"Dementiaville": Swiss health officials have authorized construction of an assisted-living "village" of 1950s-style homes and gardens designed to "remind" patients with Alzheimer's and similar afflictions of surroundings that they might actually recall and with which they might be more comfortable and secure than they are with modern life. The 150-resident grounds, near the city of Bern, will be similar to a Dutch facility set up in 2009 in a suburb of Amsterdam. "To reinforce an atmosphere of normality," reported London's The Independent in January, the Swiss caretakers will dress as gardeners, hairdressers, shop assistants and the like.

-- The varsity girls' basketball teams at predominantly white Kenmore East High School near Buffalo, N.Y., have, for several years, apparently, psyched themselves up in a pre-game locker-room ritual by chanting, "One, Two, Three, (n-word (plural))!" before running out the door and onto the court. Although the white players this year called the use of the word a "tradition" (passed down from year to year), and not a racial "label," the team's only black player not surprisingly had a problem with it and reported it to school officials. According to a December Buffalo News report, it was always a players-only tradition, and no adult was aware of the chant, but upon learning of it, officials immediately imposed player suspensions and team penalties.

-- The U.S. Treasury Department's inspector general for tax matters revealed in January that the IRS certified 331 prison inmates as registered "tax preparers" during a recent 12-month period, including 43 who were serving life sentences. None of the 43, and fewer than one-fourth of the total, disclosed that they were in prison. (The agency blamed a 2009 federal law intended to encourage online filing of tax returns, noting that "tax preparer" registration can now be accomplished online by passing a 120-question test.) (USA Today reported in February 2011 that prisoners filing false or fraudulent tax returns scammed the IRS for nearly $39.1 million in 2009.)

-- The Olympic Committee Will Not Be Calling: (1) Mr. Badr Al-Alyani told a Saudi Arabian newspaper in November that he was nearing the world record for squirting milk from his eye. The current champion, Mehmet Yilmaz of Turkey, reached 2.7 meters (almost 9 feet), and Al-Alyani reports one squeeze of 2.3 meters. He said he "will continue training." (2) In San Francisco, there is an annual refereed "Masturbate-a-thon," and the supposed world record, set in 2009, is held by Masanobu Sato, who remained aroused for nine hours, 58 minutes. In a series of videos released recently, Sato calmly explained how he "practices" for about two hours every morning while his live-in girlfriend goes about her business (in one video, ironing). Sato said he trains by swimming twice a week and has "gained about (11 pounds) in muscle," which helped him with "stamina."

-- David Belniak, now serving 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter for killing a woman and her adult daughter and her husband in a Christmas Day 2007 car crash, filed a lawsuit from prison in January against the victims' family, demanding justice from them in the form of compensation for medical expenses and his "pain" and "anguish." Police records show Belniak was driving between 75 and 85 mph when he rear-ended the victims' stopped car (and that he had alcohol, Xanax and cocaine in his system). Attorney Debra Tuomey, Belniak's sister, represents him and called her brother's imprisonment "government sanctioned assassination."

-- Not One Second Longer With That Wench: A man identified as Antonio C., 99, filed for divorce in December against his wife of 77 years, Rosa C., age 96, in Rome, Italy. According to an ANSA news agency report, Antonio became upset when he discovered 50-year-old letters from an affair Rosa once had.

-- Christopher Bolt pleaded guilty in September to felony destruction of property in Loudoun County, Va., for spray-painting more than 50 vehicles. Some were marked with the number "68," which a sheriff's detective explained was probably because Bolt had initially sprayed "69" but realized it "didn't look right."

-- Brogan Rafferty, 16, in jail in Cleveland, Ohio, awaiting trial for assisting in at least one murder in a robbery scheme, wrote to his father in December (in a letter shared with the Plain Dealer newspaper) that he was certain God would not allow him to suffer a long prison sentence. That would mean, he wrote, that "all my meaningful family members would be dead" when he got out. "(N)o way God would do that to me."

