By 2009, when Zimbabwe's central bank gave up on controlling inflation, its largest currency was the 100 trillion-dollar bill -- barely enough for bus fare in Harare and not even worth the paper needed to print it. However, that 100 trillion-dollar note (that's "1" plus 14 zeros) has turned out to be a great investment for several astute traders in London and New Zealand, who bought thousands of them at pennies on the trillion and now report brisk sales to collectors on eBay at US$30 to $40 a note -- a six-year return on investment, according to a May report in London's The Guardian, of nearly 1,500 percent. [The Guardian, 5-14-2016]

-- Long-divorced Henry Peisch, 56, has seven children, but only one is still living with his ex-wife (who had originally been awarded $581 monthly support for all seven). (Three children are now independent, and three others successfully petitioned courts to live with Henry.) The resultant hardship (the $581 remains in effect) caused Henry to ask the Bergen County, New Jersey, Family Court several times for a "hardship" hearing, which the court denied (thus even defying the New Jersey Supreme Court). On April 8, Family Court judge Gary Wilcox, noting Peisch's appearance on a related matter, spontaneously "granted" him his "ability to pay" hearing (with thus no opportunity for witnesses or evidence-gathering) -- and summarily jailed him for missing some $581 payments (because, the judge concluded, he did not "believe" Peisch's hardship claims). [Bergen Dispatch, 4-28-2016]

-- Magician and professional gambler Brian Zembic, 55, finally consulted surgeons recently about removing his historic C-cup breast implants, which he bore on a $100,000 bet in 1996 (with a rider of $10,000 annually for retaining them). (He also won a companion game of backgammon to determine who would pay for the original surgery.) He told news sources in May that he had intended to have them removed early on, but that they had "grown on" him and become "a normal part of my life." [Huffington Post, 5-18-2016]

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, in a May publication deriding the value of certain federally funded research, highlighted several recent National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation projects, such as the $13 million for exploring musical preferences of monkeys and chimpanzees; the $1.1 million judging whether cheerleaders are more attractive seen as a squad than individually; the $390,000 to determine how many shakes a wet dog needs to feel dry; and the $5 million to learn whether drunk birds slur when they sing. (Also strangely included was the actually valuable study by Michael Smith of Cornell University ranking where on the human body a bee sting was most painful. He found, from personal testing, that "on the penis" was only the third worst -- research that brought Smith a prestigious Ig Nobel prize last year.) [Fox News, 5-10-2016] [Sen. Jeff Flake, "Twenty Questions," May 2016]

(1) Yahoo News Australia reported (with photos) a man in Tallebudgera Creek on the country's Gold Coast swimming with his pet snake. The man, standing chest-deep in water, would toss the snake (apparently a carpet python) a few feet and, according to the videos, the snake would swim back to him each time. (In the man's other hand, of course: beer.) (2) In April, police in Broome (in Australia's far northwest) on traffic patrol stopped a 27-year-old man whose "several" children, including one infant, were unrestrained in his car while "cartons of beer" were "buckled into car seats," according to an Australian Broadcasting Corp. report. He faces several charges, including driving on a suspended license. [Yahoo News Australia, 3-1-2016] [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 4-7-2016]

Transgender Blues: Ms. Jai Dara Latto, 23, won the title Miss Transgender UK last September in London, but in February organizers stripped her of the title as being insufficiently trans, passing the crown to Ms. Daisy Bell. Officials had spotted Latto (who has worked as a "drag queen") in a BBC documentary wearing boxer shorts, and since switching underwear is usually such a crucial step for transgenders, officials concluded that Latto must not yet have made a sufficient-enough commitment to qualify for the title. [The Herald (Glasgow), 2-20-2016]

In a recent book, biologist Jennifer Ackerman noted the extraordinary intelligence of birds -- attributed to the dense packing of neurons in their equivalent of humans' cerebral cortex (according to an April Wall Street Journal review of Ackerman's "The Genius of Birds"). For example, the New Caledonia crow, among others, knows how to make and use hooked tools to hide food (and retrieve it from tricky-to-reach places), and the blue jay and others, which store many thousands of seeds during autumn, also steal seeds from less-vigilant birds -- and they even return to re-hide food if they sense they have been spotted storing it earlier. Additionally, of course, the birds' equivalent of the human larynx is so finely tuned as to be regarded as the most sophisticated sound in all of nature. [Wall Street Journal, 4-23-2016]

