"This will be upsetting," cautioned Justice Robert Graesser, addressing jurors in February in the Edmonton, Alberta, murder trial of Brad Barton. At issue was the cause of the victim's having bled to death from her genitals, and the judge, ruling that jurors would benefit by inspecting the actual wound, admitted the vagina itself (not a photograph) into evidence. The organ had been removed for autopsy and preserved, and the chief medical examiner donned rubber gloves and pointed out to jurors how "clean" the wound was (suggesting a sharp object), rather than the rougher, "scraping" wound that would have been created in other ways, such as by impalement. (At press time, the trial was still in progress.) [Edmonton Journal, 2-27-2015]

Researchers from Cornell University, inspired by the book "World War Z," recently computer-simulated the spread of a "zombie apocalypse" -- and now advise the anxiety-prone to head for higher ground if infections break out, recommending Glacier National Park in Montana or, even better, Alaska. Using differential equations and "lattice-based" models, the statisticians demonstrated that infections would slow dramatically as fewer people became available to bite (but that, ultimately, we're all doomed). The state most quickly wiped out? New Jersey. [Washington Post, 3-4-2015]

-- Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore told a radio audience in February that she would soon introduce a bill reforming end-of-life procedures for terminally ill cancer patients, such as administering baking soda intravenously to "flush out" the cancer "fungus." Before her election in 2013, she was CEO of Always There Personal Care of Nevada (which she describes as being "in the healthcare industry"). (Bonus: Fiore blames her accountant for the company's reported $1 million in IRS tax liens; the accountant is her ex-husband.) [Think Progress, 2-24-2015; Ralston Reports, 12-8-2014]

-- In February, Idaho state Representative Vito Barbieri, at a hearing on a proposed bill to ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medications via remote telecommunication, asked expert witness Dr. Julie Madsen about one alternative he had in mind: Couldn't a woman just swallow a small camera, he asked, and then have doctors "conduct" a remote gynecological exam on her? Dr. Madsen quickly reminded Rep. Barbieri that "swallowed" things do not end up in that part of a woman's body. [Associated Press via Salon.com, 2-23-2015]

The international sportswear retailer Bjorn Borg (namesake of the Swedish tennis player) created a promotional video game (now also sold separately) that encourages not mayhem and murder, but the vanquishing of one's opponents with love -- and "lovingly" stripping them down so that they can be outfitted in Bjorn Borg fashions. Said a company official, a player's mission is "to liberate haters by undressing them with your love guns and (then to) dress them in Bjorn Borg clothing." (The game also features "teddy bear smoke grenades" and a shirtless man resembling Vladimir Putin astride a bear.) [Washington Post, 2-9-2015]

-- Mark Rothwell made the news in Portland, Oregon, in March 2010 when he prevented a bank robbery (and rescued the terrified Chase teller) by jumping the thief, knocking his gun away and holding him until police arrived. He was later awarded a coveted Portland police Civilian Medal for Heroism. However, on Feb. 19, 2015, according to an arrest report, Rothwell himself pulled a gun and robbed the Albina Community Bank in Portland, making off with $15,700. [The Oregonian, 2-19-2015]

-- For Arthur Mondella, 57, a successful maraschino cherry supplier in Brooklyn, New York, the inspection by the district attorney's office in February was to be routine, concerning possible pollution of local waters from discharges of cherry syrup. Mondella was cooperative until the investigator discovered odd shelving "attached" to a wall with magnets, revealing a "secret" room, and then the smell of marijuana -- at which point Mondella calmly left the room and shot himself in the head. Ultimately, police found that the 75-year-old company was merely a side business to Mondella's substantial marijuana-growing operation in the basement. [New York Daily News, 2-24-2015]

Use What You Have: (1) Morrison Wilson, 58, was convicted of assault in Belfast (Northern Ireland) Magistrates Court in February for using his admittedly "big belly" to "bounce" an aggressive neighbor lady out of his garden in a dispute. The lady was injured as she fell backward. (2) In a March skirmish over a handicapped- parking space at a Walmart in Greenfield, Wisconsin, Ms. Kezia Perkins, 32, was charged with assaulting a 71-year-old woman by, said a witness, "chest-butt(ing) her," knocking her to the ground. Said Perkins, "It's not my fault (she) bounced off my big (chest)." (The euphemism "chest" was substituted by WITI-TV of Milwaukee.) [Belfast Telegraph, 2-26-2015] [WITI-TV via WLUK-TV (Green Bay), 3-3-2015]

