In August, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration dropped all charges against a doctor who has been at the center of a prescription-drug fraud case because, said prosecutors, they have too much evidence against him and not enough space to store it. The U.S. attorney in northern Iowa said her office needs to clear out the 400,000 paper documents and two terabytes of electronic data (the latter of which under current technology takes up little space but in DEA's antiquated computer system hogs 5 percent of the agency's worldwide electronic storage). The accused, Dr. Armando Angulo, has lived since 2004 in Panama, which will not extradite him. (He remains under indictment on state charges in Florida.) [Associated Press via Ames Tribune, 8-16-2012]

-- If Megan Duskey's parents had been with her that night in 2010, they perhaps would have insisted she (dressed as the comic book hero Silver Spectre) not try to slide down the railing during the Halloween-themed ball at Chicago's Palmer House Hilton hotel, but she did slide down, and she fell four floors to her death. Nonetheless, in July 2012, the parents filed a $500,000 lawsuit against Hilton and other entities, claiming that the death of Ms. Duskey at age 23 was the hotel's and the sponsors' fault. [Chicago Sun-Times, 7-25-2012]

-- In July, a California appeals court reinstated police officer Enrique Chavez's lawsuit against the Austrian gun manufacturer Glock for its "unsafe" design. Chavez is now paralyzed from the waist down because his 3-year-old son got hold of the gun and accidentally fired it, hitting his dad. Chavez, in violation of police policies, had left the gun loaded underneath the front seat of his car, and his son, whom Chavez had not belted into a child seat, was free to explore while Dad drove. The gun is regarded as of safe design by dozens, if not hundreds, of police departments, and the LAPD disciplined Chavez over the incident. [San Francisco Chronicle, 7-24-2012]

-- Didier Peleman, 41, is a major-party candidate for the city council in Ghent, Belgium, and, like most, has champions and detractors. Though he has been active in "community work" for 11 years, Peleman is candid about a mental disability that noticeably slows down his speaking and writing and which some voters fear impedes his reasoning ability. His Flemish Christian Democrats Party said it is important that people with disabilities challenge constraints. [TV-Novasti (Moscow), 8-7-2012]

-- A July battle in the House of Representatives pitted austerity-driven members striving to cut $72 million in spending on NASCAR against North Carolina House members determined to keep the money in. (Most NASCAR teams are headquartered in the state, as is the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the NASCAR Hall of Fame.) More than a third of the money would go to the National Guard for sponsoring driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. The North Carolina legislators believe military recruitment will suffer unless the race- car connection is maintained. [News and Observer (Raleigh), 7-19-2012]

-- Karma: (1) In July a 30-year-old man suspected of skipping out on a bar bill at the Hilton Garden Inn in Manchester, N.H., did not make it far. As he tried to hop an iron fence, he impaled his leg and eventually required eight firefighters to rescue him using hydraulic cutting tools. (2) Greyston Garcia, 26, who was cleared of murder charges in January under Florida's "stand your ground" defense (even though he had chased the victim more than a block to stab him to death after the man took his radio), was inadvertently killed in June by random gang gunfire in Miami. [WHDH-TV (Boston) via NBC News, 7-17-2012] [USA Today, 6-27-2012]

-- Csanad Szegedi, a member of the European Parliament representing the anti-Semitic Jobbik Party of Hungary (a party whose presidential candidate described Jews as "lice-infested"), resigned in August after admitting that he had learned two years earlier that his own mother was (and therefore he is) a Jew. Initially, Szegedi tried to quash the revelation via bribery but eventually resigned, apologized, and vowed to pay respects at Auschwitz. [Associated Press via CBS News, 8-14-2012]

-- Mark Worsfold, 54, a former British soldier and martial arts instructor, was sitting along a road on July 28 watching the Olympic men's cycling race when he was detained because police on security alert said his "behavior" had "caused concern." According to a report in The Guardian, Worsfold, after being handcuffed and taken to a police station, was told he was arousing suspicion because he "had not been seen to be visibly enjoying the event," to which he replied, truthfully, that he has Parkinson's disease, which causes facial rigidity. (After two hours of detention, he was released without charges.) [The Guardian, 8-8-2012]

