All U.S. states have forms of no-fault divorce, but not England, which requires that couples prove adultery or abandonment or "unreasonable behavior," which leads to sometimes-epic weirdness, according to an April New York Times dispatch from London. For instance, one woman's petition blamed her husband's insistence that she speak and dress only in Klingon. Other examples of "unreasonable behavior" (gathered by the Times of London): a husband objecting to the "malicious" preparation of his most hated dish (tuna casserole), a spouse's non-communication for the last 15 years (except by leaving Post-it Notes), a spouse's too-rapid TV channel-changing, a husband's distorting the fit of his wife's best outfits by frequently wearing them, and one's insistence that a pet tarantula reside in a glass case beside the marital bed. [The New York Times, 4-7-2012]

Lame: (1) Madison County, Ind., council member David McCartney admitted to the Herald Bulletin newspaper in March that he had exchanged "sexually explicit" emails with a female official in another county but would not resign. In fact, he said, he had engaged in the exchanges not for hanky-panky but in order to "expose corruption." He has not elaborated. (2) Chris Windham, 27, was charged with improperly photographing a 57-year-old man in a men's room in Trinity, Texas, in March after Windham, using a stall, allegedly snapped a cellphone photo of the man standing at the adjacent urinal. Windham explained that typically he braces himself with one hand on the floor while he wipes himself, and this time the hand on the floor was holding his cellphone. [Indianapolis Star, 3-19-2012] [Houston Press, 3-20-2012]

-- Maureen Raymond, 49, said her roadside DUI test administered in January was unfair. According to records cited by Scripps Media, she told a deputy in Port St. Lucie, Fla., that she couldn't walk a straight line "with her big boobies," which she said makes "balancing" difficult. The deputy reported that Raymond helpfully offered to show him the evidence but that he stopped her. [Scripps Media via WPTV (West Palm Beach), 2-3-2012]

-- She is not the typical gullible victim. Ms. Priti Mahalanobis is a college-educated mother of two who ran a franchised restaurant in Avalon Park, Fla., near Orlando, but when her health, her brother's marriage and her business experienced problems, she bought a $20 psychic reading from "Mrs. Starr" (also known as Peaches Stevens). The Orlando Sentinel reported in January that, over the next seven months, Mahalanobis lost about $135,000 in cash, jewelry and gift cards to Mrs. Starr. Astonishingly, neither Mahalanobis' health nor her restaurant business noticeably improved! Among the remedies that Mahalanobis accepted: buying seven tabernacles ($19,000 each) to "vanquish (her family's) negativity" and putting $100 bills and a piece of paper with her relatives' names written on it under her mattress along with a grapefruit (which, as everyone knows, attracts and then isolates the evil). [Orlando Sentinel, 1-24-2012]

-- Though recently elected Councillor Simon Parkes told the Scarborough Evening News in March that his work on the Whitby (England) Town Council would not be affected, he has famously (in a YouTube video) reported lifelong "horrific" invasive encounters with extra-terrestrials, including many visits from a 9-foot-tall, green "mother"-like being who sends him "messages" through his eyes, down his optic nerve to his brain. [Scarborough Evening News, 3-23-2012]

-- Arni Johnsen, a member of Iceland's Parliament, survived a serious 2010 automobile crash -- a stroke of good fortune he has since attributed to a family of elves (three generations, in fact, according to an "elf specialist") who live in a boulder near the crash site. Iceland's Morgunbladid newspaper reported that Johnsen recently had the 30-ton boulder relocated to his own property, which he said affords the elves a better view than at their previous home. (Another elf "authority" told reporters, however, that relocating the family was bound to bring Johnsen bad luck.) [Iceland Review, 5-15-2012]

-- A three-truck crash on Interstate 40 in Albuquerque, N.M., in May destroyed one truck and sent two people to the hospital with minor injuries. One tractor-trailer carrying a load of charcoal and charcoal lighter fluid crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer carrying frozen meat. The lighter fluid facilitated a huge fireball/barbecue. [Albuquerque Journal, 5-17-2012]

-- Only in Muncie: (1) In April, Christina Reber, 43, was charged with assault after she entered the home of her "on-again, off-again" boyfriend in Muncie, Ind., punched him in the head numerous times and squeezed his scrotum until he finally pried her fingers loose. He was taken to Muncie's Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital. (2) Muncie college student Bakhtiyor Khafizov, 21, was arrested in April for allegedly attacking a former girlfriend in her campus dorm room. The woman said she escaped only by kicking him in the groin. The students attend Ball State University. [The Smoking Gun, 4-5-2012] [Star Press (Muncie), 4-17-2012]

