People's love for their pets reached a new high in December when a British man paid a veterinarian the equivalent of $500 to perform delicate surgery on a sick office goldfish (typical pet store "replacement" price: $1 to $5). Vet Faye Bethell of North Walsham, England, told the Eastern Daily Press in December that there was "nothing special" about the fish, but that the customer "just liked it a lot." In fact, the goldfish likely did not even have a pet name -- as Bethell in an interview spoke intimately of another patient by name (Cadbury, the skunk). (Bethell's procedure involved removing the patient from the bowl, flooding its gills with anesthetic-fortified water, and using a tiny scalpel to remove lumps that were causing it constipation, with the surgery guided by a miniature heart-rate monitor.) [Eastern Daily Press (Norwich, England), 1-1-2015]

Iraq's government-run channel, Iraqiyya TV, has a reality show reminiscent of American confrontational programs, but is designed to force captured ISIS fighters to acknowledge the pain they have created. One episode of "In the Grip of the Law" (described in a December Associated Press dispatch) showed family members of car-bombing victims on a street corner in Baghdad haranguing one of the men convicted of the crime. A young man in a wheelchair, having lost his father in the attack, faced off against the convict, screaming until the jihadist "began weeping, as the cameras rolled." [Associated Press via New York Daily News, 12-22-2014]

-- On Nov. 6, a couple (aged 68 and 65) were hospitalized after spending almost 13 hours locked in their car inside their own garage in Alexandra, New Zealand. The night before, they had been unable to remember a salesman's tutorial on how to unlock their new Mazda 3 from the inside and had spent the night assuming they were trapped because they had forgotten to bring along the battery-operated key. The wife was unconscious when neighbors finally noticed them, and her husband was struggling to breathe. (The door unlocks manually, of course.) [Otago Daily Times, 12-13-2014]

-- At first, it seemed another textbook case of a wrongly convicted murderer being released after a long prison stint (15 years), based on a re-examination of evidence. Illinois officials freed Alstory Simon, who had "confessed" in 1999 to killing two teenagers (before a defendants' advocacy organization convinced a judge that the confession had been coerced). That 1999 confession had allowed the man previously convicted, Anthony Porter, to go free, but prosecutors in October 2014 had second -- or third -- thoughts. They once again believe that Porter was the killer -- even though a different defendants' advocacy organization had originally worked to free him. (In any event, "double jeopardy" prevents Porter's retrial.) [Reuters via Yahoo News, 10-30-2014]

-- Undersheriff Noel Stephen of Okeechobee County, Florida, acknowledged to WPBF-TV in December that among the public services his office performs is supervising parents' spanking of children. After two sisters argued on Dec. 29, their father decided to administer a whipping to one and asked Deputy Stephen to drop by and make sure he stayed within the law. That's "not something we advertise to do," said the deputy, but he estimates he has monitored about a dozen spankings. [WPBF-TV (West Palm Beach), 12-31-2014]

-- The Government Accountability Office was on the job in December, issuing an emphatic ruling that the National Weather Service could not legally issue its workers disposable cups, plates and utensils on the job. Such items are "personal," GAO declared, even though most NWS facilities are in remote locations, staffed by two-person shifts that almost force employees to eat on the premises. "You can't run out" and "grab a burger," one employee said. Nonetheless, after a lengthy deliberative process, GAO said its decision is final. [Washington Post, 12-30-2014]

-- In a November ruling, France's minister of housing and minister of ecology jointly announced further streamlining of law books, removing bulky, out-of-date regulations. Among the rescissions, beginning Dec. 1, is the ban on installing toilets in kitchens. [The Local (Paris), 11-12-2014]

-- Championship-Level Theft: China's Gxnews.com.cn reported in December the arrest of a man in Yulin City, accused of stealing more than 2,000 items of underwear from women in his neighborhood, taken within the last year. He hid his stash above ceiling tiles in stairwells in his apartment building, but he drew attention when one of the ceiling spaces caved in from the weight of the garments, showering the stairs in an array of colorful lingerie. (Just within the last month, according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, two other men, in Zhejiang and Hubei provinces, have been detained for similar crimes. In the latter case, the alleged thief was also wearing lingerie.) [South China Morning Post, 12-21-2014]

