Fourteen employees of a Framingham, Massachusetts, pharmacy were indicted in December for defrauding the federal government by filling bogus prescriptions (despite an owner's explicit instructions to staff that the fake customers' names "must resemble real names," with "no obviously false names" that might tip off law enforcement). Among the names later found on the customer list of the New England Compounding Center were: Baby Jesus, Hugh Jass, L.L. Bean, Filet O'Fish, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Harry Potter, Coco Puff, Mary Lamb, all of the Baldwin brother actors, and a grouping of Bud Weiser, Richard Coors, Raymond Rollingrock and, of course, Samuel Adams. The indictments were part of an investigation of a 2012 meningitis outbreak in which 64 people died. [WBZ-TV (Boston), 12-17-2014]

Two recent innovations to the generations-old Middle East sport of camel racing boosted its profile. First, to cleanse the sport of a sour period in which children from Bangladesh were trafficked to use as jockeys, owners have begun using "robot" jockeys -- electronic dummies that respond to trainers tracking the races with walkie-talkies (growling encouragement directly into camels' ears) and joysticks (that trigger a whip at an appropriate time). Second, the firm Al Shibla Middle East of United Arab Emirates has introduced lycra-style, whole-body camel coverings that are believed to enhance blood circulation and, perhaps, racing speed (although the fashions are now used only in training and transportation, to lessen camels' "stress"). Ultimately, of course, the coverings may carry advertising. [New York Times, 12-26-2014] [7 Days in Dubai, 12-31-2014]

-- "It's not fair! There is not justice in this country!" shouted the mother of Franklin Reyes, 17, in a New York City courtroom in January after a judge ordered the son tried for manslaughter as an adult. Reyes, an unlicensed driver fleeing a police traffic stop, had plowed into a 4-year-old girl, killing her, but had initially convinced the judge to treat him as a "youthful offender." Reyes' mom was so enraged at the judge's switch that she had to be escorted from the room. (After the judge's generous youthful offender ruling, Reyes had violated his bail conditions by getting arrested three more times.) [New York Post, 1-15-2015]

-- In Phoenix in early 2014, Kevin (last name withheld), age 5, was viciously mauled by Mickey, a pit bull, necessitating multiple surgeries, leaving him with lingering pain and disfiguring facial scars, and he still requires extensive care. While Kevin's trauma makes him live in gloom, Mickey has become a Phoenix celebrity after an outpouring of support from 75,000 people kept him from being euthanized for the assault. He lives now in a "no-kill" shelter, where his many supporters can track him on a 24-hour Internet "Mickey cam." KSAZ-TV reported in December that Kevin's mom had to quit her job to care for him and struggles to pay medical bills. [KSAZ-TV (Phoenix), 12-11-2014]

-- In October, vandals in Paris destroyed the large, inflatable "Tree" by U.S. artist Paul McCarthy in the city's Place Vendome square, but not before it became widely characterized as a gigantic green "plug" of the type used for anal sexual stimulation. Paris' news website The Local reported in December that the controversy has been a boon to the city's sex shops. "We used to sell around 50 (plugs) a month," said one wholesaler. "Since the controversy, we've moved more than a thousand" (at the equivalent of $23 to $45, in materials ranging from glass to stainless steel to silicone). [The Local (Paris), 12-2-2014]

-- Overthinking It: It was billed as the first-ever art exhibition expressly for nonhuman appreciation -- specifically, for examination by octopuses. England's Brighton Sea Life Center featured the five-tank shared display in November (including a bunch of grapes, a piece of Swiss cheese and a plate of spaghetti -- exhibits made of ceramic, plastic, wood and rope) that the center's curator promised would, according to an ITV report, "stimulate an octopus's natural curiosity about color, shape and texture." [Independent Television (London), 11-5-2014]

-- The Territorial Seed Co. of Cottage Grove, Oregon, introduced a plant in 2014 that sprouts both tomatoes and potatoes, the aptly named "Ketchup 'n' Fries" plant. Grafting (rather than genetic modification) splices the tomato onto potato plants (to create single plants capable of harvests of 500 red cherry tomatoes and 4.5 pounds of potatoes each). [The Oregonian (Portland), 12-30-2014]

-- Jihadist Toddlers: Britain's Home Office directed in January that the U.K.'s nursery school staffs report pupils "at risk of becoming terrorists," but gave little guidance on what teachers and managers should look for. According to a description of the directive in the Daily Telegraph, staffs must "have training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and challenge extremist ideas." [Daily Telegraph, 1-4-2015]

"All I'm looking for is what's rightfully owed to me under the (corrections department) contract," said Westchester County (New York) corrections officer Jesus Encarnacion, after having drawn $1.2 million in disability salary for the last 17 years as a result of slipping on a leaf of lettuce on a stairway. When he fell, he jammed his wrist and several surgeries ensued, and when he was finally ready for "light duty" a few years ago, he re-injured the wrist on the first day and never returned. Encarnacion now seeks a full disability retirement from the state, but officials maintain that "disability retirement" is for injuries resulting only from the rigors of the job. [New York Post, 1-5-2015]

