobster-harvest regulations.

-- DNA evidence has exonerated 261 convicted criminals (including 17 on death row), but more interesting, according to professor Brandon Garrett of the University of Virginia Law School, more than 40 such exonerations have been of criminals who falsely confessed to "their" crimes. "I beat myself up a lot," Eddie Lowery told The New York Times in September. Lowery had falsely admitted raping a 75-year-old woman and served a 10-year sentence before being cleared. "I thought I was the only dummy who did that." Lowery's (nearly logical) explanation was typical: Weary from high-pressure police interrogation, he gave up and told them what they wanted to hear, figuring to get a lawyer to straighten everything out -- except that, by that time, the police had his confession on video, preserved for the jury.

-- Acting on a citizen complaint, officials in Plymouth, England, ruled in October that Army cadets (ages 12 to 18), who practice precision drills with their rifles, could not handle them during the public parade on Britain's Remembrance Day (Veterans Day). Officials said they did not want to be "glamorizing" guns.

-- In June, the roller coaster at the Funtown Splashtown in Saco, Maine, unexpectedly came to a halt, stranding riders for all of 15 minutes. A reportedly "furious" Eric and Tiffany Dillingham said later that their 8-year-old daughter was so frightened that she had to be taken to a hospital and had nightmares constantly since then. (Since the purpose of a roller coaster is to induce fright, it was not known whether the girl would also have required a hospital visit if the ride had been working perfectly.)

Clownmania: (1) Performers in New York's traveling Bindlestiff Family Cirkus protested in October against political campaign language referring to Washington, D.C., as a "circus. Said Kinko the Clown, "Before you call anyone in Washington a clown, consider how hard a clown works." (2) "Tiririca" ("Grumpy"), a professional clown, was elected by resounding vote to the Brazilian Congress from Sao Paulo in October under the slogan "It Can't Get Any Worse." (3) In June, Britain's traveling John Lawson's Circus announced a series of counseling sessions for people who avoid circuses for fear of clowns. "Coulrophobia" is reportedly Britain's third-leading phobia, after spiders and needles.

Recurring Themes: (1) John Stolarz, 69, became the latest just-released prisoner to return immediately to his criminal calling, by attempting a holdup of a Chase Bank in New York City instead of reporting to his halfway house on the day after his release. (The robbery failed because the "bank" was actually just a Chase customer-service branch, with no money.) (2) The Phoenix convenience store robber escaped with the money in September, but like many others, inadvertently stuck his face directly in front of the surveillance camera. He had entered the store with a plastic bag pulled tight over his face to distort his features and foil the camera, but halfway through the robbery, he unsurprisingly began laboring for breath and yanked off the bag, revealing his face.

Kourosh Bakhtiari, 27, went on trial in July (1989) for masterminding a three-man escape from a New York City correctional center after having hoarded, then meticulously braided, more than 15 rolls of unwaxed dental floss to make a rope strong enough to support a 190-pound man going over a wall. However, he had neglected to plan for gloves. From gripping the floss, Bakhtiari had to be hospitalized with severed tendons and ligaments in both hands.

About 20 percent of Japan's adult-video market is now "elder porn" with each production featuring one or more studly seniors and Shigeo Tokuda, 76, among the most popular. He told Toronto's Globe and Mail in October that he still "performs" physically "without Viagra," in at least one role a month opposite much younger women. His wife and adult daughter learned only two years ago, by accident, of his late-onset career (which began at age 60 when a filmmaker hired him for his "pervert's face"). Tokuda figures the "elder porn" genre will grow with Japan's increasing senior population.

-- In Afghanistan, as in many less-developed countries, boy babies are much preferred to girls for economic reasons and social status, but some thus-unlucky Afghan parents have developed a workaround for "excess" girls: simply designate one a boy. All references to her are male, and she dresses as a boy, plays "boy" games and does "boy" chores, at least until puberty, when many parents of the "bocha posh" convert her back. In some tribal areas, according to a September New York Times dispatch, superstition holds that creation of a bocha posh even enhances prospects of the next child's being a boy.

