Although discouraging the marriage of children in developing nations has been U.S. foreign policy for years, a data-collecting watchdog group in America disclosed in February that 27 U.S. states have no minimum marriage ages and estimates that an average of almost 25,000 children age 15 and under are permitted to marry every year ("estimates" because some states do not keep records by age). Child marriage is often allowed in the U.S. if parents approve, although no such exemption is made in foreign policy, largely to curb developing nations' "family honor" marriages -- which often wreck girls' chances for self-actualizing. (However, "family honor" is still, in some states, the basis for allowing U.S. child marriages, such as with "shotgun" weddings.) [Unchained At Last via Washington Post, 2-10-2017]

Creative: (1) Glenn Schloeffel, vice president of the Central Bucks school board in a Philadelphia suburb, recommended that science books be viewed skeptically on "climate change" because teenage "depression" rates have been increasing. Surely, he said, one factor depressing students is reading all that alarming climate-change data. (2) Seattle's Real Estate Services rental agency has informed the family of the late Dennis Hanel that it would not return Hanel's security deposit following his January death because Hanel had not given the lease-required "notice" giving up his apartment. (He had cancer, but died of a heart attack. Washington state law requires only that the landlord provide an explanation why it is keeping the deposit.) [Philadelphia Magazine, 2-14-2017] [Crosscut Public Media (Seattle), 2-15-2017]

-- (1) John Haskew, who told investigators that he was "self-taught on the banking industry," evidently thought he might succeed making bogus wire transfers to himself from a large (unidentified) national bank, in the amount of $7 billion. He pleaded guilty in February in Lakeland, Florida. (He said he thought he "deserved" the money.) (2) Katherine Kempson, 49, deciding to pay "cash" for a $1.2 million home, forged (according to York County, Pennsylvania, deputies) a "proof of funds" letter from the Members 1st credit union. Home sales are, of course, highly regulated formalities, and several attempted "closings" were halted when her money kept not showing up. One deputy told a reporter, "I'm guessing that she probably didn't think it through." [WFTV (Orlando), 2-3-2017] [York Daily Record, 2-3-2017]

-- The highest bail amount ever ordered in America -- $4 billion for murder suspect Antonio Willis -- was briefly in play in Killeen, Texas, in February, set by Bell County's elected Justice of the Peace Claudia Brown. Bail was reduced 10 days later to $150,000 by a district court judge, prompting Brown to acknowledge that she set the "$4 billion" to call attention to Texas' lack of bail standards, which especially punishes indigent arrestees with little hope of raising even modest amounts when accused of minor crimes. [Fox News, 2-13-2017]

-- Researchers including Rice University biochemist John Olson revealed in a February journal article that one reason a man avoided anemia even though he had a gene mutation that weakened his hemoglobin was because he has been a tobacco smoker -- that the carbon monoxide from smoke had been therapeutic. His daughter, with the same gene mutation, did develop anemia since she never smoked (although Olson suggested other ways besides smoking to strengthen hemoglobin, such as by massive vitamin C). [Rice University via New York Post, 2-16-2017]

-- Several death-penalty states continue to be frustrated by whether their lethal-injection "cocktails" make death so painful as to be unconstitutionally "cruel," and Arizona's latest "solution," announced as a Department of Corrections protocol, is for the condemned to supply their own (presumably less unpleasant) drugs. (There was immediate objection, noting that such drugs might only be available by black market -- and questioning whether the government can legally force someone to kill himself.) [The Guardian (London), 2-15-2017]

(1) Just before Christmas, Tammy Strickland, 38, was arrested in Polk County, Florida, and charged with stealing 100 toys from a Toys for Tots collection box. (2) In February, thieves unbolted and stole a PlayStation from the children's cancer ward at Wellington Hospital in New Zealand. (3) Judith Permar, 56, who was found dead, stuck in a clothing donation drop-off box in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, in February (a result, police said, of trying to "steal" items), had driven to the box in her Hummer. [Bay News 9 (St. Petersburg), 12-20-2016] [New Zealand Herald, 2-10-2017] [Philly.com, 2-7-2017]

"America's Top Fortune Cookie Writer Is Quitting Because of Writer's Block" (Time magazine, 2-3-2017). "Vaginal Pain Helps Exonerate Man Accused of Murder" (Miami Herald, 2-8-2017) (emergency medical technicians treating his sister corroborated his alibi). "Dresden Protest Against Anti-Islam Pegida Group Banned Over Snowball Fight Fears" (The Independent (London), 1-24-2017) (previously in Dresden, Germany, religious-freedom demonstrators chose "tossing snowballs" as appropriate for ridiculing Pegida).