When a dump truck and a municipal bus collided around 1 p.m. on Jan. 5 in downtown Phoenix, it of course drew the attention of the passengers, bystanders, motorists and nearby construction workers. According to a report in the Arizona Republic, an unidentified man then immediately seized the moment, ran out from some bushes to the center of the commotion and flashed the crowd before running away. [Arizona Republic, 1-5-2015]

Not Quite Clever Enough: (1) Police quickly tracking two assault suspects in Holland Township, Michigan, in December arrived at a residence at just the moment that suspect Codi Antoniello, 19, was starting to shave his head to alter his appearance. Antoniello's now-Internet-famous mugshot shows him with a full head of hair, minus the perhaps one-fourth on top shorn by electric clippers (shown at http://goo.gl/ofDFQR). (2) When the wife of James Rivers, 57, of Kent, Washington, was about to bust him for his alleged child-porn collection in October, he shipped his laptop to a technician to have the hard drive erased -- but with explicit instructions that if the techie encounters a "hidden" file, he must not look at the photos "under any circumstances." (The techie, of course, found the file, looked and notified authorities, and Rivers was arrested.) [WOOD-TV (Grand Rapids, Mich.), 12-19-2014] [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10-16-2014]

(1) The most recent incident of a fire breaking out on the grounds of a crematorium occurred in December at the Innisvale Cemetery and Crematorium in Innisfil, Ontario. Firefighters put out the blaze and "rescued" the 15 dead bodies that were awaiting cremation. (2) When a small plane over Lake Taupo in New Zealand developed engine trouble in January, the pilot ordered evacuation. Fortunately, the six passengers were skydivers on a training mission and landed safely, even rigging the plane's crew members to the divers' own parachutes so that there were no casualties (except the plane). (Working skydivers also survived a November 2013 crash of two planes over Wisconsin by making an "unscheduled" jump.) [Toronto Star, 12-24-2015] [BBC News, 1-7-2015]

The Belly Button Biodiversity project at North Carolina State University has begun examining the "faunal differences" in the microbial ecosystems of our navels, to foster understanding of the "tens of thousands" of organisms crawling around inside (almost all benign or even helpful). An 85-year-old man in North Carolina may have "very different navel life" than a 7-year-old girl in France, according to a May Raleigh News & Observer report. So far, only the organisms themselves and the host's demographics have been studied; other issues, such as variations by hairiness of navel, remain. [News & Observer, 5-9-2011]

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

Among the breakthroughs demonstrated by the computer chip company Intel's RealSense system is a cocktail dress from Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht that not only senses the wearer's "mood," but also acts to repel (or encourage) strangers who might approach the wearer. Sensors (including small LED monitors) measure respiration and 11 other profiles, and if the wearer is "stressed," artistic spider-leg epaulets extend menacingly from the shoulder to suggest that "intruders" keep their distance (in which case the dress resembles something from the movie "Aliens") -- or, if the wearer feels relaxed, the legs wave invitingly. The experimental "spider dress" was showcased at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. [Daily Mail (London), 1-7-2015]

-- Because Congress and presidents often change their minds, NASA recently continued to build on a $349 million rocket testing tower in Mississippi for a "moon" project that had been canceled back in 2010. The now-idle tower sits down the road from a second rocket testing tower being built for its "replacement" mission -- an "asteroid" project. Critics, according to a December Washington Post examination, blame senators who believe it smarter to keep contractors at work (even though useless) because, Congress and the president might change their minds yet again. Said a high-profile critic, "We have to decide ... whether we want a jobs program or a space program." NASA's inspector general in 2013 identified six similar "mothballed" projects that taxpayers continue to maintain. [Washington Post, 12-15-2014]

-- Un-Government: About 240 of the 351 police departments in Massachusetts claim their SWAT and other specialty operations are not "government" services, but rather not-for-profit corporate activities and are thus entitled to avoid certain government obligations. Even though their officers have the power to carry weapons, arrest people and break down doors during raids, these "law enforcement councils" refuse to comply with government open-records laws for civilian monitoring of SWAT activities. The latest refusal, by the 58 police agencies of the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, was filed in state Superior Court in December. [Daily News of Newburyport, 12-13-2014; Washington Post, 6-26-2014]

-- DIY Policing in Seattle: A Seattle Times columnist suffered a "smash-and-grab" break-in of his car in October, but was brushed off by the Seattle Police Department and told simply to go file an insurance claim. However, he and his energetic 14-year-old daughter located the perpetrators themselves by GPS and called for police help, only to be chastised by the dispatcher, warning that they could get hurt. Only when a local crime-fighting TV show adopted the case, along with the suburban Sammamish, Washington, police department, was the gang of thieves finally pursued and apprehended (resulting in charges for "hundreds" of smash-and-grab thefts). (Bonus: One alleged perpetrator was quoted as saying the thefts were undertaken "because we knew the police wouldn't do anything.") [Seattle Times, 10-31-2014, 11-7-2014]

