Australian aviator David Mayman has promised investors that his personal jet packs will hit the market by mid-2017, though early adopters will pay about $250,000 for one, to fly a person at up to 60 mph for 10 minutes. The JB-10 (developed by Mayman and designer Nelson Tyler) has made about 400 test runs in Monaco and over downtown London and New York City, but the partners realize that ultimate success will require that the fuel tanks be downsized so that the craft can be powered electrically -- and thus seek crowdfunding both for that model and a larger one to accommodate the Pentagon's (Special Operations Command) tactical needs. [Daily Mail (London), 11-11-2016]

-- Wild Life: The state agency Colorado Parks and Wildlife filed 21 criminal charges in October against the Squirrel Creek Wildlife Rescue center in Littleton, alleging that some of the orphaned and rehabbing animals Kendall Seifert houses are not being kept according to the state's strict standards -- and that Seifert's 15-year-old center is also home to his popular swingers' club (Scarlet Ranch) featuring weekend sex parties. One of the criminal charges suggests that rescue animals could be stressed by gazing at activity in the ranch's bar area. Seifert said he will challenge the charges out of fear that many of the raccoons, foxes, song birds, coyotes, skunks, rabbits and squirrels he would have to relinquish would not find suitable facilities elsewhere. [The Guardian (London), 10-27-2016]

-- In St. Paul, Minnesota, a 25-year-old woman told police on Nov. 3 that she was involuntarily roughed up several hours after being voluntarily roughed up at Arnellia's Bar's weekly "Smack Fest" -- in which female patrons competitively slap each other's faces for three "rounds" under strict house rules. The woman said she spoke amicably with her opponent, but by closing time, the opponent and several friends, including men, punched and kicked her outside the bar. (In other slapping news, a 71-year-old woman died in Lewes, England, in November while participating in a Chinese healing seminar that emphasizes being slapped repeatedly to rid the body of poisoned blood and toxins. The "healer," Hongshi Xiao, charges clients around $900 to beat what he calls the "sha" out of them.) [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 11-7-2016] [The Argus (Brighton), 11-14-2016]

-- Episode Almost Ended in a Tie: In November, in a remote area of Oregon's Maury Mountains, a 69-year-old man killed an elk and dragged the carcass behind his off-road vehicle up a hill. According to the Crook County Sheriff's office, the vehicle suddenly flipped over backward, and the man landed on, and was impaled by, the elk's antlers. Fellow hunters summoned a helicopter, and the man has apparently survived. [The Oregonian, 11-7-2016]

(1) In a retail market long dominated by priests, "nonsectarian" funeral eulogizers now offer to give individually tailored remembrances of the deceased for a fee, according to an October report by a New York Post reporter who interviewed two local "celebrants," who cited the declining appeal of "prayers." (2) The British retailer ASOS announced in August that 3-foot-long clip-on dinosaur tails had sold out in one of its two models (although New York magazine, which reported it in the U.S., was, for obvious reasons, baffled about why). [New York Post, 10-23- 2016] [New York, 8-29-2016]

Brittany Maynard, then 29, became "the face of the Right to Die movement" in 2014, according to a New York Post column, when she chose a legal physician-assisted suicide rather than awaiting the growth of her terminal brain tumor. In October, terminally ill California mother Stephanie Packer hoped to be "the face of the Right to Live movement" after revealing that her insurance company denied coverage for a drug that could extend her life -- but at the same time disclosed that her suicide drugs are covered, and even disclosed her co-pay ($1.20). [New York Post, 10-24-2016]

Margaret Boemer's baby LynLee was "born" twice. In an October Texas Children's Hospital interview, doctors described how the need to rid Boemer's fetus of a rapidly growing tumor required them, at Boemer's 23rd week of pregnancy, to remove the fetus completely from the uterus until it was "hanging out in the air" so that they could cut away the tumor and then reposition the fetus into the uterus. LynLee was "born" again by C-section 13 weeks later. [CNN, 10-20-2016]

San Francisco State University researchers revealed in April that no fungi or fecal bacteria were found on the seats of the city's bus line or rapid transit trains (unlike their findings in 2011 before officials adopted easier-to-clean seats), but that a "rare" and "unusual" strain, called Pigmentiphaga was found -- previously associated only with South Korean wastewater and the South China Sea. The city's Department of Health said, of course, not to worry. [SFGate.com, 10-28-2016]