-- British makeup artist Jordan James Parke, 23, told London's The Sun in December how he had fallen in love with the look of U.S. celebrity Kim Kardashian and thus had forced himself to spend the equivalent of about $150,000 on "more than 50" cosmetic procedures to adopt her "pouty" look, including lip and cheek fillers, eyebrow tattoos and laser hair removal. "I love everything about Kim ... the most gorgeous woman ever," he said. "Her skin is perfect, her hair, everything about her" (except that, in The Sun report, only her parts above the neck were mentioned). [People Magazine, 12-18-2014]

-- Artist Megumi Igarashi, 42, known as "no-good girl" in Japan, taunted officials with over-the-top pornography twice in 2014, first in July when she designed a kayak in the image of her genitals and then sought donations by sending contributors data on how to make a 3-D-printed model of her vagina. In her December arrest, according to a BBC News dispatch, she had complained of the contradictions in Japanese culture (also cited in previous News of the Weird stories) that allow glorified public displays of the penis as a symbol of fertility, but banish the vulva from public sight. [BBC News, 12-24-2014]

-- Hopeful Signs for the New Year: (1) Police in Phoenix estimate celebratory gunfire into the air on New Year's Eve was down 22 percent from last year, since the department received reports on only 206 bullets discharged without concern for where they would land. (2) Authorities in Paris estimated that 12 percent fewer cars were set on fire in France on New Year's Eve, with only 940 strangers' vehicles mindlessly torched instead of last year's 1,067. [Associated Press via Tucson News Now, 1-1-2015] [Associated Press via ABC News, 1-1-2015]

-- Recurring, With Different Result: A court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, granted a "habeas corpus" petition in December ordering the freedom of a Sumatran orangutan from Buenos Aires Zoo. Sandra, age 29, is a "non-human person" and thus sufficiently advanced in "cognitive function" to be not merely an object that humans can own without obligation. A Reuters report found no similar judgment on record, but rather, contrary recent rulings in New York (regarding Tommy the chimpanzee) and San Diego (on behalf of orca whales). [Reuters, 12-21-2014]

World's Greatest Lawyer: Christopher Soon won an acquittal in February (2011) for his client Alan Patton -- even though Patton had been charged with violating a law that had been written primarily to stop Alan Patton. That law makes it illegal to collect urine from public restrooms. Patton, of Dublin, Ohio, was convicted in 1993 and 2008 (and charged again in October 2010) of waiting in restrooms and, when young boys finished using the urinal (after Patton had obstructed the flushing mechanism), rushing to gather the contents, which he admitted sexually excited him. After Patton's 2008 conviction, the Ohio legislature made that specific act a felony, and Patton's arrest in October was supposed to lead to a triumphant conviction. (The judge did find Patton guilty of criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.) [Columbus Dispatch, 2-17- 2011]

Thanks This Week to Russell Bell and Steve Ringley, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net; send items to WeirdNews@earthlink.net, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Richard Rosario is in year 18 of a 25-to-life sentence for murder, even though 13 alibi witnesses have tried to tell authorities that he was with them -- 1,000 miles away -- at the time of the crime. (Among the 13 are a sheriff's deputy, a pastor and a federal corrections officer.) The "evidence" against him: Two "eyewitnesses" in New York City had picked him out of a mugshot book. Rosario had given police names, addresses and phone numbers of the 13 people in Florida, but so far, everyone (except NBC's "Dateline") has ignored the list, including Rosario's court-appointed lawyers. As is often the case, appeals court judges (state and federal) have trusted the eyewitnesses and the "process." (In November, "Dateline" located nine of the 13, who are still positive Rosario was in Deltona, Florida, on the day of the murder.) [WNBC-TV (New York City), 11-21-2014]

-- Pastor Walter Houston of the Fourth Missionary Church in Houston repeatedly refused in November to conduct a funeral for longtime member Olivia Blair, who died recently at age 93 -- because she had come upon hard times in the last 10 years and had not paid her tithe. Ms. Blair's family had supported the church for 50 years, but Pastor Houston was defiant, explaining, "Membership has its privileges." (The family finally found another church for the funeral.) [Houston Chronicle, 11-26-2014]

-- A U.S. Appeals Court once again in September instructed government agencies that it is unconstitutional to make routine business-inspection raids without a judicial warrant. "We hope that the third time will be the charm," wrote Judge Robin Rosenbaum. In the present case, the court denounced the full-dress SWAT raid in 2010 of the Strictly Skillz barbershop in Orange County, Florida, for "barbering" without a license. (All certificates were found to be up-to-date, and in fact, the raiding agency had verified the licenses in a walk-through two days before.) [Courthouse News Service, 9-18-2014]