-- Felix Velazquez's meticulous attention to detail could have served him well in legitimate endeavors, but was unfortunately displayed in a recent attempt to stalk an ex-girlfriend in Broward County, Fla. He had already been to prison for a 2008 stalking when he allegedly devised a fake double kidnapping -- of her and him -- so that he could "rescue" her and win back her affections. According to prosecutors, he created 23 pages of maps, photos and, reported the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, an "encyclopedic amount of detail about (the woman's) routine, her appearance, friends and driving routes to work" and thought he had convinced a former cellmate to do the abduction. However, as frequently happens, the cellmate got queasy and told police, who devised their own elaborate ruse to sting Velazquez. He is awaiting trial. [Sun-Sentinel via Palm Beach Post, 2-5-2012]

-- The family of a 13-year-old girl filed a lawsuit in Queensland, Australia, in April after their daughter, in a physical education tennis class at an upscale private school in Mudgeeraba, was hit in the eye by a bad shot from a fellow 13-year-old. The injury came as the girls were "smashing" balls back to each other from the baseline during a lesson. (Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper reported that several schools in Queensland state have banned such "dangerous" schoolyard activities as "cartwheels" and "red rover.") [Courier-Mail, 4-23-2012]

-- Henry Wolf filed a lawsuit in April in San Francisco against BMW, claiming that the Corbin-Pacific seat on its 1993 motorcycle formed such a "ridge" that Wolf developed painful priapism that has plagued him since he made a four-hour ride in May 2010. (Although the actual length of each priapic episode was not disclosed in the lawsuit's initial filing.) [Courthouse News Service, 4-27-2012]

-- Fetishists on Parade: (1) Gary Paterson, 36, was sentenced to community service and psychotherapy after being convicted of trying to lick clean the shoes of four boys (Glenrothes, Scotland, January). (2) Robert Van Wagner, 33, was arrested after three girls (ages 12 and 13) told police he asked them to put on socks he gave them and to run around a field so he could watch. (Port St. Lucie, Fla., April) (3) Tetsuya Ichikawa, 50, was arrested after approaching a 25-year-old woman from behind in a restaurant and licking her hair (Shizuoka, Japan, April). [STV (Glasgow, Scotland), 1-12-2012] [TCPalm (Stuart, Fla.), 4-29-2012] [Agence France-Presse via WTTG-TV (Washington, D.C.), 4-18-2012]

-- (1) A bomb accidentally exploded on a bus in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in May, killing a man who police suspect was on his way to blow up something else. He was the only person killed, but two suspected associates with him (carrying assault rifles and ammunition) were injured. (2) In April, Mohammad Ashan, described by U.S. officials as a "mid-level Taliban commander" in Paktika province, Afghanistan, walked up to a police checkpoint with a wanted poster of himself (offering a $100 cash reward) and turned himself in -- for the money. Ashan was arrested following a biometric scan to verify his identity. "Yes, yes, that's me," he reportedly said. "Can I get my award now?" [Reuters via Canoe.ca (Toronto), 5-17-2012] [Washington Post, 4-17-2012]

Thanks This Week to Don Schullian, Chris James, Gale Walters, Scott Huber, Jakob Derksen, Jim Colucci, Pete Randall, Steve Dunn, and Mike Mendenhall, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Dr. Oliver Di Pietro of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., is a leading prescriber of the "K-E diet" that offers desperate people drastic short-term weight loss by threading a feeding tube through the nose to the stomach and dripping in a protein-fat solution, as clients' only "meals," for 10 straight days. "Within a few hours," Dr. Di Pietro told ABC's "Good Morning America" in April, "your hunger and appetite go away completely." Fat is burned through "ketosis," he said, and a loss of 10 to 20 pounds in 10 days is possible. Such short-term loss might be important, for example, for a woman prepping for her wedding day. One client said she doesn't have "all of the time on the planet" just to exercise, "so I came to the doctor." [Good Morning America via Yahoo News, 4-16-2012]

-- The late Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha was a Capitol Hill powerhouse, and among his legacies is the federally funded airport in his district that largely served him and the local companies heading to Washington, D.C., to lobby for government contracts. (By contrast, the Pittsburgh airport is nearly 60 miles away.) Murtha died in 2010, but the airport (which cost $150 million in earmarked funds to build, upgrade and maintain) still, according to an April Yahoo News dispatch, handles only three flights a day, all from Washington, D.C., and about $100 of every passenger's ticket is subsidized by the federal government. [Yahoo News, 4-3-2012]