-- Although India has forbidden discrimination against lower-caste "Dalits" (so-called "untouchables"), rampant oppression still exists, especially in rural areas. In October, police were investigating reports that a higher-caste woman had disowned her dog after it had been touched by an "untouchable" woman. A village council in the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh state had reportedly awarded the higher-caste woman the equivalent of $340 compensation after she witnessed the dog being given food scraps by the Dalit woman.

-- Symbols: (1) Although the dress code at Clayton (N.C.) High School prohibits it, freshman Ariana Iacono demanded in September that she be allowed her nose ring, which she said is "essential" to her practice of religion. Her Church of Body Modification, she said, teaches that "the mind, body and soul are all one entity and that modifying the body can bring the mind and soul into harmony." (2) Some Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews came under criticism in September during the pre-Yom Kippur Day of Atonement because, unlike most Jews, they shunned the euphemistic twirling of substitute objects over their heads for forgiveness insisting on hard-core expression by twirling sacrificed chickens.

-- If Only They Had Been Less Religious ...: (1) Ten people were killed in an October stampede when a scuffle broke out at a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Bihar where 40,000 had taken their goats to be sacrificed for prosperity. (2) In July in Montcalm County, Mich., four teenagers attending a Bible church camp were killed when lightning struck an umbrella they were huddling under on a field.

-- Cheerful, articulate Catholic Opus Dei official Sarah Cassidy, 43, granting a long interview to London's Daily Mail in September about her joy of life, waxed eloquent about bringing herself pain for two hours every night as reminders of God's love. Complained another Opus Dei "numerary," our "materialistic, hedonistic society" understands pain "if you go jogging and pounding the streets ... just because you want to be thinner" (or endure Botox injections or cram your toes painfully into tiny shoes) but somehow they don't understand when Cassidy wraps the spiked "cilice" tightly around her leg every night for God.

In June, the Mexican government filed a brief in Arizona challenging the constitutionality of that state's proposed law that required police to check the immigration status of detainees, which, according to its Foreign Ministry, "violates inalienable human rights." However, a May USA Today dispatch from Tultitlan, Mexico, noted that Mexico has a similar law ("Article 67" of its immigration code) and that police allegedly harass immigrants from Honduras and other Central American countries. Said one pro-immigration activist, "There (the U.S.), they'll deport you. In Mexico, they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything you've got first." (Bills to overturn Article 67 have been pending in the Mexican legislature for months.)

-- Awkward: (1) The charity Brain Injury New Zealand, organizing a community benefit in the town of Rotorua, decided in October to stage -- of all things -- a "zombie walk," inviting townspeople to shuffle around in support. The TV station TVNZ reported numerous complaints alleging BINZ's insensitivity. (2) The city government in Seoul, South Korea, warned in October that the local delicacy "octopus head" contains toxic amounts of cadmium and recommended a two-head-per-week maximum. Fishermen and restaurateurs, as well as those who eat octopus head for its supposed libido-enhancement, protested.

-- For months, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has been indifferent to humanitarian appeals on behalf of sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, who were convicted in 1993 of luring two men to a robbery (total take, $11; no injuries) but who were each mysteriously sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. (The actual robbers got two years.) Beyond the questionable sentence is Jamie's extremely poor health (double kidney failure). Gov. Barbour's unyielding position is to direct the appeals to the state's parole board. In 2008, bypassing the parole board, Gov. Barbour independently pardoned four vicious murderers who were serving life sentences, even though none had particularly claimed unfair conviction. The four had participated in a prison-sponsored odd-jobs program, helping out around the governor's mansion.

(1) In October in Seminole, Fla., near Tampa, two men, ages 36 and 52, sitting on a porch, drew the attention of two passersby, who made derisive comments and eventually beat up the porch-sitters, who were in costumes as beer bottles. (2) In Portage, Ind., in July, Michael Perez, 36, and brother Eric, 28, got into a fistfight, then ran outside, jumped into their respective pickup trucks, and commenced to ram each other. Multiple charges were filed against both after Eric accidentally crashed into a mobile home.