(1) Several University of Iowa students requested, and received, special "exceptions from" or "assistance with" classwork, including exams, after complaining of stress and a "loss of focus" caused by the appearance of a Ku Klux Klan statue on campus in December. (2) As alleged de-facto policy at Avalon Elementary School in Orlando, Florida, officials last year prohibited toilet-flushing during the statewide Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. It was thought, an official said, that the whooshing water sounds from nearby bathrooms would disturb the students (and send their scores, according to an Orlando Sentinel reporter, "spiraling down the drain"). [Cedar Rapids Gazette, 3-2-2015] [Orlando Sentinel, 1-1-2015]

(1) A 37-year-old man and two female companions were charged in February with stealing tailgates from nine trucks in the Orlando area. (Their spree ended when, noticing that a club owner had offered a reward on Facebook for his branded tailgate, the three tried to sell it back to him but botched the transaction.) (2) The driver of an empty car-carrying truck pulled off the Bishop Ford Freeway near Calumet City, Illinois, in February after he heard a calamitous sound and felt the trailer shaking violently. It turns out Asa Cole, 23, speeding and following too closely, had inadvertently driven his pickup truck up the low-hanging tracks of the trailer and come to a stop only inches away from the cab. Said the carrier driver, "Is this 'Dukes of Hazzard' or something?" Cole was cited for several violations. [WESH-TV (Orlando), 2-23-2015] [Chicago Tribune, 2-6-2015]

Aleksander Tomaszewski, 33, was convicted of filing a false police report after a January incident in Lane County, Oregon, when he claimed police had beaten him up in his cell after his arrest for stalking and sexual abuse. Tomaszewski's face evidenced a beating, but he was obviously unaware of the surveillance camera, which revealed that, over a four-minute period, Tomaszewski (alone in his cell) had punched himself in the face 45 times to create the "police" attack. [Register-Guard (Eugene, Ore.), 2-18-2015]

More Americans who were unable to keep from accidentally shooting themselves: A Macon, Georgia, man checked into a hospital with a gunshot wound to his genitals (June). Another man wounded himself and another person with the same bullet; the round went through his hand and both legs of his female companion (Elkhart, Indiana, July). Peter Bonfiglio, 27, shot himself in the foot, but blamed a "robber" -- the second time he had shot himself and then blamed a "robber" (Port Charlotte, Florida, June). And then there are those who will never shoot themselves again: a 79-year-old hunter in Indiana, Pennsylvania (December); the son, 49, of a former sheriff in Chattanooga, Tennessee (June); and a St. Joseph, Michigan, woman, 55 (who shot herself in the face in February while adjusting her bra holster). Macon: [WMAZ-TV (Macon), 6-16-2014] Elkhart: [The Elkhart Truth, 7-6-2014] Port Charlotte: [WBBH-TV (Fort Myers, Fla.), 6-18-2014] Indiana: [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12-11-2014] Chattanooga: [WRCB-TV (Chattanooga), 6-5-2014] St. Joseph: [MLive.com, 2-18-2015]

A 27-year-old man was arrested for trespassing in January (2010) in Seattle's Lusty Lady peep-show arcade, whose layout is a strippers' dance stage surrounded by private viewing stalls for customers. According to police, the man, after ogling the dancers, energetically climbed from his stall, through a ceiling panel and navigated the overhead crawl space -- which merely allowed him to continue staring at the strippers (but perhaps enriched the illicitness of his peeping). [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-26-2010]

Thanks This Week to David Wasley, Russell Bell, Josh Levin, and Milford Sprecher, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Shooting "upskirt" photos of a 13-year-old girl is not illegal in Oregon, declared Judge Eric Butterfield in February, thus acquitting Patrick Buono, 61, of the crimes of invasion of privacy and "encouraging child sexual abuse." Buono's behavior was "appalling," Judge Butterfield noted, but since the girl was in a public place (a Target store) and no nudity was involved (she wore underpants), the specifics of Oregon statutes were not violated. Said Buono's lawyer, "It's incumbent on us as citizens to cover up whatever we don't want filmed in public places." [The Oregonian, 2-6-2015]

-- Felons, and those convicted of domestic assault, and those with a history of mental illness, cannot by federal law buy firearms or explosive devices, but Americans on the National Counterterrorism Center's consolidated watch list can -- and may possess an unlimited quantity. (In 2013 and 2014, 455 of 486 prospective purchasers on the list passed the background check, and going back to 2004, 2,043 of 2,233, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.) Legislation to add watch listees as a banned category was introduced again this year, but has failed several times in the past. [New York Times, 2-26-2015; press release of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 2-24-2015]