-- Officials in Burnsville, Minn., have brought the full force of the law to bear upon Mitch Faber (who was arrested, forced to pay a high bail, and released under electronic monitoring and only on condition of drug testing), whom they have charged with the crime of not putting proper siding on his house. According to a March report on KSTP-TV, Faber said he started re-siding, but when the economy turned bad in 2008, he stopped, assuming that the worst he could eventually suffer would be a fine. [KSTP-TV (St. Paul), 3-23-2012]

-- There are big plans in the city of Chiang Rai, Thailand, for a massive Buddhist temple that priests aim to make one of the most beautiful structures in the world, and have entrusted artist Chalermchai Kositpipat to design it in all-white with glittering glass and arrangements of "rich symbolism derived from Buddhist and Hindu traditions." If Kositpipat has his way, according to an April Huffington Post dispatch, the temple will also have images of Superman, Batman and (from the movie "The Matrix") Neo -- all of which, Kositpipat said, further Lord Buddha's "message." [Huffington Post, 4-26-2012]

-- Architect Sou Fujimoto recently unveiled his public restroom (for women only, though) whose one transparency-enclosed toilet sits in a 2,160-square-foot private garden of cherry, plum and peach trees. The 6-foot-high-walled park is located beside a railway station in Ichihara City, east of Tokyo. Japan is a world leader in fanciful toilets, and Fujimoto said he thought the scenery would enhance the user's "feeling of release." [Japan Broadcasting Corporation via CNET News, 4-14-2012]

Kelly Ervin, 48, was arrested in Salisbury, Md., in April and charged with littering "under 100 pounds." According to police, Ervin routinely goes for a run every morning at 4 o'clock, and just as routinely, has a bowel movement after about two miles. Most days, that puts him in a certain neighborhood, whose residents have been complaining. When questioned, according to a Salisbury Daily Times reporter, Ervin basically shrugged and said he thought many distance runners do the same thing. [Salisbury Daily Times, 4-19-2012]

-- In March, Jose Romero-Valenzuela, 34, in a hurry to get to the courthouse in Oregon City, Ore., for a hearing on drug charges, managed to pick up three speeding tickets on Interstate 84, one right after the other within the space of an hour. A sheriff's deputy and two different state troopers charged him with speeds in excess of 92 mph. (Another trooper, specifically monitoring Romero-Valenzuela after the third stop, reported that, finally, he obeyed the speed limit.) [The Oregonian, 3-8-2012]

-- William Todd arrived in Nashville, Tenn., on April 9 via Greyhound bus and faced a nine-hour layover. According to police, Todd committed at least 11 felonies during that time, one after another, with more charges still possible. Among Todd's alleged diversions: shooting up a restaurant, setting it on fire, robbing four people at a bar, carjacking, breaking into a law office and defecating on a desk, trolling hotel rooms seeking theft opportunities, and stealing a taxicab and robbing the driver. Said a police sergeant, "I've never seen anything like this before." He was finally captured at Opryland, where he had hidden by submerging himself in water up to his nose. [WSMV-TV (Nashville), 4-9-2012]

-- Suspicions Confirmed: In March, WTNH-TV in New Haven, Conn., obtained an "internal" police memorandum referencing a challenge from state troopers in one barracks to "outperform" colleagues in another barracks -- in writing traffic tickets. The memo, from Lt. Anthony Schirillo, refers to the need "to issue at least 60 infractions/misdemeanors each shift." "One day Troop F issued 301 tickets. Troop G responded by issuing 345 ... We can do better." "I am asking that everyone, myself included, contribute to this effort." "Note: If we happen to issue 350 tickets in one day that would be stellar." (The station spoke to Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut state police, who denied that quotas are given.) [WTNH-TV, 3-29-2012]

-- Crime Does/Doesn't Pay: Convicted embezzler Antoinette Galluzzo, who admitted stealing more than $50,000 from a city youth agency in Englewood, N.J., was ordered in April to pay "restitution," but the amount Judge Eugene Austin settled on was $10 a month -- and only during the period of probation (three years). On the other hand, in federal court in New York City in April, Kerry Haggard, 47, was sent to prison for 6 1/2 years on one count of selling fake movie lobby posters. [Associated Press via NJ.com, 4-12-2012] [Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, 4-10-2012]