The president of the New England Organ Bank told U.S. News & World Report recently that she attributes the enormous upsurge in donations in recent years to the opiod "epidemic" that has produced a similarly enormous upsurge in fatal overdoses. Now, one out of every 11 donated organs comes as a result of the overdosing that in 2014 claimed over 47,000 lives. (An organ-sharing organization's chief medical officer reminds that all organ donations are carefully screened, especially those acquired from overdose deaths.) [Washington Post, 5-9-2016]

(1) Nicole Bjanes, casually zipping along Interstate 4 in Volusia County around noon on May 9, saw a red-eared slider turtle come sailing through the air and crash into her windshield, sending her car off the road. The Florida Highway Patrol said the turtle had become airborne after being hit by another car. (It was apparently unhurt and swam away when a firefighter released it into a nearby pond.) (2) On May 10, police in Key West responded to a caller at the scene of a giant banyan tree (common to Florida and featuring vertical roots that thicken, spread and become entangled with the central trunk). A woman had attempted to climb the tree but had fallen among the vertical roots, making her barely visible. Said a proud police spokesperson, "They popped her out like a cork." [WFLA-TV, 5-13-2016] [WPLG-TV (Miami), 5-10-2016]

Prolancia Turner, 26, was arrested on May 13 at Vero Beach (Florida) Outlets mall after she allegedly walked out of a Claire's store with unpaid-for earrings tucked into her waistband. Police reported her "crying and angry" and complaining that, "Everyone steals from this store. Why are you picking on me?" [The Smoking Gun, 5-19-2016]

In 2006, a court in Preston, England, apparently weary of Akinwale Arobieke's repeatedly, unconsensually "touching" men's biceps in public, issued a Sexual Offenses Prevention Order making any such future contact automatic offenses. Arobieke admitted a longtime fascination with buffed-up physiques and continued from time to time to find biceps irresistible, but in May 2016 he convinced a Manchester Crown Court judge to lift the SOPO based on his assurance that he wanted a "fresh start" and would behave himself. The judge seemed not quite sure, but noted that police could still arrest him under other sexual or assault statutes. [Manchester Evening News, 5-5-2016]

At the 10th Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait in March (2012), as medals were presented and winners' national anthems were played, officials were apparently ill-prepared for medalist Maria Dmitrienko of Kazakhstan. Consequently, they cluelessly played, as her national anthem, the humorous ditty from the movie "Borat." (Instead of such lyrics as "sky of golden sun" and "legend of courage," the audience heard "Greatest country in the world/All other countries are run by little girls" and "Filtration system a marvel to behold/It removes 80 percent of human solid waste.") Dmitrienko reportedly kept a mostly straight face, although Kazakhstan later received an official apology. [BBC News, 3-23-2012]

Ms. Pixee Fox reported in May that she was recovering nicely from cosmetic rib-removal surgery, performed by one of the few doctors in the world who offers it (Dr. Barry Eppley of Carmel, Indiana). Though she has had more than a dozen "beautifying" procedures, she had trouble finding a surgeon who would agree to take out six "free-floating" ribs (ones not attached to the sternum). Born in Sweden, she gave up a career as a trained electrician to come to the United States to pursue her goal of looking "like a cartoon character" -- which she has surely achieved with her now-16-inch waist. [WRTV (Indianapolis), 5-19-2016]

Triple Crown winner American Pharoah earned an estimated $8.6 million racing but, now retired, could earn as much as $35 million just by having sex. Stallions reportedly can breed into their 20s, and the horse, now barely age 4, will have 175 conquests by the end of this summer, according to a May report by CNBC. One industry worker said Pharoah has put on weight, spends his spare time peaceably eating grass, and "looks more like a relaxed horse." A spokesman for the Kentucky farm now housing Pharoah said he "has proven to be very professional in the breeding shed." [CNBC, 5-2-2016]

The Keystone Fellowship Church in North Wales, Pennsylvania, has a tradition of congregants reserving pew seats by leaving Bibles in place, but worshipper Robert Braxton, 27, was having none of that on April 24 and took a saved seat anyway. Witnesses told Philadelphia's WCAU-TV that when one church member gently tapped Braxton on the shoulder to inform him of the tradition, Braxton snapped at him and became disruptive. Congregant Mark Storms, 46, flashed a gun and confronted Braxton, who punched Storms, adding, "That's not a real gun" and "What are you going to do, shoot me?" Storms, contending that he felt threatened, fired two shots, killing Braxton, and was charged with voluntary manslaughter. [Philly.com, 4-30-2016]