-- Benjamin North, 26, was apprehended by deputies in Humboldt County, Calif., because they were pretty sure he was the man who used a stolen credit card at a Safeway supermarket in December. They knew this because North, for some reason, insisted that the purchase be credited to his personal "Safeway Club" card, which he presented to the cashier along with the stolen card.

-- Gayane Zokhrabov, then 58, was knocked down by the flying corpse of Hiroyuki Joho, 18, during a rainstorm in Chicago in 2008, and in December 2011 filed a lawsuit against Joho's estate for compensation for the various injuries she suffered that day (broken leg, broken wrist, shoulder pain). Joho's corpse was "flying" because he had just been fatally struck by a fast-moving train as he dashed through the storm across several tracks -- while Zokhrabov was waiting on a nearby station platform. A judge initially ruled that Zokhrabov's injuries were not a "foreseeable" result of Joho's crossing the tracks, but in December, a state appeals court reinstated the lawsuit.

-- PayPal confirmed to a Toronto Star reporter in January that its refund policy required the shattering of a violin that may well have been a pre-World War II classic easily worth the $2,500 the seller was asking. The buyer had balked after paying, claiming the violin was counterfeit and produced one expert's opinion to that effect, demanding that PayPal refund the money, which it did, provided that the buyer first "destroy" the property. (According to PayPal, the laws of many countries, including the U.S., prohibit mailing knowingly counterfeit goods, and hence, PayPal's could not simply order the violin returned to sender. The seller, certain that the violin was authentic, was left with neither it nor the money.)

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Police in London stepped up their search for the man who tried to rob the Halifax bank in October but escaped empty-handed. He had demanded 700,000 pounds from a bank employee and then, intending to hand over the bag that he had brought for the money, instead absentmindedly handed over his gun. Realizing his mistake, he dashed out the door. (2) Verlin Alsept, 59, was arrested in Dayton, Ohio, in January and charged with trying to rob a Family Dollar store. He had demanded all the money in a cash register and, apparently as an attempt to intimidate the clerk, he pulled out a .38 caliber bullet from his pocket and showed it to her. She was, of course, undaunted, and he walked away (but was arrested nearby).

In Jerusalem, It's Good to Be a Man: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, already responsible for excluding or segregating women on public transportation, advertising images and even use of sidewalks, struck again at a January medical research conference in Jerusalem. Despite their obvious interest in the conference's topic ("Innovations in Gynecology/Obstetrics and Halacha (Jewish Law)"), all women in attendance were required to sit apart from males, and no female was allowed to address the audience from the podium.

LEAD STORY

Your Government Knows Best: A 2007 federal energy- independence law required companies that supply motor fuel in the U.S. to blend in a certain cellulose-based ingredient starting in 2011 -- even though (as the Environmental Protection Agency well knows) the ingredient simply does not now exist. A New York Times reporter checked with the EPA in January and found that the companies will still have to pay the monetary penalties for noncompliance (and almost certainly the even-stiffer penalties for 2012, since the ingredient is still two or three years from development). "It belies logic," said a petrochemicals trade association executive.

-- Two dozen religious leaders in India's Karnataka state are, as usual, protesting the annual, centuries-old Hindu ritual in which lower-caste people roll around in food leftovers of upper-caste people. "Hundreds" performed the exercise at temples, according to a January Times of India report, believing that contact with sophisticates' food will alleviate pernicious skin conditions.

-- Far away from Karnataka, in the urban center of Calcutta, India, engineers are trying to save the historic Howrah Bridge from collapsing due to corrosion from spit. A half-million pedestrians (aside from the frenzied vehicle traffic) use the bridge every day and frequently spit their guthka and paan (half-chewed betel leaf and areca nut and slaked lime) onto the steel hangers that hold up the bridge -- thus reducing the hanger bases by 50 percent in just the last three years. (Engineers' immediate remedies: cover the bases in washable fiberglass and conduct an education campaign in which "gods" implore pedestrians to hold their saliva until they've crossed the bridge.)

