Update: Last week's News of the Weird gave serial impregnator Desmond Hatchett, of Knoxville, Tenn., too much credit. It is true that he has fathered at least 24 kids by at least 11 different women (and has no hope of meeting child-support obligations), but he is hardly Tennessee's most prolific. A June summary by the Daily Mail of London (citing WMC-TV and WREG-TV in Memphis) revealed that Terry Turnage of Memphis has 23 children by 17 different women, and Richard M. Colbert (also from Memphis) has 25 with 18 women. Courts have ordered the men to pay the various mothers monthly support ranging from $259 to $309, but one woman said the most she had ever seen from Turnage was $9. [Daily Mail, 6-14-2012]

-- Debbie Stevens, 47, filed a claim before the New York Human Rights commission in April alleging that she was fired in November by Ms. Jackie Brucia, a controller of the Atlantic Automotive Group of West Islip, N.Y., after Stevens failed to recover quickly enough from major surgery in August. Stevens had donated a kidney to Brucia, who apparently could not understand why Stevens was still in pain by Sept. 6 so that she needed more time off. (Actually, since Brucia and Stevens were not perfect matches, Brucia had Stevens donate to a woman ahead of Brucia on the waiting list, which created an opening for Brucia. Brucia's husband told a New York Post reporter in April that Stevens' claims were "far from the truth," but would not elaborate.) [New York Post, 4-23-2012]

-- In April, a jury in Charlotte, N.C., convicted Charles Hinton, 47, for a break-in at the Levine Children's Hospital in 2010, where he had been charged with stealing 10 video gaming systems that sick children relied on for entertainment while they received cancer treatment. [Charlotte Observer, 4-26-2012]

-- A CNN investigation revealed in May that the Disabled Veterans National Foundation had collected almost $56 million in donations over four years but given nearly all of it to two direct-mail fundraising companies. CNN was able to locate a small veterans charity in Birmingham, Ala., that received help, but mainly in the form of 2,600 bags of cough drops, 2,200 bottles of sanitizers, 11,520 bags of coconut M&Ms and 700 pairs of Navy dress shoes. Another, in Prescott, Ariz., received hundreds of chef's coats and aprons, cans of acrylic paint and a needlepoint design pillowcase. Said the manager of the Birmingham charity, "I ask myself what the heck are these people doing." [CNN, 5-8-2012]

-- Andrea Amanatides suffered a boo-boo in May while being booked to begin a six-month jail sentence in Albany, N.Y., for a probation violation. As she was being placed in a holding cell, a cache of drugs fell onto the floor. Deputies soon figured out that a condom Amanatides had placed into a bodily orifice had burst. The final inventory: 26 Oxycontins, 10 Ambiens, 50 Valiums, 37 Adderalls, plus 133 more prescription pills and four baggies containing heroin. The sequence was captured on surveillance video. [Times Union (Albany), 5-31-2012]

-- Weekend WTMW-TV (Portland, Maine) news anchor Meghan Torjussen was called on to deliver breaking sports news on June 3, the score of a playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. Time had run out in the fourth quarter with the score tied, 89-89. "I guess the game just ended," Torjussen announced. "This is what my producer is telling me right now." "There's the score (on the screen), 89-89. Uh, went down to the wire ... ended in a tie. (A)ll right, let's move on to professional baseball." (Boston eventually won, in overtime, 93-91.) [Huffington Post, 6-4-2012]

-- Things People Believe: Seattle attorney Andrew Basiago told Huffington Post in April that he "time-traveled" eight times as a child as part of the secret Project Pegasus staged by the Pentagon's notorious Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Another lawyer, Alfred Webre, recently explained, matter-of-factly, to a seminar audience in Vancouver, British Columbia, that teleportation is an "inexpensive, environmentally friendly means of transportation" and was used most recently by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "to transport troops to battle." Basiago said, in a flourish of detail, that he was at Ford's Theater the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated but did not witness it, and said that twice, he ran into himself while back in the past. [Huffington Post, 4-28-2012]

-- In June, the North Carolina Senate passed a state House of Representatives bill (House Bill 819) that orders scientists to use the "correct" way to predict weather in North Carolina. The bill requires that only historical analogies back to 1900 be used to predict sea-level rise -- meaning that scientists must ignore "feedback loops" in which recent, consistent heat and violent atmospheric conditions suggest more radical weather. For example, nine of the hottest 10 years on record have occurred since 2000, but North Carolina scientists must not be swayed by that fact because only patterns of the more stable 20th century can forecast 21st-century sea levels. (Many North Carolina coastal property owners believe the 40-or-more-inch rise in sea level by 2100 that is predicted by most scientists would threaten property values and would rather believe the perhaps-8-inch rise that House Bill 819 would dictate.) [The Virginian-Pilot, 6-12-2012] [Scientific American, 5-30-2012] [EarthObservatory.NASA.gov, 1-19-2012]