-- Dennis Brown, 55, was arrested in August in Tyler, Texas, after police saw him taking pictures, surreptitiously, of women and high school girls near Robert E. Lee High School. Since people in public spaces generally have no legal expectation of privacy, Brown could not normally be charged with a crime. However, Brown admitted to police that the mundane photos of the clothed women were for his sexual enjoyment. He was perhaps unaware of a Texas Penal Code provision that requires consent for any type of photo of another person if it is for "sexual gratification" (a motive that, regarding ordinary photographs, is nearly impossible to prove -- unless the accused volunteers it). [Tyler Morning Telegraph, 8-10-2012]

Problems of the First World: Third World teenagers often must deal with conscription, sweatshop labor and life as street beggars, but in affluent New York City (according to a June report in The New York Times), a major anxiety of teen and almost-teen girls is having to endure sleepaway summer camp with hairy legs. Said celebrity makeup designer Bobbi Brown, "If she's going to be in a bunk with all these girls," and "insecure" about lip or leg hair, "You do whatever you can do to make her feel good." (Seemingly drawing on the Times story, Uni K Waxing of New York City announced a July-only special -- with girls 15 and under receiving a 50 percent discount on bikini-waxing.) [New York Times, 6-7-2012] [Huffington Post, 7-6-2012]

As the frenzied pace of contemporary life becomes less appealing, Dull Men's Clubs have grown since their News of the Weird mention in 2007. A July Wall Street Journal dispatch from Pembroke, Mass., revealed recent themes for that club's excitement-challenged members, including why one of them carries a spoon everywhere and the old standbys of which way toilet paper should hang and the wisdom of a city's street grid system. DullMensClub.com has about 5,000 members who always, according to legend, "think inside the box" about such topics as remembering to keep their staplers filled and which way, in airports around the world, luggage carousels turn (clockwise or counter- clockwise). [Wall Street Journal, 7-19-2012]

Christian Hobbs, 44, was arrested in Salem, N.H., in August after a woman discovered him underneath her mobile home, looking up at her through a hole in the floor of her bathroom. The woman said Hobbs had sold her the home two years ago and recently done some handyman work for her, leading to this unauthorized modification. Police said Hobbs had taken cellphone video of the woman and her toddler in the bathroom and that the food, beverages and tissues found underneath the home suggested that Hobbs had been there for as long as two days. [Union Leader (Manchester), 8-16-2012]

From a July report on NewZimbabwe.com (motto: "The Zimbabwe News You Trust"): On July 11, as many as 26 women in two villages presided over by Chief Njelele of Gokwe awoke missing their panties, which were later found in a heap down the road, with 17 pairs "positively identified" by the victims. Just as the chief was making arrangements to bring in a "prophet" to find the evil local "wizard," a huge owl swooped down a few feet away and carried off a dog. "It's mind-boggling what's going on in the area," the chief said. [NewZimbabwe.com (Harare), 7-24-2012]

Thanks This Week to Cindy Hildebrand, Brian Bixby, Hal Dunham, Alan Magid, Roy Henock, John McGaw, and Mark Tegtmeyer, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Unclear on the Concept (and the Image): The Associated Press, reporting in August from Jerusalem, noted that the ultra-Orthodox community's "modesty patrols" were selling eyeglasses with "special blur-inducing stickers" that fuzz up distant images so that offended men will not inadvertently spot immodestly dressed women. (The stickers apparently simulate nearsightedness, in that vision is clear in the near-field.) The "modesty patrols" have long tried to shame women dressed in anything other than closed-neck, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts, but may be losing that fight. A columnist for the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz praised the eyeglasses for shifting the responsibility to men for their priggishness. [Associated Press via Salon.com, 8-8-2012; Haaretz, 8-11-2012]

-- Periodically, News of the Weird reports on foreigners' cuisines that most Americans find "undelectable." A June Wall Street Journal story featured a hardy, fun-loving group of New Yorkers (the "Innard Circle") who dine monthly at out-of-the-way ethnic restaurants in order to sample such dishes as camel's eyeball ("way different from a goat's eyeball," said one member) and "crispy colorectal," and had recently learned, from a non-English-speaking waitress, that they had just consumed bull's diaphragm. Another member admitted "an element of showing off" to the exercise, and acknowledged that not all rookie members return for a second meal. The one body part that no one seems to recall having tried yet: uterus. [Wall Street Journal, 6-24-2012]