-- The annual National Basketball Association All-Star game in February provided a windfall for the co-host arena's proprietor, James L. Dolan, whose family owns not only Madison Square Garden but also the NBA's richest franchise (the Knicks), hockey's second-richest (the Rangers), and the New York region's telecom juggernaut Cablevision. Among the government handouts Dolan receives is the 33-year (and counting) exemption from property taxes for the Garden's four square blocks ("among the most valuable (plots of land) on Earth," according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio) -- a government gift, in 2014 alone, worth $54 million. [New York Times, 2-14-2015] [New York Daily News, 5-29-2014]

The three-week February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago's West Loop gallery -- with the artist present only in the sense that he was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall with only a single sign alerting patrons ("I am here, but you will not see me"). Diaz-Perera's "In the Absence of a Body" was designed, he said, to explore the boundary between presence and absence. [Huffington Post, 2-18-2015]

(1) A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 a.m. on Feb. 25 in Tukwila, Washington, because, he explained, he was "chasing an owl." (Police somehow found him to be sober and did not charge him.) (2) Officials in Salem, Oregon, posted signs in February to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl or owls, after four people were aggressively pecked at by dive-bombers. (One design for the sign came from cable TV personality Rachel Maddow.) (3) A bar called Annie the Owl was scheduled for a special one-week event in London in March, for patrons to sip drinks while domesticated owls perch on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for tickets. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 2-25-2015] [KGW-TV (Portland), 2-12-2015] [CNBC.com, 2-24-2015]

America's Least Interesting Couple: Bill Bresnan, 74, of Toms River, New Jersey, has written a love letter to his wife, Kirsten, also 74, every day for nearly 40 years -- more than 10,000 in number -- and continuing, according to a February ABC News report. "We've never had a fight," he said. Their romance continues over, for example, playing "Boggle" at breakfast or having candlelit dinners with wine. (Bonus: Kirsten has hoarded all of the letters, filed by date, in 25 boxes.) [ABC News via WHAS-TV (Louisville), 2-12-2015]

Margurite Haragan, 58, was charged with two harassment counts against a Jewish woman in Boise, Idaho, in February after the victim complained of being screamed at and roughed up by Haragan, who was trying to pressure her to acknowledge a belief in Jesus Christ. After Haragan allegedly stepped on the woman's neck and pulled her hair upward, the victim promised to become a Christian. Haragan then departed but returned two days later to continue the alleged harassment. (The genesis of the women's relationship was unclear from news reports.) [KTVB-TV (Boise), 2-16-2015]

The "Pedophile Loophole": The Mississippi Department of Education reported recently that federal student privacy law bars local schools from alerting the MDE about college-age student teachers who might be having inappropriate relationships with the K-12 students they teach. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apparently controls regulation of the student teachers during on-the-job classroom training (or, as a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson wrote, "What happens in college, apparently, stays in college"). The MDE, which issues educator licenses, thus may never learn of the inappropriate behavior of the student teacher. [Clarion-Ledger, 2-21-2015]

"Mummy Maxine" and her husband, Derek Ventham, run adult baby nurseries (the current one, in North Liverpool, England), charging men the equivalent of $115 an hour to lounge in their cribs, in man-sized infant clothing, while being fawned over as if they were helpless pre-toddlers. (No sex play is allowed, but diaper-changing costs about $40 extra.) Even tamer is the "adult preschool" in New York City that Michelle Lapidos and a partner intend to start soon. A month-long course will allow grownups to "relive their pre-K days" with finger-painting, show-and-tell and nap time, she told the Village Voice in January, all while dressing in "your 4-year-old best." [Liverpool Echo, 2-3-2015] [Village Voice, 1-30-2015]

-- Embarrassing: Surveillance video released in February by the Irish Independent showed a small-time burglar trying to break into a car at 1 a.m. in front of the Pheasant bar in Drogheda, Ireland, by smashing a window with a brick -- but also showed that the brick rebounded and knocked the man out, bloodying him. Gerry Brady, owner of the bar, was just closing up and found the burglar dazed, but the man departed before police arrived. Only when Brady later viewed video of the front of his bar did he realize what the man had been up to. [Irish Independent, 2-21-2015]