-- The Moscow Times reported in May that bailiffs in Russia's Perm region, employing originality as yet unseen in America in attempting to collect an overdue debt, arrested the debtor's cat. The bailiffs listed the feline's value at the equivalent of $23, and the man came up with that sum the next day and took the cat home. The Federal Bailiffs Service explained that all the other "property" in the apartment was in other people's names. [Moscow Times, 5-6-2016]

-- Shannon Egeland, 41, already convicted in 2014 of running a mortgage-fraud operation during the 2004-2008 real-estate boom, pleaded guilty in May 2016 to the subsequent crime of deliberately having himself shot to gain his judge's sympathy (and to collect on disability insurance he had purchased the week before). Egeland, scheduled to start a 10-year sentence for the 2014 conviction, told the judge he had been assaulted by gunfire when he stopped in traffic to help a pregnant woman, but in reality he had ordered his teenage son to shoot him in the legs with a 20-gauge shotgun. [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 5-11-2016]

(1) German soldiers participating in a four-week NATO exercise in Norway earlier this year apparently had to abort their efforts days earlier than other countries -- because Germany's defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, had imposed strict rules on overtime pay. Soldiers are to work no more than 41 hours a week, she said, according to revelations by London's Daily Telegraph. (2) Britain's venerable Oxford University issued a formal suggestion to law lecturers recently that they give "trigger warnings" (and allow classroom absences) if the class subject matter might be unpleasant to some students. Complained one frustrated lecturer, "We can't remove sexual offences from the criminal law syllabus -- obviously." [Daily Telegraph, 4-10-2016] [The Independent (London), 5-10-2016]

-- This correction appeared in The New York Times print edition of May 10: "Because of an editing error, an article on Monday (May 9) about a theological battle being fought by Muslim imams and scholars in the West against the Islamic State misstated the Snapchat handle used by Suhaib Webb, one of the Muslim leaders speaking out. It is imamsuhaibwebb, not Pimpin4Paradise786." [New York Times, 5-10-2016]

-- Amateurs: Government agencies trying, legally or not, to hide details from public inquiries under freedom-of-information demands usually resort to indelibly blackening out what they do not want revealed, but the Public Health Agency of Canada recently tried a unique method, according to an Associated Press correspondent. The AP had requested files on the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and, revealed reporter Raphael Satter, the documents finally arrived from the PHA with parts carefully "redacted" -- using "Scotch tape and paper." Satter reported that he got everything the AP had asked for by merely peeling the tape back. (A Dallas Morning News reporter, commenting on Satter's experience, wrote, "Canadians are so nice.") [Toronto Star, 5-17-2016]

King Cove, Alaska, population 923, lies between two massive volcanic mountains on one of the Aleutian Islands, unconnected to other civilization and 625 miles from any medical facility (in Anchorage), "accessible" only by a weather-challenging "puddle-jumper" airplane to Cold Bay for a connecting flight. About two-thirds of the residents have flying anxieties so severe that King Cove has a makeshift vending machine dispensing Valium. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has campaigned to build a road to Cold Bay to eliminate the nerve-wracking flights, but it would disturb a federally protected wilderness, and the U.S. Interior Department has so far declined. (Unconsidered: Channel the late Sam Kinison, who implored starving Ethiopians to just "mo-o-o-ove!" since food doesn't grow in the desert.) [Alaska Dispatch News, 4-14-2016]

-- Michael Blevins, 37, reported to Florida Hospital in Orange City (near Daytona Beach) in May after finally realizing, three days after the fact, that he had shot himself while cleaning his handgun. He said he was on pain medication and besides, was wearing a black shirt that obscured blood stains. He said he had felt a sharp pain but that, mainly, it had aggravated his back injury, causing him to fall and hit his head against a coffee table, and thus was not aware of the origin of the loud noise the .22-caliber handgun made. Deputies investigated briefly but closed the case. [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 5-10-2016] -- Charles Richardson, 35, was arrested at the Beachcomber Hotel in St. Pete Beach in May after he had accidentally locked himself out of his room but broken back in by shooting the lock with his handgun. [BayNews9.com (St. Petersburg), 5-19-2016]

