It is legal in China to sell electric "building shakers" whose primary purpose apparently is to wreak aural havoc on apartment-dwellers' unreasonably noisy neighbors. Models sell for the equivalent of $11 to $58 -- each with a long pole to rest on the floor, extending ceiling height to an electric motor braced against the shared ceiling or wall and whose only function is to produce a continuous, thumping beat. Shanghaiist.com found one avenger in Shaanxi province who, frustrated by his miscreant neighbor, turned on his shaker and then departed for the weekend. (It was unclear whether he faced legal or other repercussions.) [Shanghaiist.com, 4-14-2017] [Oddity Central, 4-17-2017]

-- Mats Jarlstrom is a folk hero in Oregon for his extensive research critical of the short yellow light timed to the state's red-light cameras, having taken his campaign to TV's "60 Minutes" and been invited to a transportation engineers' convention. In January, Oregon's agency that regulates engineers imposed a $500 fine on Jarlstrom for "practicing engineering" without a state license. (The agency, in fact, wrote that simply using the phrase "I am an engineer" is illegal without a license, even though Jarlstrom has a degree in engineering and worked as an airplane camera mechanic.) He is suing to overturn the fine. [The Oregonian, 4-25-2017]

-- Last year, surgeons at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), for only the second time in history, removed a tumor "sitting" on the peanut-sized heart of a fetus while the heart was still inside the mother's womb -- in essence successfully operating on two patients simultaneously. The Uruguayan mother said her initial reaction upon referral to CHOP's surgeons was to "start laughing, like what, they do that?" (The baby's December birth revealed that the tumor had grown back and had to be removed again, except this time, through "ordinary" heart surgery.) [KYW-TV (Philadelphia), 3-30-2017]

-- The word "Isis" arrived in Western dialogue only after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as an acronym for the Islamic State, and the Swahili word "Harambe" was known to almost no one until May 2016 when the gorilla "Harambe" (named via a local contest) was put down by a Cincinnati zoo worker after it had dragged an adventurous 3-year-old boy away. In April, a Twitter user and the website Daily Dot happened upon a 19-year-old California restaurant hostess named Isis Harambe Spjut and verified with state offices that a driver's license (likely backed by a birth certificate) had been issued to her. ("Spjut" is a Scandinavian name.) [DailyDot.com, 4-12-2017]

Earn $17,500 for two months' "work" doing nothing at all! France's space medicine facility near Toulouse is offering 24 openings, paying 16,000 euros each, for people simply to lie in bed continuously for two weeks so it can study the effects of virtual weightlessness. The institute is serious about merely lying there: All bodily functions must be accomplished while keeping at least one shoulder on the bed. [The Guardian, 4-4-2017]

Sidewalk Wars: (1) Thirty-four residents of State Street in Brooklyn, New York, pay a tax of more than $1,000 a year for the privilege of sitting on their front stoops (a pastime which, to the rest of New York City, seems an inalienable right). (The property developer had made a side deal with the city to allow the tax in exchange for approving an architectural adjustment.) (2) The town of Conegliano, Italy, collects local taxes on "sidewalk shadows" that it applies to cafes or businesses with awnings, but also to stores with a single overhanging sign that very slightly "blocks" sun. Shop owners told reporters the tax felt like Mafia "protection" money. [New York Post, 1-23-2017] [The Guardian, 1-17-2017]

"Oh, come on!" implored an exasperated Chief Justice Roberts in April when the Justice Department lawyer explained at oral argument that, indeed, a naturalized citizen could have his citizenship retroactively canceled just for breaking a single law, however minor -- even if there was never an arrest for it. Appearing incredulous, Roberts hypothesized that if "I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone," but was not caught and then became a naturalized citizen, years later the government "can knock on my door and say, 'Guess what? You're not an American citizen after all'?" The government lawyer stood firm. (The Supreme Court decision on the law's constitutionality is expected in June.) [New York Times, 4-27-2017]

-- Emily Piper and her husband went to court in January in Spokane, Washington, to file for a formal restraining order against a boy who is in kindergarten. Piper said the tyke had been relentlessly hassling their daughter (trying to kiss her) and that Balboa Elementary School officials seem unable to stop him. [KXLY-TV (Spokane), 1-9-2017]

-- A private plane crashed on take-off 150 feet from the runway at Williston (Florida) Municipal Airport on April 15, killing all four on board, but despite more than a dozen planes having flown out of the same airport later that day, no one noticed the crash site until it caught the eye of a pilot the next afternoon. [Gainesville Sun, 4-17-2017]

Didn't Think It Through: (1) Edwin Charge Jr., 20, and two accomplices allegedly attempted a theft at a Hood River, Oregon, business on April 23, but fled as police arrived. The accomplices were apprehended, but Charge took off across Interstate 84 on foot, outrunning police until he fell off a cliff to his death. (2) Police said Tara Cranmer, 34, tried to elude them in a stolen truck on tiny Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, on April 22. Since it is an island, the road ends, and she was captured on the dunes after abandoning the truck. [KPTV (Portland), 4-25-2017] [Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, 4-27-2017]

