British director Missouri Williams brought an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" to the London Courtyard art facility in August for a one-week run, centered on a human actor struggling to stage the play using only sheep. The pivotal character, Lear's daughter Cordelia, famously withholds flattering Lear (thus forgoing inheriting the kingdom), and her silence forever tortures Lear -- and of course silence is something sheep pull off well. Actor Alasdair Saksena admitted there is an "element of unpredictability with the sheep," but lauded their punctuality, calmness and lack of fee demands. Williams promised another Courtyard run for "King Lear With Sheep" in the fall. [New York Times, 8-11-2015; Islington Gazette, 8-12-2015]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, has an award-winning "telework" program allowing patent examiners flexible schedules, leading half of the 8,300 to work at home full-time -- despite a 2014 Washington Post report on employees gaming the system. In August, the agency's inspector general exposed several of the most ridiculous cases of slacking off, including one examiner who was paid for at least 18 weeks' work last year that he did not perform and that his manager did not notice. (The examiner, who had been issued nine poor-performance warnings since 2012 and who had flaunted his carefree "workday" to co-workers for years, abruptly resigned two hours before a meeting on the charge and thus left with a "clean" personnel record.) Wrote the Post, "It's a startling example of a culture that's maddening." [Washington Post, 8-21-2015]

Only China and Iran execute more prisoners, but Saudi Arabia also has a soft side -- for jihadists. Saudis who defy a ban on leaving the country to fight (usually against the common enemy, Syria's Bashar al-Assad) are, if they return, imprisoned at a maximum-security facility in Riyadh, but with liberal short "vacations" at "Family House," hotel-quality quarters with good food, playgrounds for children and other privileges (monitored through guest-satisfaction surveys). Returning jihadists also have access to education and psychologists and receive the equivalent of $530 a month with ATM privileges. The purpose is to persuade the warriors not to return to the battlefield once released, and officials estimate that the program is about 85 percent effective. [Bloomberg Business, 7-8-2015]

-- Impersonating a police officer in a traffic stop is not uncommon, but Logan Shaulis, 19, was apparently so judgment-impaired on May 30 that he set up his own elaborate "DUI checkpoint" on route 601 near Somerset, Pennsylvania, complete with road flares, demanding "license, registration and insurance" from driver after driver. The irony of the inebriated Shaulis judging motorists' sobriety was short-lived, as real troopers soon arrived and arrested him (on DUI, among other charges). [Associated Press via WGN-TV (Chicago), 6-2-2015]

-- A woman identified only as Zeng, age 39, was finally imprisoned in August in Urumqi, China -- 10 years after she was convicted of corruption. Availing herself of a traditional "probation" option in Chinese law for expectant mothers, Zeng had remained free by getting herself pregnant (and proving it) 14 times during the 10 years (although only some of the fetuses were carried to term). [People's Daily Online via Daily Mail (London), 8-13-2015]

-- The president of the University of New Hampshire publicly complained in July about the "bias-free language guide" posted on the school's website -- since, he said, it denounces use of such words as "Americans" (as insensitive to South Americans), "seniors" (better, "people of advanced age"), "rich" (should be "person of material wealth") and "poor" (change to "person who lacks advantages that others have"). (One state senator mockingly suggested changing the state's "Live Free or Die" motto to "Live Free But Upset No One.") [WMUR-TV (Manchester), 7-29-2015]

-- Tough Love: Sexual assault is certainly punishable in New Hampshire by prison time, but pending legislation assumes prison is not enough. By House Bill 212, anyone who commits sexual assault while out hunting or fishing will also have his hunting or fishing license revoked. [House Bill 212, 6-11-2015]

After five students drowned while swimming in a reservoir in China's Yunnan province, parents of two of them sued the reservoir's management company, complaining that it should have posted signs or barricades or, even better, guards to keep kids from frolicking in the dangerous waters. According to an August report, the management company has now countersued the parents, demanding compensation for the additional water-treatment measures it was forced to undertake because the reservoir had been "polluted" by their children's corpses. [The Shanghaiist, 8-20-2015]

(1) A female Yangtze giant softshell turtle, believed to be the last female of her species, was artificially inseminated in May at Suzhou Zoo in China through the efforts of animal fertility experts from around the world. She is thought to be more than 100 years old (as was the last male to "romance" her, although their courtship produced only unfertilized eggs). (2) The Times of London reported in July that Briton Pamela Horner, seeking her "escaped" tortoise Boris (even though, as they say, he couldn't have gone far), found "tortoise porn" on YouTube (mostly, mating sounds) to play in the yard and lure him back. A tortoise expert told The Times: "They make quite a lot of noise. We can hear them groaning for miles." [San Diego Zoo press release, 5-24-2015] [The Times of London, 7-9-2015]