Annual Chinese "Tombsweeping" celebrations have made News of the Weird several times, most recently in 2008 when the government reinstated it as an official holiday. (Traditionally, people brought jewelry and other valuables to ancestors' gravesites for burial with the body, thus theoretically "enriching" the relative's afterlife.) In recent years, during economic turbulence, some brought only paper images of valuables (or just left signed checks -- "generous" checks!). Now, a retail market has developed of ultra-cheap knock-off upscale items, such as fake Gucci shoes, computers, big-screen TV sets, and even one full-size "air-conditioner" (because, perhaps, it may be "hot" where the deceased is headed?). A Hong Kong representative for Gucci has issued warnings against trademark abuse, even though the flimsy fakes are hardly convincing. [New York Times, 5-5-2016]

The 547-acre FBI Academy on the grounds of the Quantico (Virginia) Marine Base houses a firing range on which about a million bullets a month are shot by agents in training, but it also happens to be a de facto wildlife refuge for the simple fact that the academy is off-limits to Virginia hunters. Thus, according to a December (2011) ABC News dispatch, deer learn that, despite the gunfire (sometimes at astonishingly close range as they wander by the targets), none of them ever gets hit. The academy has also become a "sanctuary" for foxes, wild turkeys and other critters. [ABC News, 12-26-2011]

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced they had recently (a first, they claimed) transmitted high-speed digital data through slabs of pork loin and beef liver. The signal cleared the muscle and gristle so cleanly that it permitted streaming of high-definition video -- enough to watch Netflix, said the lead researcher. (Actually, the advance is crucial in that it allows a patient to swallow a transmitter and for physicians to monitor inner workings of the body in real time and externally control implanted devices such as cranial sensors and defibrillators.) [Engineering at Illinois press release, 4-18-2016]

-- Religious leaders associated with the "quiverfull" ministry announced intentions for a November retreat this year in Wichita, Kansas, at which parents will meet to plan "arranged" Christian marriages for their prepubescent daughters, to maximize the future couples' childbearing potential -- supposedly the No. 1 priority of all females. Quiverfull activist Vaughn Ohlman has written that female fertility is optimal during their teens (actually, just after age 12) and drops off in their 20s. The local district attorney, queried by The Wichita Eagle, said such marriages are legal as long as all parties consent -- but Ohlman has maintained that the Bible does not require the bride's consent if her father has given his. [Wichita Eagle, 5-5-2016]

-- Apparently, Japanese taste buds easily become bored, for manufacturers seem eager to create extravagant food combinations to satisfy them that might prove daunting to most Americans. The latest exhibit: the familiar Kit Kat chocolate-coated wafer -- but with the taste of ripe melon and cheese (specifically, "Hokkaido Melon With Mascarpone Cheese"). As Japanese foodies know, Kit Kats in Japan come in at least 15 coatings, according to a 2013 review by Kotaku.com, including Edamame Soybean, Purple Sweet Potato, Hot Japanese Chili, Matcha-Green Tea, Wasabi and Red Bean Sandwich. [London Daily Mirror, 5-2-2016] [Kotaku.com, 2- 11-2013]

-- The Daily Pakistan newspaper, covering the Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi in April, reported that a judge in Courtroom III asked a constable if he knew how the grenade entered into evidence worked. Rather than assume that an explanation was requested, the constable pulled the pin to demonstrate, and the resulting explosion injured the constable, a court clerk and another police officer. The constable is said to be facing severe discipline as soon as he recovers. [Daily Pakistan, 4-11-2016]

-- Great Britain's prisoners claiming to be adherents of the ancient Celtic pagan religion are allowed, under rules from the National Offender Management Services, to be excused from jailhouse routines to celebrate four festivals, including (of course) the Festival of the Lactating Sheep. Although "Skyclad," or naked worship, is forbidden, prisoners can wear the silver pagan ring (to avoid "distress") and are permitted their own chalices, crystals, "worry beads," pentagram necklaces, hoodless robes and flexible twig-wands. [Daily Express (London), 4-14-2016]

-- An Israeli man (unidentified in press reports) petitioned the Haifa Magistrate's Court recently for a restraining order against God, pointing out that the Almighty has exhibited (according to a May Times of Israel report) "a seriously negative attitude toward him," especially over the previous three years. The judge rejected the petition even though God was not present to argue against it (or at least His presence could not be detected). [Times of Israel, 5-4-2016]