-- In testimony at an extortion trial in New York City in June, Anthony Russo (alleged Colombo family associate) told prosecutors that a mob war was narrowly averted after another Colombo hand learned that a new Staten Island pizza parlor (run by an alleged Bonanno associate) featured pies that suspiciously resembled those of the top-rated L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn, which has Colombo ties. Representatives of the families had a "sit-down" (at a neutral site -- a Panera Bread restaurant!) and worked out a payment plan to satisfy L&B. [New York Daily News, 6-13-2012]

-- Seattle police reported that a woman had been walking her dog in Plymouth Pillars Park at about 2 a.m. on May 10 and allegedly making noise that disturbed another man. Both were carrying pooper scoopers, and it is unclear which of the two started it, but the woman claimed the man jousted his toward her off and on in a "30-minute" duel, as she used hers to block his assaults. Police said a search failed to turn up suspects. [KOMO News via KVAL-TV (Eugene, Ore.), 5-15-2012]

-- Good to Know: Five hikers on holiday from Miami got lost overnight on May 3 high in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, N.Y., and endured a night of rain with temperatures in the 40s before they were rescued. One or more of the hikers (number unclear in the news report) got to test one theory of body-warming, but learned that its benefit was illusory. That is, warming up a cold body by urinating on it provides only momentary, if any, relief. [Times Union (Albany), 5-8-2012]

-- Serial flasher-alcoholic Michael McShane, 55, of Workington, England, seems well aware of the serious problem he has. He has been arrested 283 times (190 convictions) for indecent exposure and public drinking, and was apparently trying to keep himself out of trouble one night in April by dressing in two pairs of pants, so that if he shed one, he would still be within the law. However, on that night, police picked up a passed-out McShane outside a bar where he had already managed to pull both pairs of trousers down past his buttocks, and in May, he garnered conviction number 191, in Carlisle Crown Court. [News & Star (Cumbria), 5-21-2012]

Earlier this year, Tokyo artist Mao Sugiyama, 22, had elective surgery to remove his genitals, underscoring his commitment to an "asexual" lifestyle in which his behavior and attitude are supposedly completely irrelevant to whether he is male or female. Then, on April 8, he solicited diners to a meal (for the equivalent of about $250 each) in which his genitals were cooked and served, garnished with button mushrooms and Italian parsley. One applicant was a no-show, but five dined with him on April 13. According to a May report on Huffington Post, the well-photographed story "went viral" in Japan, and authorities repeatedly assured journalists that no law had been violated. [Huffington Post, 5-24-2012]

Thanks This Week to John Kearney, Glenn Mitchell and David Henshaw, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Chinese media reported that on May 4th, at the Xiaogan Middle School in Hubei province, high school students studying for the all-important national college entrance exam worked through the evening while hooked up to intravenous drips of amino acids to fight fatigue. A director of the school's Office of Academic Affairs reasoned that before the IVs were hung, weary students complained of losing too much time running back and forth to the school's infirmary for energy injections. After the media reports, there was a public backlash, but less against the notion that China was placing too much importance on the exams than against reports that the government was subsidizing the cost of the injections. [South China Morning Post, 5-9-2012]

-- Desmond Hatchett, 33, was summoned to court in Knoxville, Tenn., in May so that a judge could chastise him for again failing to make child-support payments. Official records show that Hatchett has at least 30 children (ages 14 down to "toddler") by at least 11 women. He said at a 2009 court appearance that he was "through" siring children and apparently has taken proper precautions since then. (In Milwaukee, Wis., in April, Sean Patrick was sentenced to 30 years in prison for owing more than $146,000 for 12 children by 10 mothers, and the city's Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that, before being locked up, two convicted pimps, Derrick Avery and Todd Carter, had fathered, respectively, 15 kids by seven women and 16 children with "several" mothers.) [Los Angeles Times, 5-18-2012] [Journal Sentinel, 4-3-2012]

-- The Associated Press reported in May that Kentucky prison officials were working behind the scenes to resolve the thorny question of whether inmate Robert Foley deserves a hip replacement. Normally, a prisoner in such extreme pain would qualify. However, Foley, 55, is on death row for killing six people in 1989 and 1991, and since he has exhausted his appeals, he is still alive only because a court has halted all executions while the state reconsiders its lethal-injection procedure. Furthermore, all local hospitals queried by the prison to perform the procedure have declined to take Foley because the prison considers him dangerous. [Associated Press via AzCentral.com (Phoenix), 5-17-2012]