(1) Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Late one night in July, police in Phoenix were chasing a speeding truck whose driver eventually lost control and careened into a house near Mulberry Drive. As officers were checking for victims (it turned out no one was home), they discovered a large quantity of suspected marijuana -- and opened an investigation of the super-unlucky residents. (2) Right Place, Right Time: Shane Peters' cherished 2004 Dodge Durango broke down on the road in Livingston, Texas, in June, but before he could return to tow it, a thief hauled it away. About a month later, Peters' wife spotted the familiar Durango in town and with the help of police got it back -- with (courtesy of the thief) a newly repaired drive shaft and three new wheels (and the thief's drug supply, but police seized that). [KPHO-TV, 7-10-2015] [KHOU-TV (Houston), 7-13-2015]

The Michigan legislature and the state Court of Appeals (as News of the Weird reported in December) have, for some reason, given its concealed-carry gun licensees the additional right of openly carrying weapons on school grounds, and in August, a judge in Genesee County upheld that interpretation. Asked a lawyer preparing to appeal the decision, "If I'm a principal" and see someone "walking up to my building with a gun, what am I supposed to do?" He should, he said, "declare a lockdown ... call the police." However, the open-carry parent who had been denied access to the school said the court ruling in his favor was just "common sense." [Detroit Free Press, 8-11-2015]

No. 1 in the News: Fukuoka Prefectural Police arrested two officials at a video company in June, along with three "actresses," in the making of videos of the three seated on the floor of trains of the Nishi-Nippon Railroad and urinating. Police said they were acting on complaints of DVD customers (who, after all, had selected the disks from the video company's "inappropriate urination" category, but nonetheless complained to the railroad). [Tokyo Reporter, 6-23-2015]

The human brain's 100 billion neurons may have such specific functions that a few electrically charge only upon recognition of a single celebrity, such as Oprah Winfrey or Bill Clinton. UCLA researchers, studying the healthy cells of pre-op epilepsy patients, inadvertently discovered this property, which apparently varies with individuals but remains internally consistent (recognizing the celebrity's name, picture or sound). Patients were presented "hundreds of stimuli," one researcher told The Wall Street Journal in October (2009), but "the neuron would respond to only one or two." For example, neurons were found that reacted only to Jennifer Aniston, only to Mother Teresa, only to characters on "The Simpsons." [Wall Street Journal, 10-9-2009]

Thanks This Week to Jim Moir and Edward Hess, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The distress across the Western world in July over the big-game killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe was apparently misdirected, according to veteran "animal communicator" Karen Anderson of Elk, Washington, who told Facebook and Internet visitors (www.AnimalCommunicating.com) that Cecil and she had discussed his demise and that he was over it. Also, Cecil apparently speaks in formal, graceful English, as Anderson quoted him (according to London's The Independent): "Let not the actions of these few men defeat us," said Cecil, "or allow darkness to enter our hearts." "I am," he added, "grander than before as no one can take our purity, our truth or our soul." (Anderson's usual fee to speak with deceased pets is $75 for 15 minutes, but she did not disclose whether she had a client for Cecil's tab.) [The Independent, 7-31-2015]

-- In May, three Santa Ana, California, police officers who had just raided the unlicensed Sky High Holistic medical marijuana dispensary were caught on the facility's surveillance video eating supposedly seized cannabis-infused chocolate bars, and an "internal affairs" investigation was opened. However, in August, the Orange County Register reported that the cops went to court to have the video suppressed. Their familiar legal argument is that the video violates their right to privacy -- in that they had purposely disabled the cameras before they began munching the contraband and thus had the requisite "expectation of privacy" that triggers the right. (Possibly, they had missed a camera.) [Orange County Register, 8-3-2015]

-- The mother of three children in Grandview, Missouri, suspected that Dameion McBride, 22, had sexually molested her two daughters (ages 4 and 8) and son (age 3), but McBride indignantly denied it, claiming that he is a child-abuse survivor himself, and booked himself on the national "Steve Wilkos" TV show in May to take a lie detector test to clear his name. However, he failed the test as to each child and was subsequently arrested. (The Associated Press reported that McBride insisted on a police lie detector test -- and failed that, too.) [WDAF-TV (Kansas City), 7-15-2015]