(1) In the latest ruling on a familiar theme, a court in Modena, Italy, ordered a father to continue paying living expenses for his son, age 28, who had meandered through a degree in literature but now has decided to seek another, in experimental cinema. (Almost two-thirds of Italians aged 18 to 34 still live with their parents.) (2) In Beijing, an elderly couple secured a court order in March forcing their 36-year-old daughter finally to move out after she had refused for years. The couple admitted to the Beijing Morning Post that they might have pampered her excessively over the years, even lending her the equivalent of $23,000 to buy a house. (Still, she stayed.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 4-27-2016] [Shanghaiist.com, 3-30-2016]

Gynecologists interviewed by The New York Times for an April report said they were baffled by the recent increase in teenage girls demanding cosmetic surgery on the external folds of their vulvas -- since there is rarely a medical need and the safety of the operation on young girls has not been demonstrated. Some doctors called the "need" just an extreme example of teen girls' beauty obsessions and suggested the presence in some girls of the psychiatric malady of "body dysmorphic disorder," in which a person imagines or exaggerates a physical characteristic. (The phenomenon is different from the "vaginal rejuvenation" requested by older women, especially after childbirth, because that involves tightening internal tissue.) [New York Times, 4-26-2016]

(1) Houston's KHOU-TV revealed in May that the French teacher at the Houston school district's Energy Institute High School doesn't speak French (but did take one year of it, in high school). (2) The Sheldon school district near Houston admitted in May that a 7-year-old student at Sheldon Elementary had written her own successful "please excuse Rosabella early" note (using lettering typical of 7-year-olds) and was allowed to go home instead of attending her after-school program. (3) School police at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Houston threatened to arrest a 13-year-old girl during the last school year because they were unaware that the girl's $2 bill (cafeteria payment) was valid U.S. currency. [KHOU-TV, 5-3-2016] [KTRK-TV (Houston), 5-3-2016] [KTRK-TV, 4-28-2016]

(1) In April, police in Brighton, Ontario, responded to what was reported by neighbors as a domestic dispute, involving shrieks like, "I hope you die!" They found only a man "arguing" with his pet parrot (who the man said was "beaking off" at him). No arrests were made. (2) Kayvon Mavaddat, 28, was arrested in Natick, Massachusetts, as police enforced three arrest warrants. He had been on the loose until May 6, when he politely (inadvisedly) held open a door at Natick Mall for a police officer who, in that brief moment, thought he recognized Mavaddat. Checking his cruiser's computer, he found the warrants, went back inside and arrested Mavaddat. [CTV News (Barrie), 4-22-2016] [Metro West Daily (Framingham, Mass.), 5-9-2016]

Timothy Trammell, 36, was arrested on several charges in Jonesville, South Carolina, in May after a sheriff's deputy spotted him spray-painting a car that was not his. According to the deputy's report, Trammell had just finished angrily painting "C-h-e-e-t-e-r" (sic) on the car (belonging to a woman, identified in a WSPA-TV report as his girlfriend). [WSPA-TV (Spartanburg), 5-9-2016]

(1) In April in Oslo district court, Norway's most notorious terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik (77 killed in 2011), prevailed in his complaint against prison treatment and was awarded the equivalent of about $41,000. The prison (part of a system generally regarded as the world's most inmate-friendly) was found to violate Breivik's human rights by restricting his outside contacts and excessively restraining and strip-searching him. (He had also complained of poor food choices.) (2) The Veterans Affairs hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin, among the system's most troubled (in personnel issues, falsifying reports and overdependence on patient opiod use), is reportedly working on a "100-day plan" for reform and recently posted a job opening -- for interior decorator ($77,000 position, doctoral degree) to, presumably, improve everyone's attitude. [Washington Post, 4-21-2016] [Daily Caller, 4-27-2016]

Fine Points of the Law: In February (2012), a jury in Thousand Oaks, California, acquitted Charles Hersel, 41, of child molestation. Though Hersel admitted through his lawyer that he had paid high school students to spit in his face and yell profanities at him, and had offered kids money to urinate and defecate on him, jurors found that, regardless of why he felt the need to do those things, it must not have been for reasons of "sexual gratification" and therefore, technically, was not a violation of the particular law under which he was charged. [KTLA-TV (Los Angeles, 2-21-2012]