-- On Nov. 5, the 220 inhabitants of Coll, an island off the coast of Scotland, endured the first "crime" that any of the residents could remember. Someone vandalized the public lavatories at a visitors' facility, doing the equivalent of about $300 damage. A constable was summoned from a nearby island to investigate, but seas were rough, and he had to wait for two days for the ferry to run. One Coll resident vaguely recalled an incident at a pub once in which a man threatened to throw a punch (but didn't), and another remembered that someone took whale bones left on a beach by researchers (but later gave them back). According to a Daily Telegraph report, the culprit is "still at large."

-- The U.S. Air Force Academy last year installed an $80,000 rock garden/fire pit on its campus for use by several "Earth-based" religions (pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and various Native American faiths). For the current year, only three of the 4,300 cadets have identified themselves in that group, but the academy is sensitive to the issue after a 2005 lawsuit accused administrators and cadets of allowing too-aggressive proselytizing on behalf of Christian religions. For the record, the academy currently has 11 Muslim cadets, 16 Buddhists, 10 Hindus and 43 self-described atheists.

-- In separate incidents during one week in December in Polk County, Fla., four church pastors were arrested and charged with sex-related crimes involving children, including Arnold Mathis, 40, at the time working for the Saint City Power and Praise Ministry in Winter Haven, but who has moved on to the Higher Praise Ministries in Lake Wales and who was allowed to work for the church despite a sex-crime rap sheet.

-- Just two weeks before the January worldwide Internet protest against proposed copyright-protection legislation, the Missionary Church of Kopimism in Sweden announced that it had been granted official government status as a religion (one of 22 so recognized), even though its entire reason for being is to celebrate the right to share files of information -- in any form, but especially on the Internet. Swedish law makes such religious recognition easy, requiring only "a belief system with rituals." The Kopimism website demonizes "copyright believers" who "derive their power by limiting people's lives and freedom."

According to recent consumer-protection rulings by the European Food Safety Authority, sellers of prunes are prohibited from marketing them as laxatives, and sellers of bottled water are forbidden to offer it as preventing dehydration. In both cases, the commissioners referred to the underlying science of the body to defend their decisions, but the rulings were still widely derided as anti-common-sense. Members of the European Parliament complained, especially given the current precarious state of the European Union itself. One parliamentarian challenged an EFSA policymaker to a prune-eating contest: If it's not a laxative, he said, let's see how many you can eat and not have your "bowel function" "assisted."

(1) In December in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan, a group of luxury car enthusiasts gathered and began a caravan to nearby Hiroshima, but one of the drivers, changing lanes, hit a median barrier and spun across the highway, resulting in a chain-reaction pileup involving 14 cars, including eight red Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes-Benz. Drivers suffered only cuts and bruises, but "some" of the vehicles were reported "beyond repair." (2) David Dopp of Santaquin, Utah, won a fundraising raffle sponsored by the non-profit organization "teamgive" in November -- a Lamborghini Murcielago, valued at about $380,000. He picked up his prize on Dec. 17, but six hours later, he spun out of control, knocked over several fence posts, and disabled the Murcielago's front end.

Logan Alexander, 63, a school security guard in Trenton, N.J., who was fired after pleading guilty in 2007 to twice inappropriately touching students, was later sued by a third girl for similar behavior but settled that lawsuit in 2010 by agreeing to pay the girl $12,500. Recently, according to a December report in the Trenton Times, Alexander filed a lawsuit against the Trenton Board of Education, demanding that the board pay the $12,500 to the girl because, after all, Alexander was "on duty" when he committed the inappropriate touching.

In Bennington, Vt., in December, Adam Hall, 34, was accused of vandalizing his ex-girlfriend's car, including scratching the word "slut" into the hood (except that the word was spelled s-u-l-t). Hall initially denied any involvement until an officer handed him a sheet of paper and asked him to write the sentence, "You are a slut." Sure enough, Hall spelled slut "sult" and was promptly charged with malicious mischief.