-- Ms. Connie Lay passed away in Aurora, Indiana, in November, leaving a last will and testament that calls for her German shepherd, Bela, to be promptly buried with her -- even though Bela is still alive and peppy. Ms. Lay preferred sending Bela to a certain shelter in Utah, but if that "is not possible" or involves "too much expense" (judgments to be decided by a close friend, not publicly named), Bela is to be euthanized. At press time, the friend still had not decided. [WCPO-TV (Cincinnati), 12-17-2014]

-- Mother of All Surgeries: After 15 months of faulty diagnoses, Pam Pope, 65, finally got the (bad) news: a rare, slow-moving cancer of the appendix, "pseudomyxoma peritonei." The malignancy was so advanced that her only hope was the removal of all organs that she could possibly do without. In a six-surgeon, 13-hour operation in May 2014 at Hampshire Clinic in Basingstoke, England, Pope parted with her appendix, large bowel, gall bladder, spleen, womb, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix and most of her small bowel. She has endured massive chemotherapy, is on a nightly drip for hydration, and still remains frail, according to a December report in London's Daily Mail. [Daily Mail, 12-15-2014]

-- When someone swiped the iPhone of Adam Wisneski, 31, on Jan. 2, he rode his bicycle to Chicago's Shakespeare District police station to file a stolen-property report. He parked the bike inside the door, filled out the form, prepared to leave -- and noticed the bike was missing. He told an amused officer he needed another form. (Officers on duty said perhaps a homeless man who was in the station took it and are "making an effort," said Wisneski, to find it.) [WBBM-TV (Chicago), 1-5-2015]

-- The natural enemy of the "hawkmoth" (for 65 million years) is the bat, but thanks to a recent study by biologists at Boise State University and the University of Florida, we know the reason why so many hawkmoths are able to avoid their predator: They signal each other by rubbing their genitals on their abdomens, which somehow mimics bats' own high-frequency sounds, thus jamming the bats' aural ability to detect the hawkmoths' locations. Professors Jesse Barber and Akito Kawahara, working in Malaysia, tethered a hawkmoth to a wire and then tracked a bat, using slow-motion cameras and high-definition microphones, painstakingly examining the results for a 2014 journal article. [Daily Mail (London), 12-11-2014]

-- Bringing the Total Number of Cow Sounds to Three: A team from Britain's University of Nottingham and Queen Mary University of London found (according to a December BBC News report) that cows make two "distinctly different" call sounds to their calves, depending on whether the calves are nearby (low-frequency mooing, with mouth closed) or separated (higher frequency). The team said it spent 10 months digitally recording cow noises, then a year analyzing them by computer. [BBC News, 12-16-2014]

Not Nearly Ready for Prime Time: (1) A potential robber was turned away from a store on East Harry Street in Wichita, Kansas, on Dec. 11 after he demanded cash, explaining to the clerk that he "had six children and needed the money." The clerk told the man he had too many kids. The man, apparently chastened, fled the store empty-handed. (2) A masked man approached a clerk at Sam's Mart in New Haven, Connecticut, on Nov. 29 and passed a note demanding money while pointing his finger at the clerk (perhaps an inept attempt to feign having a gun in his pocket). According to police, the clerk grabbed the finger and threatened to break it, sending the man fleeing into the night. [Wichita Eagle, 12-12-2014] [New Haven Independent, 12-1-2014]

In a joint operation in December, police in Beijing and three provinces broke up two prostitution rings that specialized in supplying young lactating mothers to Chinese men who pay to be breastfed. Police said that women who provide sex with the "meal" earn higher fees. The women had either stopped breastfeeding their babies or cut back to favor their clients. Critics, according to the South China Morning Post, said this "lactophilia" showed "the moral degradation of China's rich." [International Business Times (London), 12-29-2014]

Jared Walter, 27, returns to News of the Weird after a four-year hiatus, charged with snipping a woman's hair while in line behind her in December at a Dollar Tree store in Oregon City, Oregon. In 2010, he was imprisoned for cutting the hair of three female passengers on municipal buses in the Portland area, and after being released in 2011, sentenced again for a similar incident. (Walter's inexplicable history with female hair actually extends back to grade school, reported Portland's The Oregonian.) [The Oregonian, 12-31-2014]

A 53-year-old man with failing eyesight who had recently undergone intestinal surgery told Sonoma, California, police that on Sunday afternoon, May 1 (2011), a woman had come to his home and instructed him to drop his pants and get face-down on the bed so that she could administer an enema. He said he assumed his doctor had sent her and thus complied; it was over in two minutes, and she was gone. The doctor later said he had no idea who the woman was. (In the 1970s, in the Champaign, Illinois, area, Michael Kenyon famously operated as the "Illinois Enema Bandit" -- and inspired the late Frank Zappa's song "Illinois Enema Bandit Blues.") [Sonoma News, 5-11-2011]

Thanks This Week to Jim Weber and Ivan Katz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

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.)