-- The way it usually happens is Mom and Dad start a road trip with their children, but after a rest stop, they fail to notice that one of the kids is not on board, and they may be well down the road before they turn around. However, in June, the family member left behind at a Memphis, Tenn., rest stop was Dad, and for 100 miles, no one grasped that he was missing. The family was traveling in a van, and everyone presumed Dad was in the back. He was still at the gas station, calling his own phone (which was in the back of the van). Dad finally reached Mom in the van by posting to Facebook. [WBIR-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), 6-25-2012]

-- In June, inmate Michelle Richards, 33, was about to begin her sentence at the Albany County (N.Y.) jail when guards discovered a hypodermic needle and seven packets of heroin inside her vagina. (She had been arrested for possessing a needle and heroin in her bra.) Richards' arrest came about a week after inmate Andrea Amanatides was caught at the very same jailhouse using the same hiding place to sneak in heroin and 256 prescription pills (reported in News of the Weird eight weeks ago). (Amanatides' stash was discovered when the baggie holding it became dislodged and broke open on the floor.) [Times Union (Albany), 6-13-2012]

-- Stores and transportation carriers are, after all these years, still unsure about which "assistance animals" they must allow without violating the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. Under the U.S. Department of Transportation's latest draft guidelines for airlines, released in February, miniature horses and pot-bellied pigs are allowed on board under certain conditions, but not ferrets, rodents, spiders, snakes or other reptiles. Apparently there is a North American Potbellied Pig Association, whose vice president pointed out to CNSNews.com that swine can be trained to open and close doors and to use a litter box. [CNS News, 7-6-2012]

-- Another Fortuitous Injury: Fortunately, 9-year-old Jacob Holdaway got hit in the head so hard during a game of kickball in Fairland, Ind., in July that he started vomiting and having severe headaches. Because his parents took him to a hospital for that head smack, doctors found a golfball-sized tumor that might not have been discovered until after it had become dangerously large. Doctors were able to remove most of it and suspect it was benign. [WRTV (Indianapolis), 7-17-2012]

-- Another Absent-Minded Musician: The most recent musician to carry a rare, expensive instrument on public transportation but then forget to take it with him was the person who in July left a borrowed Stradivarius violin on a train when he got off in Bern, Switzerland. Initially, the musician panicked, but the violin was eventually turned in by a good Samaritan. (The last News of the Weird report of such a Stradivarius was the one accidentally left in a New York City taxicab in 2008. That instrument, reported as worth $4 million, was also returned.) [Huffington Post, 7-31-2012]

-- Several inventors have attempted over the years to transport bodily sensations over the Internet so that couples separated by distance can simulate personal affections to each other. Now comes Hooman Samani of the Singapore company Lovotics, introducing his "Kissenger" at a design conference in Newcastle, England, in June. Kissenger is a large, soft ball with human-like lips and many pressure points, connected in tandem by the Internet, so that the unique lip movements by one lover are received precisely by the other as if their mouths were actually working the kiss. (In May 2011, Kajimoto Lab in Tokyo introduced a machine with a straw-like device that, when rotated by one lover's tongue, theoretically rotated one in the partner's device, thus simulating a "French kiss." That simulator, though, lacked the pillow-like facial feel of the Kissenger.) [New Scientist, 7-19-2012]

-- Attendance is still strong in tiny Shingo, Japan, where villagers are certain that Jesus Christ is buried. About 500 tourists joined the celebration on June 3 (an event first held in 1964), in honor of Jesus' relocation there (presumably a voluntary journey from Calvary after the crucifixion). According to legend, he lived out his life in Shingo uneventfully, and a festival with dancing girls marks the anniversary. [Kyodo News via Japan Times, 6-5-2012]

-- News of the Weird has reported several times on farmers who are certain that treating their cows to better lifestyles improves the quality of their milk and their meat. In July, London's Daily Telegraph, in a dispatch from Paris, touted Jean-Charles Tastavy's experiment feeding three cows with a fine wine for four months (in a mixture, along with their usual barley and hay). (They "loved" it and consumed it "with relish," said the farm's owner.) The resulting meat, labeled "Vinbovin," is now a delicacy in Paris restaurants (despite steeper prices to reflect the increased feeding costs for the cows). [Daily Telegraph, 7-10-2012]