Didn't Think It Through: (1) Eric King, 21, was leaving a store in Eagan, Minn., in February when a police officer in the parking lot noticed his pronounced waddle. King was arrested when the officer found a shoplifted 19-inch television set down his pants. (2) In March, a 34-year-old Lithuanian-born man led police in Wiltshire, England, in a nighttime foot chase after he had aroused their suspicion. Thermal imaging equipment was used from a helicopter to spot the man in the darkness. He was arrested "hiding" face-down in a manure pit. (Though he originally fled, there was little evidence against him, and he was released.) [KSTP- TV (St. Paul), 2-24-2012] [BBC News, 3-30-2012]

"Weekend at Bernie's" -- and More: Thomas Parkin inherited real estate from his elderly mother before she died, but quickly lost it in a risky business venture. To get the deed back, according to New York City prosecutors, he concocted a scheme to pretend that Mom was still alive (it would actually be Thomas in a dress) and still owned the land (and thus that the current deedholder was a fraud). Lawyers arranged a meeting with "Mother" (conducted in a darkened room because of Mom's "recent cataract surgery"), at which she mostly remained silent. Parkin improbably stayed in character, according to a trial dispatch on the Daily Beast, and jurors apparently kept straight faces as Parkin testified that recent "communications" between him and his mother were "mostly one-sided." In May, Parkin was convicted on 11 counts, and at press time, he was awaiting sentencing. [Daily Beast, 4-29-2012]

In April, a woman in Switzerland identified as "Anna Gut," in her early 50s, starved to death after trying to prove that she could survive by "consuming" only sunlight, just as had happened to several others before her. An earlier practitioner, Australian Ellen Greve, died in 1999 at age 54 following a short career promoting "breatharianism," subtitled in her books and public lectures, "Liberation from the drudgery of food and drink." None of the ones who have made similar claims and survived have submitted to 24/7 monitoring. [The Local (Stockholm), 4-25-2012]

Thanks This Week to Roy Henock, Susan Quinn, and Sandy Pearlman and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Britain's ITV1 television network announced plans in April to accept "prop placements" to blend into production of its new reality talent show in which actors compete for the lead role in the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." The network said, for example, that it was seeking coffee machines, which piqued the interest of the De'Longhi brand manager, who offered its top-of-the-line Magnifica ESAM4200 and, according to its public relations firm, suggested perhaps interrupting the play's climactic song "The Crucifixion" while Jesus savors a cup brewed from the Magnifica. An April report in London's The Independent noted that the opera's composer, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, was on board with the idea, but that the original lyricist, Sir Tim Rice, called it "tasteless" and "tacky." [The Independent, 4-10-2012]

NOTE: From time to time, News of the Weird reminds readers that bizarre human adventures repeat themselves again and again. Here are some choice selections of previous themes recently coming around again (plus a couple of updates on earlier stories):

-- Each spring in Dongyang, China, the aroma of urine is in the air -- specifically, the town's specialty of eggs boiled in the discharge of young boys (under age 10, typically gathered "fresh" from toilets at local schools). Townspeople have believed for centuries that the eggs, properly cooked, bring health and prosperity. "By eating these eggs," one shopper told a Reuters reporter in March, "we will not have any pain in our waists, legs and joints. Also, you will have more energy when you work." In fact, Dongyang officials have proudly proclaimed "virgin boy eggs" as an "intangible cultural heritage." [Reuters, 3-29-2012]

-- And once again this spring, the Chinese marked the Qingming holiday with celebrations honoring the dead by making offerings to their deceased relatives. At the "tomb-sweeping" festival, people present paper replicas of items their ancestors are believed to need in the afterlife. Uncreative relatives give play money, but the offerings can be elaborate, such as shoes, cars and TV sets, or this year's hot item -- paper iPads, which were selling in Hong Kong for the equivalent of about $3. [The Register (London), 3-29-2012]

-- Sound Familiar? McDonald's still proudly serves its coffee hot, notwithstanding the notorious 1992 lawsuit for burns suffered by Stella Liebeck. In March 2012, Mona Abdelal filed a lawsuit in Cook County, Ill., over severe burns that her granddaughter, 4, suffered when fetching Abdelal's coffee order from a McDonald's server. According to the lawsuit, the server violated company policy that requires tightly closed lids on coffee cups and prohibits handing the cups to young children even if they are tightly sealed. [Chicago Tribune, 3-23-2012]

-- With Afghanistan's moralistic Taliban in retreat, one social scourge grows stronger than ever (according to an April Washington Post dispatch from Dehrazi): "bacha bazi," which are Afghan men's "dancing boys." Underage, often poor or fatherless kids become willing "companions" of wealthy men, often for sex. Since young girls are sheltered and chaperoned, only boys are available. Said one man, "You cannot (even) take a wife with you to a party, but a boy you can take anywhere." The usefulness of a bacha bazi typically ends when he starts growing facial hair, and the boys often drift into becoming pimps or prostitutes. [Washington Post, 4-4-2012]