(1) Earlier, He Would Have Been Worshipped: In February, doctors at Narayana Health City in Bangalore, India, were successful in a five-hour, 20-specialist surgery normalizing an infant born with the chromosomal abnormality "polymelia" -- which resulted in four legs and two penises. Doctors praised the parents, from rural Puladinni village, for recognizing the issue as "medical" and not as "superstition." (2) In February, police in southern Bangladesh arrested a family that used a fake penis to convince neighbors that the family had the powers of genies ("djinns"). The villagers had known the family had a girl, but overnight the genies had "changed" her into a "boy," thus frightening the villagers into making offerings to the family. [CNN, 2-10-2017] [Agence France-Presse via Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2-8-2017 ]

(1) Unhappy Ending: Clifford Jones, 58, was killed in a one-vehicle crash in Detroit in January, having lost control of his car because, according to Michigan State Police, he was distracted by watching pornography on his cellphone. He was also not wearing pants. (2) Leslie Ray Charping, 75, of Galveston, Texas, lived "much longer than he deserved," according to his daughter, in a widely shared obituary in February, in a life that "served no obvious purpose." The death notice referenced his "bad parenting" and "being generally offensive," and closed with "Leslie's passing proves that evil does in fact die." [The Smoking Gun, 1-26-2017] [KTRK-TV (Houston), 2-10-2017]

Willie Anthony, 20, and Jamarqua Davis, 16, were arrested in Kannapolis, North Carolina, in February after, police said, they broke into a Rent-a-Center at 2 a.m. and stole a big-screen TV. After loading the set into one car, they drove off in separate vehicles, but in their haste, smashed into each other in the parking lot. Both men subsequently drove the wrong way down South Cannon Boulevard, and both then accidentally crashed separately into other vehicles, allowing police to catch up. [WCNC-TV (Charlotte), 2-8-2017]

(1) Nelson Foyle, 93, is believed to be Britain's longest-time patron of the same pub (the Dog and Gun in Salisbury, England), and fellow drinkers recently bought him an honorary "lordship" title to mark his 80th year on the establishment's barstools. (2) An art collective in a Los Angeles storefront re-created (for a two-week run in January) a retro video store that featured only boxed VHS editions of the movie "Jerry Maguire" -- about 14,000 copies. [NPR, 2-14-2017] [LA Weekly, 1-14-2017]

The beauty pageant each April at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, requires traditional abilities (interview poise, evening-gown fashion, talent), but also some skill and inclination to milk and skin rattlers. High school senior Kyndra Vaught won this year's (2013) Miss Snake Charmer, wearing jeweled boots one night for her country-western ballad, then Kevlar boots and camouflage chaps the next as she took on dozens of rattlers in the wooden snake pit. Vaught expertly held up one snake, offered its tail-end rattles for a baby to touch, then helped measure, milk and skin the buzzing, slithery serpent. [Los Angeles Times, 4-12-2013]

San Francisco's best-paid janitor earned more than a quarter-million dollars cleaning stations for Bay Area Rapid Transit in 2015, according to a recent investigation by Oakland's KTVU. Liang Zhao Zhang cleared almost $58,000 in base pay and $162,000 in overtime, and other benefits ran his total income to $271,243. He worked at San Francisco's Powell Street station, a hangout for the homeless, who notoriously sullied the station 24/7 (urine, feces, and needles, especially), necessitating overtime hours that apparently only Zhang was interested in working. In one stretch during July 2015, he pulled 17-hour days for two and a half straight weeks. [KTVU, 2-7-2017]

An Abbotsford, British Columbia, burglar was successful in his Feb. 7 break-in at a home, but his getaway was thwarted by a snowfall that blocked him in on a roadway. He eventually decided to ask a passerby for help -- and inadvertently picked out a man (of the city's 140,000 residents) whose house he had just broken into (and who recognized him from reviewing his home's security camera footage). The victim called police, who arrested the man (and reported that it was the second residential break-in that night in which the snowfall had foiled a burglar's getaway.) [Vancouver Sun, 2-7-2017]