On Aug. 1, one of the world's weirdest border disputes came to an end, as India and Bangladesh exchanged more than 160 "enclaves" -- sovereign territory completely surrounded by the other country's sovereign territory (in principle, making travel out of the enclaves impossible unless the enclave had an embassy or another office that issues visas). In fact, there was one Indian enclave (Dahala Khagrabari) completely within a Bangladeshi enclave that is completely inside an Indian enclave inside Bangladesh. [Washington Post, 8-1-2015]

-- The estate of Dr. Rajan Verma filed a lawsuit in July against the Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo, New York, after Dr. Verma fell to his death following a concert when he lost his balance sliding down the banister. The estate claims that there must have been a sticky substance on the railing. The estate's lawyers said that since alcohol was served at the concert, the promoters should have known to take extra safety precautions for banister-riders. [Courthouse News, 7-21-2015]

-- Who gets badly hurt playing musical chairs? Robin Earnest, 46, told an Arkansas claims hearing that she broke two fingers and was forced into "years" of surgery and physical therapy over a game that was part of a class at the College of the Ouachitas in 2011 and demanded at least $75,000 from the state. The July hearing was dominated by a discussion of the proper way to play musical chairs because the instructor had ordered three students to contest one chair -- with Earnest asserting that everyone knows it would be two chairs for three people. [Arkansas Online, 7-10-2015]

-- "Green-fingered residents" can show off their hard work each year at the Quedgeley Show in Gloucestershire, England, entering arrangements of colorful, plump garden-grown vegetables. However, attendance has been off in recent years, reported the Western Daily Press, leaving the show's future in doubt -- until organizers announced that this year, to increase the number of entries, supermarket-bought vegetables could be submitted. [Western Daily Press, 7-24-2015]

-- "Number Two, Turn to the Right and Growl": Magistrates in Ceredigion, Wales, fined Edward Davies the equivalent of about $1,130 in June, finding that it was his dog that bit a teenage girl last October, sending her to a hospital with swelling and bruising. Aberystwyth authorities had set up a formal police lineup of dogs from the neighborhood, and the girl had made a positive ID of Davies' dog as the perp. [Wales Online, 6-4-2015]

Judge Roger Barto, of Waterloo (New York) Village Court, was convicted in August of staging a fake assault on himself to convince doctors to prescribe him pain medication. Officers arriving at the scene found Barto lying on the ground with a shattered porcelain toilet tank lid nearby from (he said) being smacked on the head by a mugger. However, doctors found an apparent flaw in Barto's ruse: He had forgotten to actually hurt himself during the "attack" -- as medical personnel had found no mark, cut or bruise anywhere on him. [Syracuse.com, 8-10-2015]

-- Once again during a police raid of a suspected drug house (this time, in Wood River, Illinois, in July), with cops swarming the home and yard, confiscating evidence and arresting occupants, officers had to stop briefly from time to time to answer the front door (10 times during a 90-minute period) -- as the dealer's regular (oblivious) customers continually arrived to buy more heroin. [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 7-29-2015]

-- In the face of a declining military budget, the Defense Ministry of the Netherlands issued confidential instructions to commanders in July that during training exercises, to preserve dwindling ammunition, soldiers should simply shout "Bang, Bang!" instead of firing their weapons. Said a soldiers' advocate, "Even if you have no bullets, you (still) have to train with your weapon." [Reuters via RT.com (Moscow), 8-3-2015]

-- Thinning the Herd: (1) When two men who had been drinking in the apartment of Brandon Thomas, 30, in Conyers, Georgia, on July 23 wanted to leave, Mr. Thomas objected. "If y'all are going to drink my alcohol, y'all are going to play my game," he said, announcing that his "game" was Russian roulette. Minutes later, after spinning the revolver's cylinder, Mr. Thomas lost the game. (2) Three days later in rural Bell County, Kentucky, John Brock, 60, asked the Lord once again to certify his righteousness by allowing him to safely handle a rattlesnake during services at Mossy Simpson Pentecostal Church. However exemplary Mr. Brock's faith had been previously, on that day, apparently, it was found wanting, and he is no longer with us. [Rockdale News, 7-23-2015] [WKYT-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 7-28-2015]