-- Chilean artist Sebastian Errazuriz recently created "Christian popsicles" made from wine that Errazuriz obtained by trickery after a priest consecrated it into "the blood of Christ." The popsicle's stick is actually a figure of Jesus on the cross, as sort of a reward for finishing the treat. (Also, The Icecreamists shop in London, England, recently began offering a popsicle made with absinthe -- and holy water from a spring in Lourdes, France, which many Catholics revere for its healing powers. The "Vice Lolly" sells for the equivalent of about $29.) [CNN, 5-17-2012] [DigitalSpy.com (Hearst Publications), 5-31-2012]

-- The official class photo of Eileen Diaz's second-grade kids at Sawgrass Elementary School in Sunrise, Fla., was distributed this spring with the face of the front-and-center child replaced by a dark-on-white smiley face. Apparently there was miscommunication between the school and the photographer about redoing the photo without the child, whose parents had not given permission for the shot. (Another child without parental authorization was easily edited out of the photo, but the front-and-center student could not be.) [WPLG-TV (Miami), 4-3-2012]

-- In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled, 3-0, that it is not necessarily improper under federal law for Minute Maid to name a beverage "Pomegranate Blueberry" even though those two ingredients constitute only 0.5 percent of the contents. A competing seller of pomegranate juices had sued in 2008, pointing out that 99.4 percent of the Minute Maid beverage was merely apple and grape juices. Minute Maid's owner, Coca-Cola, called the competitor's complaint "baseless." [San Francisco Chronicle, 5-18-2012]

-- Almost all companies that collect customer data publish their policies on how they keep the data "private" (even though those "privacy" policies almost always explain just precisely the ways they intend not to keep the data "private" -- and are not required to by law). Researchers writing in the journal I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society (summarized in an April post on the blog TechDirt.com) found that if typical consumers bothered to read all of the detailed privacy policies they encountered, it would take from 181 to 304 hours per year (22-38 workdays), depending on shopping habits. (If every consumer in America did it, it would take from 40 billion to 67 billion hours a year, or 5 billion to 8.3 billion workdays a year.) [TechDirt.com, 4-23-2012]

-- In April, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it was fining Google for deliberately impeding the agency's investigation into the company's collection of wireless data by its roaming Street View vehicles and that the agency had decided, based on Google's "ability to pay," that it needed to double its staff-proposed fine in order to "deter future misconduct." Hence, it raised Google's fine from $12,000 to $25,000. (As pointed out by ProPublica.org, during the previous quarter year, Google made profits of $2.89 billion, or $25,000 every 68 seconds.) [ProPublica, 4-16-2012]

-- In April, police in Newtown Township, Pa., searched (unsuccessfully, it turns out) for a "skinny" black male, between ages 35 and 45, wearing a black tracksuit. He had indecently exposed himself at a place of business -- the offices of the Bucks County Association for the Blind (although, obviously, at least one sighted person reported his description). [PhillyBurbs.com, 5-1-2012]

-- District of Columbia Councilman Marion Barry initially was scorned in May for criticizing the influx of "Asian" shopkeepers into the ward that he represents. "They got to go. I'll say that right now." Later, after re-thinking the issue, Barry announced that his ward should be "the model of diversity," and issued an apology to Asian-Americans. But, he lamented, America has always been tough on immigrants. "The Irish caught hell, the Jews caught hell, the Polacks caught hell." (The preferred terms are "Polish" or "Poles.") [WTOP Radio (Washington, D.C.), 5-24-2012]

(1) A team of scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, following up on a Harvard study that found dramatic weight-loss qualities from eating yogurt, did its own yogurt study. The results, summarized in Scientific American in May, noted that yogurt-eating male mice have 10 times the follicle density of other mice, producing "luxuriantly silky fur" and larger, outward-projecting testicles that made them far more effective inseminators. (2) British researchers from the University of Liverpool and the University of Bristol concluded in an April journal article that caterpillars of the large white butterfly, which defends itself against predators by vomiting on them, are less likely to do so when the caterpillars live in groups. The researchers hypothesize that gratuitous vomiters are seen as poor mating risks. [Scientific American, 5-4-2012] [Science Daily, 4-12-2012]

The most recently reported morbidly obese person who required that her home be partially torn apart by firefighters so that she could be lifted out to be taken to a hospital was teenager Georgia Davis in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Davis, 19, weighs nearly 800 pounds, and 40 people were involved in extricating her in May from her upstairs bedroom, via scaffolding. (Several years ago, Davis enrolled in a weight-loss camp in the U.S. and got down to about 250 pounds, but she quickly gained it back.) [WalesOnline.com, 5-24-2012]