-- In Portland, Oregon, in January, Ashley Glawe, 17, a committed "goth" character with tattoos, piercings and earlobe holes ("gauges") was, she said, "hanging out" with Bart, her pet python, when he climbed into one of the lobes. She couldn't get him out, nor could firefighters, but with lubrication, hospital emergency workers did (thus avoiding an inevitable split lobe if Bart had kept squeezing his way through). [The Oregonian, 2-1- 2017]

-- Iraqi forces taking over an ISIS base in Mosul in January reported finding papers from at least 14 Islamic State "fighters" who had tried to claim "health" problems, asking commanders to please excuse them from real combat (and martyrdom). One (a Belgian man) actually brought a note from a doctor back home attesting to his "back pain." Five of the 14 were initiated by volunteers from France, a country that endures a perhaps-deserved national reputation for battle-avoidance. [Washington Post, 2-7-2017]

Legislators in Iowa and Florida recently advanced bills giving women who receive legal abortions up to 10 years (or longer, in Iowa) to sue the doctor if the abortion winds up causing them "emotional distress." (Doctors in all states are already liable, of course, for actual "negligence" in their practice.) In the Iowa version (which the Des Moines Register reported would likely face amendments), even a signed consent form by the patient would not immunize the doctor (but might mitigate the amount of damages awarded). [Des Moines Register, 1-17-2017] [Miami Herald, 2-9-2017]

German art collector Rik Reinking paid the equivalent of about $138,000 in 2008 for a resplendent, complex drawing by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, but it was one created in ink on the skin of (the still-alive) tattoo parlor manager Tim Steiner -- to be delivered only upon Steiner's death, when his skin will be displayed in Reinking's collection. (The deal also requires that, in the meantime, Steiner personally showcase his back at galleries three times a year, and BBC News recently caught his latest appearance.) [BBC News, 2-1-2017]

Higher Math: The first robots to have survived journeys close to the "core" of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan (which melted down in a 2011 earthquake) returned a reading of 530 "sieverts" per hour. (Some scientists label just 4 Sieverts an hour fatal to half the people exposed to it.) Since the robots stopped short of the actual nuclear fuel, and since they only visited one of the three cores, the true danger of Fukushima remains unknown. (On a more optimistic note, scientists in February said they have developed a computer chip that would survive on the surface of Venus for 21 days, eclipsing the old record of two hours -- long enough to send back meaningful data, including the temperature. The current estimated temperature is 878 degrees Fahrenheit.) [Washington Post, 2-8-2017] [Ars Technica, 2-8-2017]

-- Prominent Tallahassee, Florida, pastor O. Jermaine Simmons, a community leader who ministers to the homeless and downtrodden, was rescued by police on Jan. 17, naked and hiding behind a fence after making a run for it when the husband of his mistress found the two in bed. The husband, screaming, "I'm gonna kill him," ran for his handgun, and the mistress summoned police, but by Jan. 30, all involved had declined to press charges. Simmons, married with a son, is highly regarded for good deeds such as running a "cold night" shelter. [Tallahassee Democrat, 1-30- 20178]

-- The decidedly uncelibate Catholic priest Don Andrea Contin, 48, of Padua, Italy, was accused by three women in December of having as many as 30 different lovers over the years, organizing "orgies" on church property, visiting a "swingers'" resort in France several times, making pornographic home videos of his trysts, "encouraging" one woman to have sex with a horse and "always" carrying a briefcase full of vibrators, sex toys and bondage equipment. Contin has not yet been charged with a crime but, said a Catholic official, is "finished" as a priest. (Bonus: The boxes for his home videos were labeled by the names of Popes.) [The Independent (London), 2-5-2017]

In January, a New York City judge dismissed the original indictment of John Kennedy O'Hara, 55, who had been convicted in 1996 of the crime of "felony voting" -- the only person convicted under that state law since Susan B. Anthony, who cast a ballot in 1872 even though females were barred from the polls. O'Hara was indicted for voting in 1992 and 1993 after registering in Brooklyn elections from a "bogus" address -- a basement apartment that was considered uninhabitable. (A judge in 2017 determined that the apartment "could" have been habitable.) O'Hara paid $15,000 in fines and did 1,500 hours of community service. [New York Times, 1-13-2017]