-- In November, the Washington Times reported that the Washington, D.C.-area Metro transportation agency had hired, as a financial consultant, a woman with multiple convictions for bank fraud and who had been implicated in one of Washington's largest heroin rings. Furthermore, even when the agency learned of her record, it neither disciplined her nor removed her from her finance responsibilities. According to the Times, Metro has other lax management issues. A Maryland state attorney recently revealed that a Metro employee had been "storing" 70 unaccounted-for pieces of Metro property (including computers and televisions) at his home for years, and following that news, according to the Times, other employees began sheepishly returning similar property.

-- Update: Hon. Marion Barry, 75, former four-term mayor (and one-time famous cocaine user), is now in his second post-prison term as a Washington, D.C., Council member and announced in January that he will run for another four years. In December, the Internal Revenue Service filed a new lien on a home Barry owns in Washington, based on unpaid income taxes from 2010. Barry is currently making payments out of his council paycheck for D.C. and federal taxes back to 1999 after pleading guilty in 2005 to failure to file tax returns at all for the previous six years. The very next year, 2006, he failed to file for 2005, and after getting caught then, he subsequently failed to file for 2007. On the D.C. Council, Barry is a member of the finance and revenue committee.

Traditional bridge replacement on as prominent a highway as Interstate 15 in Mesquite, Nev., has generally required rerouting traffic for as long as a year, but the new "accelerated" technology in January necessitated detours for less than a week. Excited engineers traveled in from around the country to watch the old bridge be demolished and the new one (which had been built on a platform off to the side) be slid into place using hydraulic jacks and Teflon-coated metal beams -- lubricated with Dawn dishwashing detergent to glide them smoothly into the old frame. The Nevada Department of Transportation estimated that the accelerated process saved commuters about $12 million in time and fuel costs.

-- "(Our critics) are absolutely right. We are professional liars," said Everett Davis, founder of the Internet-based Reference Store, which supplies pumped-up, but false, resumes for job-seekers having trouble landing work. Davis and associates are, he told Houston's KRIV-TV in November, ex-investigators schooled in deception and therefore good at fooling human resources personnel who follow up on the bogus work claims. Davis admitted he would even disguise a customer's past criminal record -- but not if the job is in public safety, health care or schools.

-- Veterinary technician and food blogger Lauren Hicks recently inaugurated service on what is surely one of the few food trucks in the country catering exclusively to dogs. She parks her "Sit 'n Stay Pet Cafe" -- a retrofitted mail truck -- in downtown Winter Park, Fla., on Thursday nights (according to an October Orlando Sentinel report), serving gourmet organic snacks like the Poochi Sushi (jerky), "Ruff-in" muffins, and "Mutt-balls" and "Grrr-avy," among other specialties.

-- Western nations and foundations have tried for decades to build sewage treatment plants in sub-Saharan Africa, with little success (since many countries lack stable governments to assess operating fees), and to this day, raw sewage is still merely collected and dumped, either in rivers or directly onto beaches, such as the notorious (and formerly beautiful) Lavender Hill in Ghana. U.S. entrepreneurs recently established Waste Enterprises in Ghana to build the first-ever fecal-sludge-to-biodiesel plant (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Feces undiluted by water, and then heated, is highly concentrated and more resembles coal than the goo that Americans associate with sewage.

-- Medical Marvels: (1) The British Medical Journal reported in December that a 76-year-old woman had been unbothered until recently by the felt-tip pen she accidentally swallowed 25 years earlier. It was removed without complication, and, though the plastic was flaky, the pen still had an ink supply and was "usable." (2) Twice during 2011, babies with two heads were born in Brazil. Though the first, in Paraiba state, died hours after birth, the 9.9-pound "Emanoel" and "Jesus," born in Para state in December, are apparently otherwise healthy. (The baby has two heads and two spines but shares one heart, liver, pelvis and pair of lungs.)

-- Medical Marvels (Canine Edition): The Dogs Trust in Kenilworth, England, was soliciting potential homes in December for "Bentley," a Border Collie whose monophobia might make it what the Daily Mail calls the "most cowardly" dog in the country. While frisky around people, Bentley immediately goes into a frightened sulk when left alone, cowering from cats, holing up behind a couch, and constantly biting his nails, even at the sound of a cat on television. (Bentley was recently outfitted with special lace-up booties to preserve the nails.)