Two men robbing a Waffle Shop in Akron, Ohio, in October ushered customers and employees into the back and had them give up their cell phones, which were collected in a bag, with the plan to lock the phones in a supply room, retrievable only long after the robbers had fled. However, one robber walked out the restaurant's front door, which automatically locked behind him, and when the other robber walked into the supply room to drop off the bag, an alert hostage locked him inside (and resisted when the robber began "demand(ing)" to be let out).

(1) A 55-year-old woman was seriously injured in October near Defuniak Springs, Fla., when -- and alcohol was involved -- she fell from a motor home traveling on Interstate 10. She had walked to the back to use the rest room, discovered that the door was stuck, and pushed against it -- to learn too late that it was the exit. (2) A 75-year-old man in Levis, Quebec, became the latest person to fall victim to his own protective booby trap. He had apparently forgotten the exact location of the trip wire he had connected to a shotgun to deal with trespassers, and he was killed.

The Pasadena, Calif., Humane Society, using private funds, recently began construction of a $4.3 million dog-and-cat shelter, with towel-lined cages, skylights, "microclimate" air-conditioning, an aviary, sculptured bushes, "adoption counseling pavilions" in which people can meet with their prospective "companion animals," and, according to the architect, "a very subdued classical painting scheme." The Los Angeles Times (in March 1993), noting that there are four times as many shelters in the U.S. for animals as for battered women, quoted an outraged caseworker for a local homeless-person shelter: "It's mind-boggling. I want to know (who) their (funders) are."

Belt-Tightening Greeks: In October, Greece's largest health insurance provider announced, in a letter to a diabetes foundation, that it would no longer pay for the special footwear that diabetics need for reducing pain but suggested it would pay instead for amputation, which is less expensive. The decision, which the foundation said is not supported by international scientific literature, was published in the prominent Athens newspaper To Vima (The Tribune) and reported by the U.S. news site DailyCaller.com.

-- Retail Breakthroughs: (1) A shop in Santa Cruz, Calif., opened in September selling ice cream infused with extract of marijuana. Customers with "medical marijuana" prescriptions can buy Creme De Canna, Bananabis Foster or Straw-Mari Cheesecake, at $15 a half-pint (with one bite supposedly equal to five puffs of "really good" weed, according to the proprietor). (2) Spotted outside subway stations in Nanjing, China, in October: vending machines selling live Shanghai Hairy Crabs, in plastic containers chilled to 5 degrees C (41 degrees F), for the equivalent of $1.50 to $7, depending on size.

-- Good News for Frisky Married Muslims: (1) Abdelaziz Aouragh's recently opened Internet site sells Shariah-compliant aids to promote the "sexual health" of married couples, mostly lubricants, lotions and herbal pills, with lingerie coming soon (but no videos or toys). (All products have been cleared by Saudi religious scholars.) He says he aspires to open actual storefronts soon. (2) Ms. Khadija Ahmed, attending to customers while dressed in flowing robe and head scarf, is already open for business in Manama, Bahrain, offering, since 2008, lingerie, orgasm-delaying creams and even some sex toys. ("Vibrators" are "against Islam," she said, because they are intended as replications of a body part, but "vibration rings" are permitted.) Bahrain, obviously, is among the most liberal countries in the Persian Gulf region, but Ahmed is considering expanding to Dubai and Lebanon.

-- Shareholder James Solakian filed a lawsuit in October against the board of directors of Bible.com, on the ground that the website address -- a potential "goldmine," he says -- was not being properly exploited financially. Although the company's business plan was, explicitly, to become "very, very profitable," it also vowed, according to a Reuters report, to be governed by "Christian business principles."

-- Janis Ollson, 31, of Balmoral, Manitoba, is recovering nicely after being almost completely sawed in half in 2007 by Mayo Clinic surgeons, who concluded that they could remove her bone cancer no other way. In experimental surgery that had been tried only on cadavers, doctors split her pelvis in half, removed the left half, her left leg and her lower spine (and the tumor) in a 20-hour, 12-specialist procedure. The real trick, though, was the eight-hour, 240-staple reconstruction in which her remaining leg was reconnected to her spine with pins and screws, leaving her in an arrangement doctors likened to a "pogo stick." A September Winnipeg Free Press story noted that, except for the missing leg, she is enjoying a normal life with her husband and two kids and enjoys snowmobiling.