Recurring Themes: Once again, in January, curiosity got the better of a perp. Adriana Salas, 26, allegedly stole a truck in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and drove it to Fort Smith, 260 miles away, but then could not resist stopping by the local sheriff's office to ask whether the truck had been reported stolen. (It had; deputies, taking a look outside, read Salas her Miranda rights.) [KFSM-TV (Fort Smith), 25-2017]

(1) Belgium's federal parliament decided to keep supplying free beer and wine during legislative sessions (over the objection of its ethics committee) because, since drinkers would continue to drink off-premises, anyway, serving the items on-premises would at least improve attendance. (2) On Jan. 30, as police, with a search warrant, approached the front door of child-porn-possessing suspect Brian Ayers, 57, they spotted him inside, hatchet in hand, pounding away at his tablet computer. Ayers, of Florence, New Jersey, was free at the time, pending sentencing in another New Jersey court on earlier counts of distributing child porn. [Politico.eu, 1-20-17] [NJ.com (Burlington, N.J.), 2-1-2017]

Those Clever Toddlers of Finland: A University of Kansas professor and two co-authors, in (2013) Journal of Finance research, found that children age 10 and under substantially outperformed their parents in earnings from certain stock trading. A likely explanation, researchers said, is that Mom and Dad were buying and selling in their children's accounts if they had illegal insider information -- because they feared getting caught by regulators if they used it for their personal accounts. The kids' accounts (including those held by babies) were almost 50 percent more profitable than their parents'. (The study, reported by NPR, covered 15 years of trades in Finland, which, unlike the U.S. and most other countries, collects traders' ages.) [NPR, 4-9-2013]

On Jan. 31, doctors at Stanley Medical College and Hospital in Chennai, India, removed a live, full-grown cockroach from the nasal cavity of a 42-year-old woman whose nose had been "itchy" earlier in the day. Two hospitals were unable to help her, but at Stanley, Dr. M N Shankar, chief of ear-nose-throat, used an endoscope, forceps, and, for 45 minutes, a suction device -- because, he said, the roach "didn't seem to want to come out." Another doctor on the team noted that they've removed beads and similar items from the nasal cavity (demonstrating the splayed-out trespasser in full wingspan), "but not a cockroach, especially not one this large." [Times of India, 2-3-2017]

Zachary Bennett and Karen Nourse have found Manhattan quite affordable, reported the New York Post in January -- by simply not paying, for six years now, the $4,750 monthly rent on their loft-style apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood, citing New York state's "loft law," which they say technically forbids the landlord from collecting. Since the other eight units of their building are "commercial," the landlord believes it doesn't need a "residential certificate of occupancy," but Bennett and Nourse believe the law only exempts buildings with at least two residences, and for some reason, the landlord has obstinately declined to initiate eviction or, until recently, to sue (for back rent, fees, and electricity). [New York Post, 1-8-2017]

The colossus PornHub dot com, in its annual January rundown, reported its several sites had 23 billion "visits" in 2016 (about one-fourth from females), during which time its videos were viewed 91 billion times. In all, earthlings spent 4.6 billion hours watching PornHub's inventory (that is 5.2 centuries' time doing whatever people do when viewing porn). USA took home the gold for the most "page views" per capita, just nipping Iceland. Online visitors from the Philippines, for the third straight year, remained (per capita) on the sites the longest per visit. The top search term on PornHub from U.S. computers was "step mom." [The Daily Dot, 1-5-2017]

-- Late last year, Oxford University professor Joshua Silver accused Britain's Home Secretary of a "hate" crime merely because the Secretary had made a speech urging that unemployed Britons be given preference for jobs over people recruited from overseas. Silver denounced this "discrimination" against "foreigners" and made a formal complaint to West Midlands police, which, after evaluation, absolved Secretary Amber Rudd but acknowledged that, under the law, the police were required to record the Secretary's unemployment speech as a "non-crime hate incident." [BBC News, 1-12-2017]

-- The British Medical Association issued a formal caution to its staff in January not to use the term "expectant mothers" when referring to pregnancy -- because it might offend transgender people. Instead, the Association's memo (reported by the Daily Telegraph) suggested using "pregnant people." The BMA acknowledged that a "large majority" of such people are, in fact, "mothers," but wrote that there may be "intersex" and "trans men" who also could get pregnant. [Daily Telegraph, 1-29-2017]