A high-level policy document released by the Chinese government in September detailed plans to use technology to monitor citizen behavior to such a degree that each person would receive a "social credit" score (similar to a FICO score in the U.S. but covering a range of conduct beyond financial) that would be the basis for allotting perks such as government support in starting businesses and whether parents' children are eligible for the best schools. "(K)eeping trust is glorious," according to the document, and "good" behavior promotes a "harmonious socialist society." [Washington Post, 10-22-2016]

Kristi Goss, 43, an assistant to a Garland County (Arkansas) judge, was arrested in October and charged with stealing nearly $200,000 in public funds, which she used to buy such things as a tuxedo for her dog, sequined throw pillows, a "diamond bracelet" (retailing for $128) and, of course, Arkansas Razorback football tickets. [Sentinel-Record (Hot Springs), 10-26-2016]

(1) Motorist Kurt Jenkins, 56, was arrested in November in Boynton Beach, Florida, after a pedestrian said Jenkins, naked, motioned him to his car to take a look. The pedestrian said there were children in the area -- and also that Jenkins appeared to have wires running from his genitals to an unidentified "electrical device." (2) Among a stash of pornography found recently on the computer of Michael Ward, 70, were photos of humans having some sort of sex with "horses, dogs, (an) octopus and (an) eel," according to a report of England's Chelmsford Crown Court proceedings. A pre-sentencing order forbade Ward to have contact with children under 16 (but was silent about possible contact with fish or mollusks). [WPEC-TV (West Palm Beach, 11-2-2016] [Metro News (London), 11-6-2016]

(1) At press time, "Bugs Bunny" and "Pink Panther" were on trial in St. Catharines, Ontario, on aggravated-assault charges from a Halloween 2015 bar fight in which "Dracula's" ear was severely slashed with a broken bottle. "There was a lot of blood," said a witness (but coming from Dracula, not being sucked out by Dracula). (Update: The judge cleared Bugs, but was still deliberating on Panther.) (2) The tardigrade is an ugly micro-organism that is perhaps the sturdiest animal on Earth, able to endure otherwise-impossible living conditions and (thanks to gene- sequencing) known to be composed of DNA not seen elsewhere. A Japanese company recently began selling an oversized, cuddlable tardigrade toy "plushie" authenticated by science's leading tardigrade authority, professor Kazuharu Arakawa of Keio University. [St. Catharines Standard, 11-8-2016, 11-18-2018] [BoingBoing, 11-15-2016]

The usual 20,000 or so visitors every year to Belgium's 30-acre Verbeke Foundation art park are allowed to reserve a night inside the feature attraction: a 20-foot-long, 6-foot-high polyester replica of a human colon created by Dutch designer Joep Van Lieshout. The area at the end of the structure gives the installation its formal name, the Hotel CasAnus. The facility, though "cramped," according to one prominent review, features heating, showers and double beds, and rents for the equivalent of about $150 a night (the rate in 2012). [Huffington Post, 12-12-2012]

While "democracy" in most of America means electing representatives to run government, on Nov. 8 in San Francisco it also expected voters to decide 43 often vague, densely worded "issues" that, according to critics, could better be handled by the professionals who are, after all, elected by those very same voters. Except for hot-button issues like tax increases or hardened legislative gridlock, solutions on these "propositions" (e.g., how certain contractors' fees should be structured, which obscure official has primary responsibility for which obscure job, or the notorious proposition asking whether actors in the tax-paying porno industry must use condoms) would be, in other states, left to elected officials, lessening voter need for a deep dive into civics. [CityLab.com, 11-7-2016]

-- Inexplicable: (1) The police chief of Bath Township, Ohio, acknowledged the overnight break-in on Oct. 10 or 11 at the University Hospitals Ghent Family Practice, but said nothing was missing. It appeared that an intruder (or intruders) had performed some medical procedure in a clinical office (probably on an ear) because instruments were left in bowls and a surgical glove and medication wrappings tossed into a trash can (and a gown left on a table). (2) A 35-year-old man was detained by police in Vancouver, British Columbia, in October after a home break-in in which the intruder took off his clothes, grabbed some eggs and began preparing a meal. The homeowner, elsewhere in the house, noticed the commotion and the intruder fled (still naked). [WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 10-27-2016] [CTV News (Vancouver), 10-20-2016]