A time-honored defense used by many older men when charged with having sex with underage girls is now so common that it must be retired from circulation. In February in Bridgeport, Conn., Norberto Millet, 60, denied raping the 9-year-old girl, accusing her of actually attacking him -- and said he had to fight her off. In fact, Millet told police, a lot of girls 8- to 10 years old try to have sex with him. And in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in May, Lyle Moodie, 47 at the time, said much the same about his 16-year-old accuser. "She just suddenly grabbed me by the pajama bottoms. I pulled back and said, 'No, stop.' I didn't know what to do." [Connecticut Post, 2-10-2012] [Canoe.ca, 5-16-2012]

Thanks This Week to Gary Goldberg and David Henshaw, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisers.

Norway is home to perhaps the most inmate-friendly prison in the world (as mentioned previously in "News of the Weird"), but the correctional system has an imminent crisis, as Anders Behring Breivik (the confessed killer of 77 people last year) is nearing formal conviction and sentencing. Officials fear the sociopathic Breivik will try to kill inmates to add to his toll, yet Norwegian law forbids solitary confinement as cruel. Consequently, according to a May report by Norway's Verdens Gang newspaper, the officials have begun a search to select, hire and train appropriate "friends" to hang out with Breivik behind bars to win his trust and prevent further mayhem. Among Breivik's favorite recreational distractions: chess and hockey. [Daily Telegraph (London) via MSNBC, 5-31-2012]

-- Collections of comically poor translations are legion, but the Beijing municipal government, in sympathy with English-speaking restaurant-goers, published a helpful guidebook recently of what the restaurateurs were trying, though inartfully, to say. In an April interview with the authors, NBC News learned the contents of "Hand Shredded A$$ Meat" (sic) (merely donkey meat) and other baffling English descriptions (all taken from actual menus), such as "Cowboy Leg," "Red-Burned Lion Head," "Blow-up Flatfish With No Result," and the very unhelpful "Tofu Made by Woman With Freckles" and "Strange Flavor Noodles." [MSNBC, 4-20-2012]

-- Competitive facial-hair-growers are revered in some countries, with Pakistan and India featured in recent reports. Pakistani Amir Muhammad Afridi, 42, whose handlebar lip hair extends in an arc almost to the top of his head, told reporters he had to move from his rural home to the more secular Peshawar because of threats that his pride and joy was un-Islamic. And the Guinness Book record- holder, Ram Singh Chauhan, 54, of India, offered grooming tips in an interview with BBC News, revealing that he keeps his 14-foot-long moustache conditioned by cleaning and combing it for an hour each day (treated with coconut-based hair oil) and lamented that he must wind it around his neck to keep it from interfering with his daily activities. [Daily Telegraph (London), 4-9-2012] [BBC News, 5-17-2012]

-- In the spirit of the empowerment of dissidents around the world, activists in Ukraine and South Africa recently erected downright disrespectful statues lampooning leaders. In Kiev and the western city of Lvov, Ukraine, activists unveiled 5-foot-high statues of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin urinating. (Police in both cities took them down quickly, however.) And South African artist Brett Murray museum-exhibited a red, black and yellow acrylic painting of President Jacob Zuma ("Hail to the Thief II") with his genitals exposed, an allusion to Zuma's having beaten a rape charge in 2006. (The Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, which first resisted pressure, agreed in May to remove the painting.) [RIA/Novasti (Moscow), 5-8-2012] [BBC News, 5-18-2012]

-- Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced in April that it would begin a national inquiry over the alarming number of bathtub deaths in 2011 -- nearly three times the number of those killed in traffic accidents. News reports pointed out that many Japanese workers relax in tubs at the end of the day, even when they have overimbibed and are vulnerable to drowning. [Daily Telegraph (London), 4-30-2012]

(1) In Kent, Washington, in May, Yong Hyun Kim, 21, was charged with assault at a movie house. Annoyed by a group of kids in the row behind him who were constantly talking, laughing and throwing popcorn during "Titanic," Yong slapped the nearest boy, bloodying his nose and knocking out a tooth. (2) In Pirmasens, Germany, in May, a 61-year-old woman was fined the equivalent of almost $1,000 for assault. Frustrated by telemarketers' constantly cold-calling her, she took it out on one by blowing a whistle into the telephone, allegedly causing permanent damage to the telemarketer's hearing. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5-22-2012] [The Local (Hamburg), 5-22-2012]