-- Disappointed: (1) Cornelius Jefferson, 33, was arrested for assaulting a woman in Laurel County, Kentucky, in October after he had moved there from Georgia to be with her following an online relationship. Jefferson explained that he was frustrated that the woman was not "like she was on the Internet." (2) In November, an unnamed groom in Medina, Saudi Arabia, leaped to his feet at the close of the wedding, shocked at his first glimpse of his new bride with her veil pulled back. Said he (according to the daily Okaz), "You are not the girl I had imagined. I am sorry, but I divorce you." [Herald-Leader (Lexington, 10-21-2014] [Daily Mail (London), 11-17-2014]

-- The recovery rate is about 70 percent for the 1,200 injured birds brought for treatment each year to the Brinzal owl-rescue park near Madrid, Spain -- with acupuncture as the center's specialty treatment. Brinzal provides "physical and psychological rehabilitation" so that eagle owls, tawny owls and the rest can return to the wild, avoiding predators by being taught, through recordings of various wild screeches, which animals are enemies. However, the signature therapy remains the 10 weekly pressure-point sessions of acupuncture. [The Local (Madrid), 12-12-2014]

-- Even though one state requires 400 hours' training just to become a professional manicurist, for instance, most states do not demand nearly such effort to become armed security guards, according to a CNN/Center for Investigative Reporting analysis released in December. Fifteen states require no firearms training at all; 46 ignore mental health status; nine do not check the FBI's criminal background database; and 27 states fail to ascertain whether an applicant is banned by federal law from even carrying a gun. (After an ugly incident in Arizona in which a juvenile gun offender was hired as a guard, the state added a box on its form for applicants to "self-report" the federal ban -- but still refuses to use the FBI database.) [CNN, 12-10-2014]

-- Two high-ranking Hollywood, Florida, police officers were absolved of criminal wrongdoing recently even though they had intentionally deleted their colleagues' names from Internal Affairs investigative records. Assistant Chief Ken Haberland and Maj. Norris Redding somehow convinced prosecutors that they were unaware the files were "public records" that should not be altered. The two are still subject to fines and restitution, but have been returned to administrative duty. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12-11-2014]

(1) In October, Reynolds American Inc., whose iconic product is Camel cigarettes, announced it would ban employees at its North Carolina headquarters from smoking in the offices, relegating them to special smokers' rooms. (Critics of the company noted that Reynolds has for years staunchly denied that "secondary smoke" is dangerous.) (2) In September, Guinter Kahn, the South Florida dermatologist who developed minoxidil (the hair-restoring ingredient in Rogaine), passed away at age 80. Dr. Kahn himself had noticeable hair loss, but was allergic to minoxidil. [Associated Press via USA Today, 10-22-2014] [Associated Press via Washington Post, 9-26-2014]

(1) The owner of a wine shop in Highgate, England, said the thief who robbed him in September somehow placed him in a trance so the man could pick his pockets -- and then, brushing past him on his way out, the man brought the shop owner out of the trance. Victim Aftab Haider, 56, pointed to surveillance video showing him staring vacantly during the several seconds in which his wallet was being lifted from his trousers. (2) In October in Scotland's Perth Sheriff Court, Paul Coombs was sentenced to 14 months in jail for a June home invasion in which accomplices conveyed Coombs' threats to the resident because Coombs himself is deaf and does not speak. [London Evening Standard, 12-5-2014] [STV News (Glasgow), 10-30-2014]

Cry for Help: Calvin Nicol, 31, complained that he was obviously the victim of a "hate crime" when thugs beat him up in Ottawa, Ontario, on Nov. 1 -- just because he is intensely tattooed and pierced, with black-inked eyes, a split tongue and implanted silicone horns on his forehead. (Though "hate" may have been involved, so far "body modification" is not usually covered in anti-discrimination laws. However, Nicol suggested one legal angle when he explained that "piercing myself and changing my appearance, and making me look like the person I want to look like is almost a religious experience to me.") [Ottawa Citizen, 11-15-2014]

(1) Three women, whose ages ranged from 24 to 41, were charged with larceny on Black Friday in Hadley, Massachusetts, when they were caught in the Wal-Mart parking lot loaded down with about $2,700 worth of allegedly shoplifted goods. The women had moments earlier begged a Wal-Mart employee for help getting into their car -- because they had locked themselves out. (2) Michael Rochefort, 38, and Daniel Gargiulo, 39, were merely burglary suspects in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sept. 25, but sheriff's deputies' case against them soon strengthened. While being detained in the back seat of a patrol car (and despite a video camera pointed at them), they conversed uninhibitedly about getting their alibis straight. [The Republican (Springfield), 11-29-2014] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12-8-2014]