-- Kyle Johnson shattered his skull so badly in a high-speed longboard accident in June that ordinary "decompressive craniectomy" (temporarily removing half of the skull to relieve pressure) would be inadequate. Instead, doctors at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah, removed both halves, leaving only a thin strip of bone (after placing Johnson in a drug-induced coma) and kept the skull frozen to prevent brittleness. After the swelling subsided, they reattached the skull to his head and woke him up gradually over a week's time. Johnson admits some memory problems and cognitive dysfunction, most notably his inability to focus on more than one concept at a time -- even when they are part of the same scene, such as two crayons on a table. Johnson said he probably won't go back to the longboard but, curiously like Janis Ollson, looks forward to snowmobiling.

-- Obese patients with an array of symptoms known as "prediabetes" have seen their insulin sensitivity improved dramatically via "fecal transplants," i.e., receiving the stool of a thin, healthy person into the bowel, according to researchers led by a University of North Carolina professor. Researchers said the strangers' implants were significantly more effective than those of a control group, in which a person's own feces was implanted. (News of the Weird has previously reported on success in treating certain gastrointestinal infections by stool transplants that contain the bacteria Clostridium difficile.)

-- Two University of Sydney researchers reported recently that the food-acquisition "strategy" of the brainless, single-cell slime mold appeared to resemble one of the strategies familiar to us so-called brain-containing humans, specifically, making a selection only after comparing it to readily available alternatives. Furthermore, Japanese researchers who mapped the slime mold's search for food found that its nuclei are arranged in a pattern that is seemingly just as logically helpful in food procurement as the service arrangements are in Tokyo's acclaimed railway system. (In October, the Japanese researchers were awarded a satirical "Ig Nobel" prize by the Annals of Improbable Research.)

-- In research results announced in June, a team led by a University of Oklahoma professor, studying Mexican molly fish, discovered that females evaluate potential mates on sight, based on the prominence of the moustache-like growths on males' upper lips. More controversially, the researchers hypothesized that males further enhance their mating prowess by employing the "moustache" to tickle females' genitals. (Catfish have similar "whiskers" and perhaps use them for similar purposes, said the researchers.)

-- In September, Russia's finance minister publicly urged citizens to step up their smoking and drinking, in that the government's new "sin" taxes mean more revenue: "If you smoke a pack of cigarettes," he said, "that means you are giving more to help solve social problems." (Alcohol abuse is already said to kill 500,000 Russians a year and to significantly lower life expectancy.)

-- Executive Brigitte Stevens announced in September that her perpetually underappreciated advocacy institution, Wombat Awareness Organization, had just been pledged $8 million by a single donor. According to Stevens, the $1 million annually she will receive in each of the next eight years is about 13 times the previous annual budget for the Mannum, South Australia, organization. The U.S. donor, who demanded anonymity, became interested in 2008 when, on an onsite visit, he was enthralled with "southern hairy-nosed" wombats.

Signs of the Times: (1) A 24-year-old Muslim woman was strangled in Newcastle, Australia, in April when the bottom of her burqa became tangled in the wheels as she was driving playfully at a go-cart track. (2) A 45-year-old, out-of-town man was killed in a street robbery in Oakland, Calif., in July after he became distracted while typing a location into his cell phone's map program to find his way to a job interview. The appointment was at Google Inc. (3) Horatio Toure, 31, was arrested in San Francisco in July after snatching an iPhone from a woman on the street and bicycling away. Unknown to him, the woman was conducting a real-time demonstration of global positioning software, and thus Toure's exact movement was registering on her company's computers. He was arrested within minutes.

In September (1991), the Avon, Colo., town council resorted to a contest to name the new bridge over the Eagle River, linking Interstate 70 with U.S. Highway 6. Sifting through 84 suggestions (such as "Eagle Crossing"), the council voted, 4-2, to give it the official name "Bob." "Bob The Bridge" is, still, a theme for several local festivals.