-- The most recent government employee to defraud his agency's worker compensation program (according to prosecutors in Los Angeles) is firefighter Rafael Davis, 35, who received disability payments for about 30 months during 2008-2011 while at the same time engaging in mixed martial arts matches as "The Noodle." Davis' record (according to LA Weekly) was 12-2, with seven of those matches coming during his disability period, including six victories. "MMA" (as noted by the newspaper) requires similar "stamina, muscle and coordination" as is required for firefighting. [LA Weekly, 4-10-2012]

-- More and more newspapers are assigning reporters to pore through local birth records to sample the diversity of names parents are giving their kids these days. An Edmonton Journal reporter noted in March that the nearly 51,000 babies born in the province of Alberta in 2011 included a boy named Moo, two girls named Unique, an Einstein, a Messiah, a J-Cub, a Smiley, a Tuff, a Tuba, a Jazz, a Camry, an Andromeda and an Xxavier (sic), and a boy named R and a girl named J. [Edmonton Journal, 3-6-2012]

-- An increasingly mainstream treatment for the gastrointestinal bacterial infection C. difficile involves transplanting the contents of a healthy colon into the unhealthy one, on the belief that the best way to kill the destructive germs and flora is to attack them with the beneficial bacteria and flora that already reside in a healthy colon. In March an unidentified man in Sydney, New Brunswick, who had been turned down for a transplant by doctors at Cape Breton Regional Hospital, performed a risky transplant of an unreported substance, by himself, in his own bathroom. He apparently suffered no ill effects, but doctors told the Chronicle Herald of Halifax, Nova Scotia, that since the "product" must get into the large bowel, merely giving yourself an enema does not assure success. [Chronicle Herald, 4-3-2012]

-- Through the years, unusual highway tractor-trailer spills have fascinated News of the Weird readers -- such as the time a truck carrying pork collided with a truck carrying eggs, creating a highway dish of ham and eggs. In March on Highway 11 in northeastern Ontario, a Brinks tractor-trailer carrying nothing but $1 and $2 Canadian coins hit a boulder in the roadway, scattering a "debris field" of millions of dollars, forcing the closing of the road. Among the cleanup equipment required: a "magnetic" crane and a front-end loader that scooped up most of the soil in the field so that the coins could later be sifted out. [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 3-28-2012]

-- Least Competent Criminals: (1) In Twin Falls, Idaho, in April, Dylan Contreras, 19, became the most recent person arrested while trying to avoid police by giving a fake name ("Velesco") even though his real name (the one on outstanding warrants) was tattooed in plain sight on his forearm. (2) In April, a teller at Chicago's Northwest Side bank became the most recent to thwart a robbery simply by telling the perp (who had presented a holdup note) that the bank is now closed and suggesting that the robber come back the next day. (The perp walked out and did not return.) [Twin Falls Times-News, 4-4-2012] [Chicago Tribune, 4-4-2012]

-- Fine Points of the Law: A woman who was injured while traveling on business in November 2007 in New South Wales, Australia, was denied worker's compensation by the workplace safety tribunal on the grounds that the injury occurred in her motel room while she was having sex with a friend. (A wall light fixture came loose as a result of the pair's vigorous antics.) However, in April 2012, Australia's Federal Court overturned the decision and granted the compensation, ruling that since the woman was on assignment at the time, the overnight stay, and even the sex, were "ordinary incidents" of the situation her employer placed her in. [Sydney Morning Herald, 4-19-2012]

-- A New York City system-gaming public school teacher, Alan Rosenfeld, 66, continues to show up for make-work (such as photocopying "duty"), at a salary of $100,000 a year, rather than retire. Rosenfeld was accused in 2001 of making lewd comments to female students in his typing class and removed from classroom duty, but he protested and continues to exercise his union "due process" rights. In a January status report, the New York Post noted that Rosenfeld could have retired four years ago, but that by remaining on the "job," the value of his pension increases, and the light duty enables him to conduct his real estate business while at "work." [New York Post, 1-29-2012]

-- Fun for Everyone: The Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services in Palatine, Ill. (first reported in News of the Weird in 1991), continues to serve its community with the unique game room in the basement that it rents out for parties (except during actual funeral events). Even though the arcade games, shuffleboard and billiards are popular, the main basement attraction is still the nine-hole miniature golf course with its own "hazard" rules (e.g., two-stroke penalty for disturbing a "grave" on the course). [Time Out Chicago, 3-27-2012]