-- Least Industrious Criminals: (1) Deputies in Santa Rosa County, Florida, arrested Kevin Barbour, 37, after he fled, on foot, from a recent traffic stop. Deputies chased him awhile, then called for K-9 backup, and by the time the dogs arrived, a sound resembling a "snorting wild boar" saturated the area. A snoring Barbour was found asleep under a tree and arrested. (2) Michael Cassano, 38, was arrested in Lodi, New Jersey, in February, after allegedly robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank of about $4,000. He was spotted minutes later, a block away at a Dunkin Donuts, sipping coffee. [Pensacola News Journal, 2-2-2015] [Associated Press via The Record (Woodland Park, N.J.), 2-24-2015]

News of the Weird has reported on joyous "fertility" festivals in South Korea and Japan in which uninhibited celebrants brandish artistic "penises" (from parade floats to souvenir phalluses as jewelry, flower pots, food, etc. -- serving adults and little kids alike). It turns out that Greece, too, has such an annual spectacle, "Bourani," in the town of Tirnavos, on the first day of Lent, with historic roots based on inspiring fertile crops as well as human fertility. Wrote Vice.com in its dispatch, "People keep kissing (the penises), taking selfies with them, and wearing them as earrings." [Vice.com, 2-26-2015]

Mark Seamands, 39, went to trial in May (2010) in Port Angeles, Washington, accused of second-degree assault and two lesser charges for the hot-iron branding of his three children, aged 13, 15 and 18. Each of the kids bore the mark "SK," for "Seamands' Kids." At trial, however, the kids testified that they not only consented to the branding but thought it was cool (despite the second-degree burns), and as a result, the jury dismissed the assault charge and deadlocked on the two lesser ones. [Associated Press via KIRO-TV (Seattle), 5-14-2010]

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

The Utah Court of Appeals ruled in February that Barbara Bagley has a legal right to sue herself for her own negligent driving that caused the death of her husband. Typically, in U.S. courts, a party cannot profit from its own negligence, but Bagley is the official "representative" administering her husband's estate and has a duty to claim debts owed to the husband. Those debts would include "wrongful death" damages from a careless driver (actually, the careless driver's insurance company), even if the careless driver was herself. Of course, if her lawsuit is successful, the monetary award would become part of the husband's estate, a portion of which will likely go to her. [Salt Lake Tribune, 2-18-2015]

-- Can't Possibly Be True: For a brief period in 1951 and 1952, an educational kit, the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, was for sale in the United States even though it came with testable samples of four types of uranium ore and three different radiation sources (alpha, beta, gamma). A surviving copy of the kit has been on display recently at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but the radioactive materials had to be removed before the kit could be shipped to Belfast. (The kit had failed to sell well; kids apparently preferred the company's erector sets.) [BBC News, 2-16-2015]

-- In February, the Kansas Humanities Council, providing background to a current, traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibit, posted a description of a 1925 baseball game in Wichita in which the professional, all-black Wichita Monrovians took on members of the local Ku Klux Klan. (Historians guessed that the KKK risked the embarrassment of defeat only because it needed the exposure to overcome declining enrollments.) The Monrovians (champions of the Colored Western League the year before) won, 10-8, and the Klan shut down in Kansas two years later. [Kansas Humanities Council , 2-17-2015]

A 37-year-old Lancashire, England, businessman (identified in later news reports as Duane Walters), fearing surgery for suspected bladder cancer, was discovered to be cancer-free, but on the other hand, he was found to have a uterus, ovaries and cervix -- even though he has fully functioning exterior male genitalia. He was referred to Manchester University Hospital for a hysterectomy (to prevent the possibility of pregnancy) -- and was counseled that he might eventually become menopausal. His condition, "persistent Mullerian duct syndrome," is rare enough when diagnosed at birth but, according to experts cited by the Daily Telegraph, virtually unheard-of at age 37. Walters said he will continue living as a man. [Daily Telegraph, 2-7-2015]

-- Least Competent Terrorists: (1) A recent YouTube compilation of footage gleaned from, in some cases, unedited ISIS promotion videos, claimed to show jihadists accidentally killing themselves. Several fighters in a group photo appear to be blown up when one of them fumblingly detonates a captured bomb, and one man was killed when he apparently tried to reload a mortar launcher too quickly. (2) London's Daily Telegraph reported in January that the "Darkshadow" jihadists from Tunisia and Ivory Coast, who had proclaimed their website-hacking would disrupt international travel, wound up taking down a site consisting merely of bus timetables in Bristol, England. Darkshadow's English translator also misspelled Muslim ("Muslum"). [Daily Mail (London), 2-6-2015] [Daily Telegraph, 1-2-2015]