-- Google Trends notes that five of the top seven countries in the world whose residents search "sex" are Muslim, and in Iran, especially, a "virtual cottage industry" has developed of clerics turning into amateur sexologists, according to the May/June Foreign Policy -- often with mockable results. For example, one cleric declared, "If a person has intercourse with a cow, a sheep or a camel," it is not proper to consume the animal's milk. Leaders, from former president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (who believed that women's hair emits sexual rays) to the current Ayatollah Khamenei (who approves the concept of Islamic "temporary marriages" that justify quick assignations) promote internal friskiness while at the same time denouncing outsiders (especially Americans) for attempting to corrupt the country's morals. [Foreign Policy, May/June 2012]

-- Two veteran Church of England vicars were in the news in May for their unique approaches. Rev. Andy Kelso left the church after 25 years to start an Elvis Presley Gospel Tribute act as "Elvis Prayersley." Said Kelso, "I felt God say to me very strongly, 'Take Elvis to the church.'" And Rev. Nick Davies of Cheltenham, England, promises to continue breathing fire part-way through his sermons (to mark Pentecost, in which the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus' disciples, appearing as "tongues of flame"). [Metro (London), 5-24-2012] [BBC News, 5-27-2012]

-- Hard Month for Gays and Lesbians: Internet video excerpts of church services, all posted during May, recorded Christian pastors prescribing harsh futures for homosexuals. Pastor Sean Harris (Fayetteville, N.C.) recommended roughing up a limp-wristed son if the boy acts effeminately (but said later he was joking). Pastor Ron Baity (Winston-Salem, N.C.) wants gays and lesbians "prosecuted" (though the excerpt was not clear what particular statute was violated). Pastor Charles Worley (Maiden, N.C.) wants gays and lesbians rounded up and isolated behind an electrified fence so they won't breed to the larger population. Pastor Curtis Knapp (Seneca, Kan.) said "the government" should just kill them all (according to biblical commandment, he said). Pastor Dennis Leatherman (Oakland, Md.) likes "the idea" of killing them but added that it would be wrong. And at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, Ind., a 3-year-old boy's rendition of "Ain't no homo going to make it to heaven" also made it around the world on the Internet. [CNN, 5-8-2012] [Winston-Salem Journal, 5-8-2012] [CNN, 5-23-2012] [Huffington Post, 5-30-2012] [Huffington Post, 5-31-2012] [WRTV (Indianapolis), 5-31-2012]

-- Ms. Stormy Moody was arrested and charged with aggravated burglary in Henderson County, Tenn., in May after her next-door neighbor returned from a trip and discovered that quite a few items (from the petty to the more expensive) were missing from the home. For some reason, Moody felt secure enough to be wearing some of the clothing as she chatted sympathetically with the victim about the missing items. [WBBJ-TV (Jackson, Tenn.), 5-23-2012]

-- Most public officials caught "sexting" immediately turn remorseful, but not Michigan appeals court judge Wade McCree III. In April, when the husband of a female bailiff in McCree's court saw that the judge had sent the bailiff a shirtless photo of himself, McCree told a curious reporter for Detroit's WJBK-TV, "Hot dog, yep, that's me." "I've got no shame in my game." "I'm in no more clothes than I'll be at the Y this afternoon when I swim my mile." The still-irate husband said he would pursue a judicial commission complaint against McCree. [Fox News, 4-24-2012]

(1) Calvin Hill, 54, was arrested in Greenwood, S.C., in May after allegedly stabbing a 41-year-old man with whom he was arguing in the back seat of a car. The police report stated that the men were arguing "about who can have the most sex." (2) WJBK-TV reported in June that two men in the Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit wound up in a gunfight over which one made Kool-Aid better. (Neither man was hit, but two bystanders were reportedly wounded.) [The Smoking Gun, 5-8-2012] [WJBK-TV, 6-1-2012]

In Stockholm, N.Y., in May, a 24-year-old man became the most recent to have a friend shoot him just because the man wanted to know what it felt like to get shot. The friend, Shawn Mossow, 25, relented, finally, and fired a .22-caliber rifle shot into the man's leg, but the man is expected to make a full recovery. [Associated Press via WSYR-TV (Syracuse), 5-15-2012]

CORRECTION: Contrary to "News of the Weird" of 5-27-2012, prominent "breatharian" Ellen Greve is not dead, which clearly means that she has been cheating on the "sun and air only" diet that she promoted during the 1990s. In reading a news story, I must have confused Greve with one of her followers (who apparently faithfully observed the diet).

Thanks This Week to Gary DaSilva, Max Noriega, Gerald Sacks and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.