-- Ratnagiri, India, businessman Murad Mulla, 48, filed a complaint recently with the Maharashtra Medical Council after his surgeon used an outdated procedure to cure his urine-retention disorder. Previously, skin from the scrotum was routinely used for urethral repair, but current science recommends using skin from the mouth to avoid the worst-case risk, which Mulla apparently experienced. Specifically, the scrotum contains both hair-bearing tissue and non-hair-bearing tissue, and only the latter is usable. Evidently, Mullas' surgeon used hair-bearing tissue, and as a result, Mulla's urethra itches constantly, and he expels specks of pubic hair with his urine.

-- Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme cost 16,500 investors a total of as much as $18 billion, according to the court-appointed trustee, but at least Madoff is not on death row. In Hangzhou, China, in November, Ji Wenhua and his brother and their father (who were managers of the Yintai Real Estate and Investment Group) were sentenced to death after their convictions for cheating 15,000 investors out of the equivalent of $1.1 billion. Prosecutors said the men had continued to collect money by claiming profits while losses mounted.

-- News of the Privileged: Among the high-end items catching consumers' fancy last holiday season was premium firewood, for those who need to burn trees for reasons beyond merely warming the house. "Pretty white birch logs" were a best-selling item for Paul's Fireplace Wood of Little Falls, Minn., and the owner of J.N. Firewood (Fort Ripley, Minn.) touted its "really cool blue flame and crackling noises," according to a December Wall Street Journal report. (The wood itself goes for well over $1 a pound, even before adding the substantial shipping cost.)

(1) Janet Knowles, 62, was arrested in January in Jupiter, Fla., for aggravated assault after allegedly bludgeoning her housemate, 65, with a hammer as they watched television. The victim said only that Knowles was "upset with Judge Judy." (2) Michael Monsour, the former CEO of Monsour Medical Center in Jeannette, Pa., was charged with assaulting his brother, Dr. William Monsour, in their father's home on New Year's Eve. In an argument, Michael allegedly bit William's nose so hard that he required cosmetic surgery. (Michael's temper remained untempered. The next day, according to police, Michael sent William an email threatening to beat him "into blood pudding.")

-- Need Time in the Gym: (1) According to police in Bellingham, Wash., William Lane, 22, had yelled slurs at a lesbian couple in the early morning of Dec. 11 and smashed the car window of one of the women, but she immediately chased him down, tackled him, and held him until help arrived. (2) Anthony Miranda, 24, was arrested and charged with armed robbery in December in Chicago after unknowingly choosing as his victim an "ultimate fighting" champion. The "victim" gave Miranda two black eyes and a heavily lacerated face, and, as Miranda drew his gun, overpowered him in such a way that Miranda wound up shooting himself in the ankle.

-- Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Keith Savinelli, 21, was arrested in Gallatin County, Mont., in December and charged with attempted burglary involving a woman's underwear. When the resident caught Savinelli in the act, he attempted to talk her out of reporting him by apologizing and handing her his voter registration card, but she called police, anyway. (2) A 25-year-old man was rescued by fire crews in Tranent, Scotland, in December and taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. According to police, four men were attempting to steal an eight-ton steamroller when the 25-year-old got his leg trapped underneath. The other three fled.

Prominent novelist Michael Peterson was convicted in 2003 of beating his wife to death with a fireplace poker, but he, assisted by a former neighbor, has maintained since then that she was killed by a rogue owl. In 2008, for the first time, North Carolina state investigators acknowledged that a microscopic feather was indeed found in her hair, and in December 2011, Durham County Judge Orlando Hudson granted Peterson a new trial. Although several owl experts have declared that the wife's head trauma was consistent with an owl attack, the judge's decision was based instead on a finding last year that the state crime lab had mishandled evidence in 34 cases and specifically that an investigator in the Peterson case had exaggerated his credentials to the jury. (A 2007 fictionalized movie and a 2006 NBC "Dateline" also gave durability to the owl theory.)