(1) Wallace Berg, 81, was charged with public indecency in Stratford, Connecticut, in July after a neighbor showed police a video he had made of Berg, naked and (according to an Associated Press report) "performing a sex act with some shrubbery." (2) "Where the sun don't shine" is now a standard hiding place for contraband, including for Matthew Smith, 36, arrested in Greendale, Indiana, in July. After he drew attention with a long restroom session at a Shell station, police confronted him about the white powder on his nose, and Smith sheepishly handed over the minutes-ago-removed pills and cocaine -- but he had also extracted, inexplicably, a fishing bobber, a screwdriver and an "open tire plug kit." [Associated Press via Hartford Courant, 7-29-2015] [EagleCountryOnline, 7-22-2015]

Louis Woodcock, 23, testified at his Toronto trial in March (2010) that he was not involved in the 2005 shooting of a woman, despite being seen on surveillance video approaching the woman with his hand inside his jacket until gunshots rang out. He said his hand was not on a gun but that he often kept his hand inside his jacket to keep from sucking his thumb, which is a habit he picked up in childhood and which did not go over well on the street. (The jury, apparently not seeing him as the thumb-sucking type, convicted him of manslaughter.) [CTV (Toronto), 3-9-2010]

Thanks This Week to Dan Bohlen, Dan Wasserman, Bryce Jackson, and Charles Smaistrla, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

"The worshipful treatment of pets may be the thing that unites all Americans," wrote an Atlantic Magazine blogger in July, describing the luxury terminal for animals under construction at New York's JFK airport. The ARK will offer shower stalls for traveling horses, "conjugal stations" for ever-horny penguins, and housing for nearly 200 cows (that might produce 5,000 pounds of manure every day) -- and passengers traveling with dogs or cats can book the Paradise 4 Paws pet-pampering resort. The ARK is a for-profit venture; said one industry source, quoted in a July Crain's New York Business report, "You hear stories about the crazy money that rich people spend on their (animals) ... they're mostly true." [Crain's New York Business, 7-13-2015] [CityLab.com, 7-20-2015]

-- Officially, now, it is "unreasonable" for a federal agency (the Bureau of Land Management, in this instance) to fail to say yes or no for 29 years to a drilling permit application. (Before July's federal court decision, BLM had been arguing that 29 years was not too long.) A company had requested to drill just one exploratory well in Montana for natural gas in 1985, but the bureau had delayed the proceeding six times since then. The judge ordered the bureau to set a deadline for deciding. [Washington Post, 7-29-2015]

-- Georgia, one of six states that make taxpayers shell out huge fees to access its databases of public records, tries so relentlessly to control its archive that, recently, in a federal lawsuit, it said opposition to its policy was basically "terrorism." Activists (Public.Resource.org) have been establishing workarounds to free up some databases for citizen use, and Georgia demands that they stop. Georgia even claims "copyright" protection for one category of important legal documents that were initially drafted by state bureaucrats, audaciously calling them "original" and "creative" works. [Los Angeles Times, 7-27-2015]

-- Mandatory Inaction: In July, the mayor of the town of Ador, Spain (pop. 1,400), officially enacted into law what had merely been custom -- a required afternoon siesta from 2 to 5 p.m. Businesses were ordered to close, and children were to remain indoors (and quiet). [The Local (Madrid), 7-16-2015]

-- At a traffic stop in Rockingham, Vermont, on July 26, both driver and passenger were charged with DUI. Erik Polite, 35, was the driver (clocked at 106 mph on Interstate 91 and, according to police, with drugs in the car), and while he was being screened for intoxication, passenger Leeshawn Baker, 34, jumped behind the wheel and peeled off in reverse across the highway, nearly hitting the trooper, who arrested him. [WCAX-TV (Burlington), 7-29- 2015]

-- Nathaniel Harrison, 38, was arrested in July in a Phoenix suburb on several charges, including possession of a deadly weapon during a felony, but he escaped an even more serious charge when a second "deadly weapon" failed to engage. Harrison reportedly intended to retaliate against a "snitch" and arrived at the man's home carrying a rattlesnake, which he supposedly pointed at the man, hoping it would bite him. However, the snake balked, and Harrison's attempted payback failed. [KPHO-TV (Phoenix), 7-28-2015]