In December, Florine Brown, 29, finally accepted removal, by the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, of the estimated 300 rats, grown from her initial three, inhabiting her house (with the familiar droppings and smell). "I just want them to go to good homes," she said, comforted that a local rat "shelter" would take them in temporarily. "I really depended on the rats to get me by (bouts of depression)." (It turns out rat-removal is a slow process, since they hide. It took several days even to trap the first 70.) [WFLA-TV (Tampa), 12-10-2014]

The long-standing springtime culinary tradition of urine-soaked eggs endures, in Dongyang, China, according to a March (2011) CNN dispatch. Prepubescent boys contribute their urine (apparently without inhibition) by filling containers at schools, and the eggs are boiled according to recipe and sold for the equivalent of about 23 cents each. Many residents consider the tradition gross, but for devotees, it represents, as one said, "the (joyous) smell of spring." [CNNGo, 3-14-2011; MinistryofTofu.com (citing Qianjiang Evening Post), 3-11-2011]

Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

For her Advanced Placement World History class at Magnolia (Texas) West High School in December, Reagan Hardin constructed an elaborate diorama of a Middle Ages farm -- which her dog ate on the night before it was due. Veterinarian Carl Southern performed the necessary scoping-out on Roscoe, extracting the plastic chicken head, horse body, sheep and pig, along with wire that held the display together. Warned Dr. Southern: "Don't put anything past your dog. We all say my dog would never eat that, and that's the main thing he'll eat." [KHOU-TV (Houston), 12-11-2014]

-- Meg C Jewelry Gallery of Lexington, Kentucky, introduced a limited line of Kentucky-centric gold-plated necklaces and earrings in June (recently touted for Christmas!) -- each dangling with genuine Kentucky Fried Chicken bones. All stems were picked clean from KFC wings, washed, dried, sealed with varnish and conductive paint, copper-electroformed, and then electroplated with 14k gold. Small-bone necklaces go for $130 (large, $160), and earrings for $200 a pair -- and according to Meg C, accessorize anything from jeans to a lady's best little black dress. [Louisville Biz Blog, 12-10-2014]

-- "Ethical" fur designer Pamela Paquin debuted the first of her anticipated line of roadkill furs recently -- raccoon neck muffs ("I can literally take two raccoons and put them butt to butt (so they) clasp neck to neck") that will sell for around $1,000. Raccoons yield "luscious" fur, she said, but her favorite pelt is otter. The Massachusetts woman leaves her card with various New England road crews ("Hi, my name is Pamela. Will you call me when you have roadkill?") and does business under the name Petite Mort ("little death" in French, but also, she said, a euphemism for a woman's post-orgasm sensations). [Washington Post, 12-5-2014]

-- Not too long ago, "generous" job perquisites were, perhaps, health insurance and little more, but Silicon Valley startups now race to outdo each other in dreaming up luxuries to pamper workers. A November Wall Street Journal report noted that the photo-sharing service Pinterest offers employee classes in the martial art "muay thai" and in August brought in an "artisanal jam maker" to create after-work cocktails -- a far cry from most workplaces, which offer, perhaps, a vending machine downstairs. (Several companies have hired hotel-concierge professionals to come manage their creative add-ons.) Not every perk is granted, though: Pinterest turned down an employee's request to install a zip line directly to a neighborhood bar. [Wall Street Journal, 11-21-2014]

(1) Jose Manuel Marino-Najera filed a lawsuit in Tucson, Arizona, in December against the U.S. Border Patrol because a K-9 dog had bitten his arm repeatedly during an arrest. Marino-Najera, illegally in the U.S., had been found sleeping under a tree near the Mexican border, holding 49 pounds of marijuana. (2) Ms. Emerald White, owner of four pit bulls declared "dangerous" by Texas City, Texas, after they mauled a neighbor's beagle to death, filed a lawsuit in November against the grieving neighbor. White said she had been injured trying to restrain her dogs in the skirmish, which had been facilitated by the neighbor's failure to fix their common fence. [Associated Press via AzFamily.com, 12-11-2014] [Galveston Daily News, 11-15-2014]

Some students at Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown law schools demanded in December that professors postpone final exams because those lawyers-in-training were too traumatized by the grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, which cost them sleep and made them despair of the legal system's lack of integrity. (Critics cited by Bloomberg Business Week suggested that lawyers who cannot function at a high level in the face of injustice might fare poorly in the profession.) [Bloomberg Business Week, 12-9-2014]