-- In 2001, Questcor Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to make Acthar Gel, a hormone injection to treat a rare form of infantile epilepsy, and gradually raised the price from $40 a vial to $28,000 a vial. The British company Mallinckrodt bought Questcor in 2014 and apparently figured the vials were still too cheap, raising the price to $34,000. However, the Federal Trade Commission noticed that Mallinckrodt also during the latter period bought out -- and closed down -- the only company manufacturing a similar, cheaper version of the product, thus ensuring that Mallinckrodt had totally cornered the market. In January, the FTC announced that Mallinckrodt agreed to a $100 million settlement of the agency's charge of illegal anti-competitive practices. ("$100 million" is only slightly more than the price of giving one vial to each infant expected to need it in the next year.) [Futurism, 1-18-2017]

-- Precocious: Girl Scout Charlotte McCourt, 11, of South Orange, New Jersey, saw her sales zoom recently when she posted "brutally honest" reviews of the Scouts' cookies she was selling -- giving none of them a "10" and labeling some with dour descriptions. She was hoping to sell 300 boxes, but as of the end of January, had registered 16,430. For the record, the best cookie was -- of course -- the Samoa, rated 9, but longtime favorites like the Trefoil ("boring") rated 6 and the Do-Si-Do ("bland") 5. The new Toffee-tastic was simply a "bleak, flavorless, gluten-free wasteland." [NJ.com, 1-31-2017]

Applicants for passports in Switzerland are evaluated in part by neighbors of the applicant, and animal-rights campaigner Nancy Holten, 42, was rejected in January because townspeople view her as obnoxious, with, said a Swiss People's Party spokesperson, a "big mouth." Among Holten's "sins" was her constant criticism of the country's hallowed fascination with cowbells -- that make, according to Holten, "hundred decibel," "pneumatic drill"-type sounds (though a hit song, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," by the group Blue Oyster Cult, skillfully employed the cowbell -- before it was satirized in an epic "Saturday Night Live" sketch starring Christopher Walken). [The Independent (London), 1-19-2017]

In January, Texas district judge Patrick Garcia was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct after a dispute outside the courthouse in El Paso. An April trial date was set for Garcia, who was accused of giving the middle finger, in public, to another judge. [Associated Press via KTVT-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 1-20-2017]

Not Ready for Prime Time: A suspect pointing a gun attempted a robbery at a laundromat in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, in February was not immediately identified. (The official reason for not initially identifying him was that, though detained, he had not yet been booked; less likely, perhaps, police might have been trying to spare him embarrassment in that the laundromat's overnight clerk, a woman named Naou Mor Khantha, had simply taken his gun away from him and shot him three times. He was hospitalized in serious condition.) [Philly.com, 2-3-2017]

-- What Goes Around, Comes Around: (1) In January, Jesse Denton, 24, driving a stolen truck, tried to flee police on Interstate 95 near Brunswick, Georgia, but accidentally crashed head-on into another vehicle. Seconds later, Denton was then fatally hit by another motorist as he ran across the highway to escape the crash scene. (2) A 37-year-old Saanich, British Columbia, man did not die but nearly bled out before being heroically rescued following his parking-rage blunder. Angered that another driver had parked too close to his own car, he grabbed a knife and stabbed a tire on the other vehicle with such force that he wound up slashing the main artery in his leg. [Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), 1-26-2017] [Global News BC, 1-27-2017]

(1) Thomas Pinson, 21, was arrested in St. Petersburg, Florida, in January and charged with domestic battery for roughing up his mother (even though, presumably lovingly, he had her full name tattooed on his chest). (2) Police arrested a 22-year-old knife-wielding man in a restroom on a train in Dusseldorf, Germany, in January. The man, naked, appeared "quite annoyed" at being hassled, did not have a ticket to ride, and said he was using the knife to shave his genital area because he was not welcome at home. [The Smoking Gun, 1-9-2017] [Associated Press via WJLA-TV (Washington, D.C.), 1-10-2017]

The Washington Post reported in April (2013) that the federal government spends $890,000 a year on totally useless bank accounts. The amount is the total of fees for maintaining more than 13,000 short-term accounts the government owns but which have no money in them and never will again. However, merely closing the accounts is difficult, according to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, because they each previously housed separate government grants, and Congress has required that, before the accounts are "closed," the grants must be formally audited -- something bureaucrats are rarely motivated to do, especially since, as Citizens noted, there is no additional penalty for not auditing. [Washington Post, 4-24-2013]