-- Lame Defenses in Lake County, Florida: (1) Daniel Baker, 40, and Robert Richardson, 19, were arrested in Altoona, Florida, in August after getting caught loading appliances from a vacant house. According to the arrest report, both men appeared incredulous to learn that items in a vacant house aren't just "free." (2) Six days earlier about 20 miles away in Tavares, Florida, Corey Ramsey, 23, was arrested for burglary when a police officer caught him sitting on a toilet in a vacant, for-sale house attending to a need. Ramsey's extensive petty-crime rap sheet belied his explanation for being there -- that he was contemplating buying the $299,000 house and wanted to try it out first. [Daily Commercial (Leesburg), 8-4-2015] [Daily Commercial, 7-30-2015]

Zoologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland, publishing recently in a prestigious British journal, reported the likelihood that a certain flatworm species has overcome the frustration of not finding a mating partner in its lifetime. The scientists believe the flatworm exploits its hermaphroditic qualities and injects its sperm into its own head, from which the sperm sometimes migrates to its reproductive facilities. (Flatworm researchers are aided on their projects by the species' transparent bodies, facilitating the tracking of the sperm.) [World-Science.net, 6-2-2015]

-- About 200 protesters gathered in front of Hong Kong police headquarters on August 2 to denounce the 3 1/2-month jail sentence given to Ms. Ng Lai-ying, 30, who was convicted of assault for shoving a police officer with her chest. Women (and some men) wearing bras as outerwear chanted, "Breast is not a weapon." (Ng was originally protesting the hardly sexy issue of import-export abuses between Hong Kong and mainland China cities.) [South China Morning Post, 8-2-2015]

-- The Joy of Protest: An August 1 demonstration outside Britain's Parliament protesting legislation to curb until-now-legal psychoactive drugs drew about 100 people -- consuming their drug of choice, nitrous oxide. As organizers distributed gas-filled balloons for demonstrators to take hits from, "the group erupted in fits of laughter," according to The Guardian. [The Guardian, 8-1-2015]

-- Construction on a $1.7 million therapeutic equestrian facility in St. Cloud, Florida, expressly for use by wounded U.S. service members, was delayed in August when a bald eagle nest was discovered on the grounds. Federal law requires at least 330 feet of clearance for the nest, plus additional monitoring to assure the birds' tranquility. Said one neighbor, "The very animal that symbolizes freedom is delaying therapy for those who fought for it." [Bright House Cable (Orlando), 8-5-2013]

The Welsh language is such a severe mutation of the original English spoken in the Middle Ages that, to the inexperienced eye, it is barely distinguishable from, say, Klingon. In fact, in July, the Welsh government, responding to queries about a possible UFO sighting near Cardiff airport, playfully issued its galaxy-friendly response in Klingon -- "jang vlDa je due luq," meaning that further information will be provided. (In Welsh, for example, "I cannot understand Welsh" is "nad oes modd i ddeall Cymraeg.") (Recently, in Swansea, Wales, alleged drug dealer Dwaine Campbell, 25, adamantly refused to leave his cell for a court hearing because he feared being judged in Welsh -- until authorities promised to transfer the case to Campbell's native England.) [BBC News, 7-10-2015] [Wales Online, 7-27-2015]

Despite repeated assurances by Olympic officials, it appears more certain than ever that 2016 boating and surfing events in Brazil's Guanabara Bay and Rodrigo de Freitas Lake will be conducted in water so polluted with human sewage that every athlete will almost certainly be struck with fever, vomiting and diarrhea. An August Associated Press report revealed the waters' virus levels (of fecal coliform and other viruses) are as high as 2 million times the level that would close down a California beach. (Olympic and local officials continue to insist that the water will be safe by next summer, but, as the AP pointed out, their protocols test only for bacteria and not viruses. One U.S. water-quality expert advised all athletes to move to Rio ahead of the games -- to try to build up an immunity.) [Associated Press via The Guardian (London), 8-1-2015]

In mid-April (2010), senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi warned that recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and elsewhere were caused by women's loose sex and immodest dress. Immediately, Australian Jennifer McCreight responded on Facebook by urging women worldwide to dress provocatively on April 26 (2010), to create a "boobquake" and test the cleric's theory, and at least 90,000 women promised they would reveal serious cleavage on that date. On April 26, following a several-day absence of earthquakes, a quake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale hit just south of Taiwan. (Slight advantage to the ayatollah, since a Purdue University seismologist observed that a 6.5 quake was not uncommon for that region). [Courier-Mail (Brisbane)-AFP, 4-17- 2010; Indianapolis Star, 4-28-2010]

Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz, Kathryn Wood, and Crystal Hipkins, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.