-- Gregory Graf, 53, has apparently escaped eligibility for death row in Pennsylvania despite confessing to murdering his stepdaughter in an attempt to have sex with her (an "accompanying" felony, which ordinarily would qualify him for "capital murder"). However, since Graf had videotaped himself in the act (as evidence recovered in December shows), he proved that the sex occurred after she was dead and thus that he was guilty instead of an accompanying misdemeanor (desecration of a body). [Morning Call (Allentown), 12-5-2014]

-- Caitlyn Ricci, 21 and estranged from her divorced parents, availed herself this year of a quirky New Jersey law that requires divorced parents to provide for their children's college educations (even though Caitlyn was a toddler at the time of the divorce, chose a more expensive out-of-state college, and already had a blemished community-college record). Mom Maura McGarvey (who claims to be especially hard-hit by the tuition bill) and Dad Michael Ricci are helping sponsor "corrective" legislation -- because, generally, parents are not required to pay for college (but in New Jersey, divorced parents are). [Associated Press via Philly.com, 12-14-2014]

Historians at the Wellcome Collection museum in London placed on display in November their rendition of the "orgone energy accumulator" developed in the 1940s by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who thought it could stimulate orgasms for those who sat inside one. (The device is thought to have inspired the "Orgasmatron" in the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper." Among 1950s-era "testers," Albert Einstein is said to have panned it, but not author J.D. Salinger.) The museum's curator tried to lower expectations -- that visitors should expect a historic sex "education" and not a sexual experience. [Daily Mirror, 11-6-2014]

Meth -- Is There Anything It Can't Do? (1) Keith Berfield, 56, was arrested outdoors in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in October, nude except for the metal ring around his testicles, praising "spiritual" "things in the sky." (2) An unnamed man in Waterbury, Connecticut, was caught by his neighbor in October having sex with her pit bull while explaining that "ISIS sent me" and that "This is our day." (3) Brittany Thompson, 26, was arrested in Oklahoma City in November, lying near a busy intersection holding ordinary rocks that she described as "diamonds" that God sent her to gather. [TCPalm.com (Stuart, Fla.), 10-28-2014] [WTIC Radio (Farmington, Conn.), 10-27-2014] [KOCO-TV (Oklahoma City), 11-26-2014]

Messages Not Received: (1) John Biehn, 39, in court in Rockville, Connecticut, on Dec. 15 on an old DUI charge, was released on bail but managed to get arrested (and released on bail) three more times in two towns over the following 11 hours -- twice for DUI and once for shoplifting. (2) On Nov. 30, an allegedly intoxicated Dwayne Fenlason, 48, drove his pickup truck into a ditch in Pomfret, Vermont, bringing a DUI citation -- and then subsequently drove an SUV to the scene to pull the truck out (earning a second DUI), and then an all-terrain vehicle to the scene (and a third DUI). [Denver Post, 11-27-2014] [WCAX-TV (Burlington), 12-7-2014]

(1) Sherwin Shayegan (the man revisited here three months ago for his longtime habit of demanding piggyback rides from high school athletes) was arrested in December in Maryland on charges from Virginia's Fauquier and Loudoun counties, where he had mingled with players at boys' high school basketball and hockey games and in locker rooms, acting "creepy" and getting ejected. (2) At about the time News of the Weird updated Indonesia's "Sex Mountain" ritual four weeks ago, the governor of Central Java banned the practice because of the "shame" it brings to Indonesia (because prostitutes now flood the area, however, the Jakarta Post doubted that the ban would be respected by would-be "pilgrims," who believe that sex with strangers brings prosperity). [Fauquier.com, 12-10-2014] [Vice.com, 12-7-2014]

The Feral Professor: Tihomir Petrov, 43, a mathematics professor at California State University Northridge, was charged in January (2011) with misdemeanors for allegedly urinating twice on the office door of another faculty member with whom he had been feuding. (Petrov was identified by a hidden camera installed after the original puddle turned up.) Petrov is the author of several scholarly papers, with titles such as "Rationality of Moduli of Elliptic Fibrations With Fixed Monodromy." [Los Angeles Daily News-AP, 1-27-2011]

Thanks This Week to Steve Dunn, Alan Graham, Gaal Shepherd Crowl, Jan Wolitzky, Bruce Leiserowitz, Gerald Sacks, and Brian Wilson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net; send items to WeirdNews@earthlink.net, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)