-- Perspective: ISIS' very public recent executions of a Jordanian pilot and two Japanese citizens were met with starkly different reactions. In Jordan, King Abdullah II led his nation in a call for bloody revenge. In Japan (according to a February Associated Press dispatch from Tokyo), feelings were mixed because of "meiwaku" -- Japan's cultural feeling that the dead victims (and their families) were "causing trouble" by placing themselves in harm's way. Said one man cited by the AP, "In the old days, their parents would have had to commit hara-kiri to apologize." In fact, both victims' families did repeatedly apologize for inconveniencing the government, which had warned citizens to stay away from the war zone. [Associated Press via Cortez Journal (Cortez, Colo.), 2-5-2015]

-- Point Taken: At a February meeting in Geneva of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, regarding whether meetings should be open to the general public, the representative from Belarus expressed alarm because of potential problems for the security staff. "What if," he asked (according to a Reuters report), "there were topless ladies screaming from the public gallery throwing bottles of mayonnaise?" (According to the official summary, the Mexican delegate apparently earnestly pointed out that some U.N. meetings were already open to the public, but as yet there had been no mayonnaise-droppings.) [Reuters, 2-11-2015]

-- CSI Netherlands: Police in the Dutch town of Haarlem, near Amsterdam, raided an urban marijuana farm after a recent snowfall. In photographs of the neighborhood, all yards and roofs of houses are blanketed in white -- except for a certain portion of the roof of one home, on which the snow had completely melted. Police, deducing that the attic was likely an illegal marijuana greenhouse, made arrests. [Daily Mail (London), 2-9-2015]

-- News You Can Use: If you're in pain, shouting "Owww!" has measurable therapeutic value. Writing recently in the Journal of Pain, researchers from the National University of Singapore hypothesize that the muscle movements in vocalizing somehow divert or confuse pain signals, which otherwise would go unimpeded to the brain. Of subjects who plunged their hands into extremely cold water, those who were allowed to vocalize kept their hands immersed for up to three minutes longer than those who were silent. (The "oww" sound is similar in many languages and is apparently instinctive from birth.) [International Business Times (New York), 2-2-2015]

A company called AudioQuest believes there are serious music listeners sufficiently grossed out by the imperfect sound delivered by ordinary ethernet cables (typically with plastic connectors on each end and selling for around $20) that relief is needed. The company recently introduced the Cat-6 Ethernet cable, whose connectors are made of silver. For those who require the reportedly richer sound, relief is only $10,500 away. [Slashgear.com, 2-12-2015]

Police in Glendale, Oregon, arrested a 27-year-old man and his 22-year-old girlfriend after their 7-week-old son died of starvation. The couple claimed to have been feeding the boy properly, but investigators found that the pair operated an online porn business in which the mother lactated onto various items while the paying customers watched -- and believe that little of the mother's milk remained for the baby. [KPIC-TV (Roseburg, Ore.), 2-19-2015]

(1) Robert Michael Phillips was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February and faces a series of charges after police witnessed him allegedly conducting drug transactions and found heroin in his pocket and crack cocaine in his vehicle. (His rap sheet includes seven convictions and a prison stint.) On his February police intake form, under "occupation," Phillips stated, "drug dealer." (2) John Balmer, 50, was arrested at a Kmart in Hudson, Florida, in January as he attempted to pass a bag (allegedly containing marijuana and methamphetamine) to another person in line. Balmer was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Who needs drugs?" above lettering that read, "No, seriously, I have drugs." [Palm Beach Post, 2-6-2015] [Tampa Bay Times, 1-6-2015]

People With Issues: Self-described Las Vegas "performer" Staysha Randall took 3,200 different piercings in her body during the same sitting on June 7 (2011) to break the Guinness Book world record by 100 prickings. (Veteran Las Vegas piercer Bill "Danger" Robinson did the honors.) Coincidentally, on the same day in Edinburgh, Scotland, the woman with the most lifetime piercings (6,925) got married. Elaine Davidson, 46, wore a full white ensemble that left bare only her face, which was decorated green and sported 192 of the piercings. The lucky guy was Davidson's longtime friend Douglas Watson, a balding, 60-something man with no piercings or tattoos. [Las Vegas Weekly, 6-8-2011] [Daily Telegraph (London), 6-8-2011]

Thanks This Week to Larry Neer, David Nelson, Jan Linders, and Steve Dunn, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.