-- How To Tell If You've Had Too Much To Drink: Ashley Basich, 49, was arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in October and charged with DUI after police found her, late at night, using an industrial forklift to pick up and move a van that she explained was blocking her driveway. Problems: She works for the state forestry department and had commandeered a state-owned vehicle, she had a cooler of beer in the forklift and was operating it while wearing flip-flops (OSHA violation!), and the van "blocking" her driveway was her own. [Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Cheyenne), 11-2-2016]

-- Though most Chicago Police Department officers get no more than five civilian complaints in their entire careers (according to one defense attorney), CPD internal records released in October reveal that some had more than 100, and, of 13,000 complaints over 47 years in which police wrongdoing was conceded, only 68 cases resulted in the officer actually being fired (although the worst police offender, Jerome Finnigan, with 157 complaints over two decades, is now in federal prison). [Associated Press via Chicago Tribune, 10-15-2016]

-- Compelling Explanations: Two men in rural Coffee County, Georgia, told sheriff's deputies in November that they had planned to soon attack a science-research center in Alaska because peoples' "souls" were trapped there and needed to be released (or at least that is what God told Michael Mancil, 30, and James Dryden Jr., 22, causing them to amass a small, but "something out of a movie" arsenal, according to the sheriff). The High Frequency Active Aural Research Facility, run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has long been a target of conspiracists, in that "the study of the Earth's atmosphere" obviously, they say, facilitates "mind control," snatching souls. [WALB-TV (Albany, Ga.), 11-1-2016]

-- Well, Of Course! (1) Motorist Luke Campbell, 28, was arrested near Minneapolis in September and charged with firing his gun at several passing cars, wounding one man (a bus passenger) -- explaining to a bystander that shooting at other vehicles "relieves stress." (2) Briton Mark Wright, 45, caught with illegal drugs taped to his penis following his arrest for burglary, told Newcastle Crown Court in September that he had "hidden" them there to keep them secret from his wife (perhaps identifying one place that she no longer visits). [Star Tribune (Minneapolis), 9-23-2016] [The Chronicle (Newcastle), 9-28-2016]

-- Recent Hospital Bills: (1) Paula D'Amore claimed she deserved a discount from the $7,400 "delivery room" charge for the April birth of her daughter at Boca Raton (Florida) Regional Hospital -- because the baby was actually born in the backseat of her car in the hospital's parking lot. (Nurses came out to assist D'Amore's husband in the final stages, but, said D'Amore, only the placenta was delivered inside.) (2) In October, new father Ryan Grassley balked at the $39.95 line-item charge from Utah Valley Hospital (Provo, Utah) -- for the mother's holding her new C-section son momentarily to her bare chest (a "bonding" ritual). (Doctors countered that C-section mothers are usually drugged and require extra security during that ritual -- but that Utah Valley might rethink making that charge a "line item.") [WPTV (West Palm Beach), 10-31-2016] [CTV News (Toronto), 10-4-2016]

-- A 49-year-old man was partly exonerated by a court in southern Sweden in September when he convinced the judge that he had a severe anxiety attack every time he received an "official" government letter in the mail (known as "window envelopes" in Sweden). Thus, though he was guilty of DUI and several other minor traffic offenses while operating his scooter, the judge dropped the charge of driving without a license because the man never opened the string of "frightening" letters informing him that operating a scooter requires a license. [The Local (Stockholm), 9-3-2016]

-- Jacob Roemer, 20, was arrested in Negaunee Township, Michigan, after a brief chase on Oct. 29 following an attempted home invasion. The resident had confronted him, chasing Roemer into the woods, where a State Police dog eventually found him lying on the ground unconscious and bloody, after, in the darkness, running into a tree and knocking himself out. [Marquette Mining Journal, 10-30-2016]

-- (1) The most recent case in which an unlucky cannabis grower came to police attention occurred in Adelaide, Australia, in August when a motorist accidentally veered off the road and crashed into a grow house, collapsing part of a wall. Arriving police peered inside and quickly began a search for the residents, who were not at home. (2) The latest market price for a coveted automobile license plate is apparently the equivalent of $9 million -- the amount paid by Dubai developer Balwinder Sahni at government auction recently for plate number "5." [The Advertiser (Adelaide), 8-1-2016] [CNN Money (Dubai), 10-31-2016]