-- Michael Wyatt first made News of the Weird in 1991 when foot fetishism was viewed as unfit to report in most newspapers. Several arrests (owing to his aggressiveness and threats of amputating feet) have followed, resulting in jail sentences, but Wyatt is apparently still unable to resist his urges. In July in Faulkner County, Ark., Wyatt, 51, was sentenced to a year in prison for violating the terms of a deferred sentence he had received for harassing a woman about her feet in 2011. [Reuters via KWCH-TV (Wichita, Kan.), 7-11-2012]

-- William "The Hackney Mole Man" Lyttle (first mentioned in News of the Weird in 2001) died in 2010 after spending most of his last 40 years compulsively digging elaborate tunnels underneath his home in east London. By the time authorities could stop him, the hollow shafts were endangering the street and adjacent homes. He was ordered to pay the equivalent of $560,000 so that the holes could be filled, and in July 2012 the refurbished, supposedly structurally sound home was placed at auction and drew a winning bid of the equivalent of about $1.5 million. [The Guardian, 7-19-2012]

First Amendment Blues: (1) A bar in Horry County, S.C., named the Suck Bang Blow filed a lawsuit in May challenging the county's new ordinance prohibiting motorcyclists' "burnouts" (engine-revving with back-tire-spinning, creating smoke -- and enormous noise). The bar claims that burnouts are important expressions of its customers' "manliness and macho" and as such are protected by the First Amendment. (2) Luigi Bellavite complained to reporters in Mountain View, Colo., in July that the theft of his "Vote Satan" yard sign ought to be prosecuted as a "hate crime" under state law -- as he is a member of the Church of Satan. Police called it an ordinary theft. [Sun News (Myrtle Beach), 6-10-2012] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 7-2-2012]

-- Miniature golf is remarkably simple to play, requiring neither experience nor much exertion, and even toddlers can negotiate their own brand of fun on the course. However, in March, a set of "accessible design" standards went into effect, under the Americans With Disabilities Act, governing such things as the "slope" of courses (maximum 1:4 rise on some holes), the maximum length of the blades if artificial turf is used, and the minimum area of the "tee-off" landing (48 inches by 60 inches, with a slope not steeper than 1:48). [CNS News, 6-26-2012]

-- The only unlimited-issue U.S. visa allowing fast-lane entrance for certain foreign workers is the O-1, available to those (e.g., scientists, technology engineers) who, in the opinion of the State Department, demonstrate "extraordinary ability." Reuters reported in June that an O-1 recently went to British journalist Piers Morgan, whose extraordinariness seems limited to replacing Larry King on his CNN interview program, and another to Shera Bechard, Playboy's Miss November 2010, whose other accomplishment seems to be the creation of an online photo-sharing experience called "Frisky Friday." [Reuters, 6-29-2012]

-- Canadian rap singer Manu Militari was, until earlier this year, sufficiently patriotic to have received more than $100,000 in government grants that originated with the Canadian Heritage department. However, a June video released ahead of his new album "L'Attente" portrayed Afghan Taliban fighters targeting a convoy of Canadian soldiers, planting a roadside bomb and aiming their rifles at the Canadians' heads. Over 150 Canadian soldiers have died fighting the Taliban and their insurgent allies. [National Post, 6-29-2012]

-- Forgetful: (1) USA Today, quoting a Pentagon official, reported in July that, during the last decade, the Pentagon had paid "late fees" totaling $610 million for not returning leased shipping containers by the due dates. (2) A Government Accountability Office report in July revealed that the federal government's vast properties include about 14,000 offices and buildings that are vacant (or nearly so), but which the government still pays to maintain (at about $190 million a year). (A large building in Washington, D.C.,'s Georgetown -- among the most valuable real estate in the city -- has sat mostly unused for more than 10 years.) (3) The Miami-Dade County, Fla., government confirmed in April that it had discovered, in storage, 298 brand-new vehicles that had been purchased in 2006-2007, but which had never been used. [USA Today, 7-11-2012] [ABC News, 7-3-2012] [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) via Autoblog.com, 4-20-2012]