For not the first time in history, a fire broke out this year in a hospital operating room caused by the patient's passing gas during a laser procedure. The patient at Tokyo Medical University Hospital, in her 30s, suffered burns across her legs in the April incident, which was finally reported in the Japanese press in October when the hospital completed its investigation. [Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo), 10-30-2016]

-- (1) Asher Woodworth, 30, was charged with misdemeanor traffic obstruction in the Portland, Maine, arts district in October as he stood in a street after covering himself with branches of evergreen trees. A friend described Woodworth as a performance artist contrasting his preferred "slow life" with the bustle of downtown traffic. (2) Aldeburgh Golf Club in England saw fit in September to issue a special rule allowing a no-stroke ball "drop" for players plagued by neighbor Peter Bryson's cat Merlin's habit of snatching about six balls a day from the 14th fairway. [Portland Press Herald, 10-26-2016] [BBC News, 9-19-2016]

Anthony Johnson, 49, was convicted in October (2012) in Hartford, Connecticut, of stealing an improbably large amount of money -- as much as $70,000 a weekend, off and on for five years -- by crawling on the floor of darkened theaters and lifting credit cards from purses that movie-watching women had set down. The FBI said Johnson was careful to pick films likely to engross female viewers so that he could operate freely, and that he was often able to take the cards, leave the theater, and make cash-advance withdrawals from ATMs before the movie had ended. [Hartford Courant, 10-22-2012]

New York City officially began licensing professional fire eaters earlier this year, and classes have sprung up to teach the art so that the city's Fire Department Explosives Unit can test for competence (if not "judgment") and issue the "E29" certificates. In the "bad old (license-less) days," a veteran fire eater told The New York Times in October, a "bunch of us" performed regularly for $50 a throw, largely oblivious of the dangers (though some admit that almost everyone eventually gets "badly burned"). For authenticity, the Times writer, a fire eater who dubbed herself Lady Aye, completed the licensing process herself ("as sexy as applying for a mortgage"), but declined to say whether she is awaiting bookings. [New York Times, 10-30-2016]

-- A major streetlight in the town of Pebmarsh Close, England, went out of service when a truck hit it a year ago, and despite pleas to fix it from townspeople -- and Essex county councillor Dave Harris -- no action has been taken. In October, Harris staged a "birthday party" on the site, formally inviting numerous guests, and furnishing a birthday cake -- to "celebrate" the "age" of the broken streetlight. (The shamed county highway office quickly promised action.) [Essex County Gazette-Standard, 10-24-2016]

-- Prominent British radio host Dame Jenni Murray suggested in October that the U.K. scrap traditional "sex education" courses in school and instead show pornographic videos for classes to "analyze it in exactly the same way as (they analyze Jane Austen)" in order to encourage discussion of the role of sex. Younger students might explore why a boy should not look up a girl's skirt, but older students would view hard-core material to confront, for example, whether normal women should "shave" or make the typical screeching moans that porno "actresses" make. Dame Jenni said simply condemning pornography is naive because too much money is at stake. [The Independent (London), 10-12-2016]

-- At a World Cup qualifier match in October in Quito, Ecuador, police arrived during the game to question star player Enner Valencia about an unpaid alimony complaint, and he saw them waiting on the sideline. Local media reported that Valencia then faked an on-field injury near the end of the match to "necessitate" being taken away by ambulance, thus outmaneuvering the police. (He settled the complaint in time for the next match.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-7-2016]

-- The security firm Trend Micro disclosed in October its "surprise" to find, in the course of a routine investigation, that firms in several crucial sectors (nuclear power, electric utilities, defense contractors, computer chip makers) send critical alert messages via old-style wireless pagers wholly unsecured against hacking. In fact, Trend Micro said the enormously popular WhatsApp message-exchange app has better security than the alert systems of nuclear power plants. (Infrastructure engineers defended the outdated technology as useful where internet access was unavailable.) [ArsTechnica.com, 10-25-2016]

-- Life Imitates Art: Security experts hired by the investment firm Muddy Waters (which is being sued for defamation by St. Jude Medical Inc. over claims that St. Jude's cardiac implant device can be hacked) disclosed in an October court filing that they agree the devices are anonymously and maliciously hackable. They found that a popular control device (Merlin@Home) could be remotely turned off, or jiggered to carry a dangerous electrical charge from up to 100 feet away. (A similar incident was part of a plot in Season 2 of the "Homeland" TV series, as the means by which the ailing U.S. vice president was assassinated.) [Bloomberg Markets, 10-24-2016]

New York's prestigious Bronx High School of Science enrolls some of the "best and brightest" students in the city -- some of whom (perhaps rebelling against the "nerd" label) for the last two years have held unauthorized, consensual fistfights (a "fight club") in a field near the school, according to an October New York Daily News report. Students at the school (which has produced eight Nobel Prize winners and eight National Medal of Science honorees) then bombarded the Daily News reporter by telephone and Facebook with acrimonious, vulgar messages for placing the school in a bad light. [New York Daily News, 10-12-2016]

Nathan Lawwill, 32, from Lansing, Michigan, was arrested in Tunisia in October after emigrating as a recent Muslim convert, speaking little Arabic -- which did not restrain him (a one-time Christian) from now being the Islamic Messiah, the "gift to Muslims," "Mahdi to Muslims and Messiah to the Jews." "I am going to be the center of the world very quickly," he wrote on Facebook. He and his brother Patrick were found by police on Oct. 25 "unwashed," and were detained on suspicion of terrorism. [The Daily Beast, 10-27-2016]

(1) Ms. Cana Greer, 29, was arrested in Sacramento, California, in October when police responded to a call to help her remove handcuffs she had accidentally engaged while fooling around with a friend. Police, routinely checking her ID, discovered an outstanding felony burglary warrant. As per procedure, officers took her to a fire station for removal of the cuffs -- to make room on her wrists for their own handcuffs. (2) A woman unnamed (because she has not been charged with a crime) almost produced major havoc at the Shuttle Car Wash in Titusville, Florida, in October when, while cleaning her car, she attempted to vacuum gas out of her trunk, causing the vacuum to explode. [Sacramento Bee, 10-19-2016] [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 10-14-2016]

Mr. Nigel Hobbs, 71, passed away in Dawlish, England, in April, and an October coroner's inquest heard that his body was found by a neighbor "swaddled" in bed linen and wearing numerous "homemade" dresses and his face covered by stockings pulled tight (but with eye holes). Underneath the coverings, his face was wrapped in polyethylene, including his mouth but not his nose, and cotton or wool was stuffed into his ears and mouth. The coroner assumed the cause of death was accidental asphyxiation. [Mid-Devon Advertiser, 10-19-2016]

Joining some classic cases of sentencing overkill that have populated News of the Weird through the years: In October in San Marcos, Texas, jurors apparently had enough of recidivist drunk driver Jose Marin, 64, who had just racked up conviction No. 8 and so sentenced him to spend the next 99 years in prison and (perhaps more horrifyingly) sober. And in Fresno, California, Rene Lopez, 41, convicted of raping his daughter over a four-year period beginning when she was 16, was sentenced by a Fresno Superior Court judge to prison until the year 3519 (1,503 years from now). [KXAN-TV (Austin), 10-13-2016] [Associated Press via Los Angeles Times, 10-22-2016]

(1) The world's first constantly flowing (and free!) "wine fountain" opened in Abruzzo, Italy, in October, to help draw tourists and pilgrims who make the trek south from the Vatican to view the cathedral where remains of the disciple Thomas are kept. Operators said they hope the fountain will not become a home to "drunkards." (2) In September, the world's first (legal) beer pipeline opened, pumping 12,000 bottles' worth an hour from the Halve Maan brewery in Bruges, Belgium, to its bottling plant two miles away (and thus sparing visitors to the historic city the sight of tanker trucks cluttering the cobblestone streets). The pipeline was partly funded by private citizens offered "free beer for life" for their donations. [The Local (Rome), 10-12-2016] [New York Times, 9-17-2016]

Awesome Achievement: William Todd, traveling by bus, faced a nine-hour layover in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 9 (2012) -- and with time on his hands, managed to (allegedly) commit at least 11 felonies, one after another, while he waited: shooting up a restaurant, setting it on fire, robbing four people at a bar, carjacking, breaking into a law office and defecating on a desk, trolling hotel rooms seeking theft opportunities, and stealing a taxicab and robbing the driver. He was finally captured at Opryland, where he had hidden by submerging himself in water up to his nose. [WSMV-TV (Nashville), 4-9-2012]