-- New Mexico is an "open carry" state, with otherwise-law-abiding adults authorized to display loaded handguns in public. However, in the town of Vaughn (pop. 500, located mid-nowhere), perhaps the only ones not authorized to carry are the town's two police officers. Chief Ernest Armijo had been convicted in 2011 of criminal nonsupport of a wife and two sons, and among the conditions of probation was the prohibition on gun possession. Deputy Brian Bernal has his own domestic issue: a conviction for family violence that bars him, under federal law, from carrying. [KOB-TV (Albuquerque), 6-28-2012]

-- Most people who call an FBI field office would be in serious trouble if they left an answering-machine message for a named agent, along with the caller's name and telephone number, in a message consisting of at least 13 F-word epithets threatening to "break (the agent's) (F-word) neck." However, when Thomas Troy Bitter left the message at the San Diego field office, according to a July report in OC Weekly, the agency, after initially charging Bitter, quietly dropped the prosecution with no further repercussions. OC Weekly speculated that Bitter is a confidential informant whom the FBI was late in paying. [OC Weekly, 7-9-2012]

-- Specialist Perps: (1) In May, Chicago police arrested a man they believed had just minutes earlier used a Bobcat front-end loader to crash through the window of a Family Dollar store and steal two cans of deodorant and a handful of gift cards (and nothing else) and walk away. (2) Police in Lorain, Ohio, were looking in June for a black man about 18 years old who had been seen on surveillance video breaking into the same Sunoco convenience store several times recently and taking up to $600 worth of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. [Chicago Tribune, 11-11-2012] [Lorain Morning Journal, 6-20-2012]

Paris designer Jean-Emmanuel "Valnoir" Simoulin's latest project combines his boyhood fascination with jacket patches and the societal fascination with body modification. He said he will sew patches featuring his band's next album directly onto the skin of his own back. "It's a nostalgic project about my teenage-hood, when I had an iron faith (in) black-metal (music)." [Imprint magazine via Salon.com, 7-18-2012]

People With Too Much Money: The dogs could not care less, but the luxury doghouse market is thriving, according to a June New York Times report. "Many of them have carpeting, heating and air-conditioning, indoor and outdoor lighting, elaborate ... entertainment systems," wrote the Times, and some even have solar panels. But, said one owner, "Maggie's never been in (hers). She's a house dog." Although walmart.com offers upscale houses for $4,400 to $4,600, the more tony ones can go for more than $25,000. Top-shelf interior designers have created dog beds suspended from the ceiling and houses in which the music kicks on only as the dog enters (meaning that it almost never kicks on). [New York Times, 6-27-2012]

It has been reported variously as an urban legend and a true story, but a well-documented July report in Chinese media, picked up by CNN, looks unfortunately authentic. A 13-year-old boy in Shandong Province was severely injured by a prank at an auto repair shop at which he worked. Doctors at Bayi Children's Hospital in Beijing confirmed that the co-workers had inserted the nozzle of an air pump into his rectum and shot air into the intestines, inflating his belly, damaging his liver, kidneys and stomach, and sending him into a coma for eight days. Doctors deflated him, but at press time, he remained in intensive care. [CNN, 7-13-2012]

(1) Police in Lewiston, Idaho, discovered in July that someone had passed a counterfeit $1 bill recently. A veteran officer told the Lewiston Tribune that counterfeiting a $1 bill is so stupid that he had seen only one in his life, made by a junior-high student to pay off a bully. (2) In June, firefighters were called to a trolley stop in National City, Calif., to free the arm of a 17-year-old boy after he got it stuck when he reached up a vending machine slot to try to steal a soda. The rescuers employed axes, crowbars, an air chisel and a rotary saw. [Associated Press via KREM-TV (Spokane, Wash.), 7-24-2012] [KGTV (San Diego), 6-24-2012]

(1) Rodney Valentine, 37, was released from jail in Wentworth, N.C., on July 21 about 8 a.m., but adamantly refused to leave until deputies agreed to drive him to a local motel. They declined, and by noon, Valentine had been re-arrested and charged with trespassing in the jail. (2) TSA Meets Its Match: Jonah Falcon told Huffington Post in July that he had recently survived a pat-down at San Francisco International Airport. Falcon was named in a 1999 HBO documentary as having the largest penis on record, and apparently the "suspicious" bulge drew the attention of the TSA screener, who patted him down and dusted him with explosive-detecting powder before releasing him. [WGHP-TV (Greensboro), 7-23-2012] [Huffington Post, 7-17-2012]