Variations of the Semen-Weaponization Fetish: (1) Timothy Blake, 28, faced several charges in January after admitting to a spree of semen incidents at a Wal-mart in Marietta, Ohio. The liquid was his semen, he finally admitted, but he squirted it at his female victims only from a syringe rather than the old-fashioned way. (2) Brian Boyd, 27, was charged in January with squirting women from a syringe in a similar series of incidents at a Tampa Target store. However, though Boyd had simulated masturbation, the syringe itself contained only white liquid "hair conditioner." [Marietta Times, 2-28-2017] [The Smoking Gun, 1-18-2017]

Italian Surgeon Sergio Canavero (notorious as the world's most optimistic advocate of human brain transplants) now forecasts that a cryogenically frozen brain will be "awakened" ("thawed") and transplanted into a donor body by the year 2020. His Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group claimed success in 2016 in transplanting a monkey's head, with blood vessels properly attached (though not the spinal cord). Canavero promised such a head transplant of humans by 2018, though problematic because, like the recipient monkey, the recipient human would not long survive. Of the subsequent brain transplant, one of the gentler critics of Canavero said the likelihood of success is "infinitestimal" -- with harsher critics describing it in more colorful language. [Daily Telegraph, 4-27-2017]

The question in a vandalism case before the U.S. Court of Appeals in July (2013) was whether Ronald Strong's messy bowel movement in a federal courthouse men's room in Portland, Maine, was "willful" or, as Strong claimed, an uncontrollable intestinal event. Three rather genteel judges strained to infer Strong's state of mind from the condition of the facility. A cleaning lady had described the feces as "smeared," but Judge Juan Torruella took that to mean not "finger smears," but "chunks," "kind of like chunky peanut butter." Two other judges, outvoting Torruella, seemed skeptical that feces could have landed 2 feet up the wall unless Strong had intended it. (Torruella countered by imagining himself as the perpetrator, that surely he would sully the mirrors, but that all mirrors were found clean.) [Salon.com, 7-26-2013]

A San Francisco startup recently introduced a countertop gadget to squeeze fruit and vegetables for you so that your hands don't get sore. However, the Juicero (a) requires that the fruit and veggies be pre-sliced in precise sections conveniently available for purchase from the Juicero company, (b) has, for some reason, a Wi-Fi connection, and (c) sells for $399. (Bonus: Creator Jeff Dunn originally priced it at $699, but had to discount it after brutal shopper feedback. Double Bonus: Venture capitalists actually invested $120 million to develop the Juicero, anticipating frenzied consumer love.) [BBC News, 4-21-2017]

-- Monument to Flossing: Russian artist Mariana Shumkova is certainly doing her part for oral hygiene, publicly unveiling her St. Petersburg statuette of a frightening, malformed head displaying actual extracted human teeth, misaligned and populating holes in the face that represent the mouth and eyes. She told Pravda in April that "only (something with) a strong emotional impact" would make people think about tooth care. [Pravda, 4-12-2017]

-- Artist Lucy Gafford of Mobile, Alabama, has a flourishing audience of fans (exact numbers not revealed), reported AL.com in March, but lacking a formal "brick and mortar" gallery show, she must exhibit her estimated 400 pieces online only. Gafford, who has long hair, periodically flings loose, wet strands onto her shower wall and arranges them into designs, which she photographs and posts, at a rate of about one new creation a week since 2014. [AL.com (Mobile), 3-20-2017]

-- Though complete details were not available in news reports of the case, it is nonetheless clear that magistrates in Llandudno, Wales, had ordered several punishments in April for David Roberts, 50, including probation, a curfew, paying court costs, and, in the magistrates' words, that Roberts attend a "thinking skills" course. Roberts had overreacted to a speeding motorcyclist on a footpath by later installing a chest-high, barbed-wire line across the path that almost slashed another cyclist. (A search did not turn up "thinking skills" courses in Wales -- or in America, where they are certainly badly needed, even though successful classes of that type would surely make News of the Weird's job harder.) [Wales Online, 4-12-2017]

-- Raising a Hardy Generation: Preschoolers at the Elves and Fairies Woodland Nursery in Edmondsham, England, rough it all day long outside, using tools (even a saw!), burning wood, planting crops. Climbing ropes and rolling in the mud are also encouraged. Kids as young as age 2 grow and cook herbs and vegetables (incidentally absorbing "arithmetic" by measuring ingredients). In its most recent accreditation inspection, the nursery was judged "outstanding." [Metro News (London), 4-10-2017]

Criminal Defenses Unlikely to Succeed: (1) To protest a disorderly conduct charge in Sebastian, Florida, in March, Kristen Morrow, 37, and George Harris, 25 (who were so "active" under a blanket that bystanders complained), began screaming at a sheriff's deputy -- that Morrow is a "famous music talent" and that the couple are "with" the Illuminati. (The shadowy "Illuminati," if it exists, reputedly forbids associates to acknowledge that it exists.) Morrow and Harris were arrested. (2) Wesley Pettis, 24, charged with damaging 60 trees in West Jordan, Utah, in 2016, was ordered to probation and counseling in March, stemming from his defense that, well, the trees had hurt him "first." [WPLG-TV (Miami), 3-28-2017] [Salt Lake Tribune, 3-29-2017]

-- Legendary German Engineering: The state-of-the-art Berlin Brandenburg Airport, originally scheduled to open in 2012, has largely been "completed," but ubiquitous malfunctions have moved the opening back to at least 2020. Among the problems: cabling wrongly laid out; escalators too short; 4,000 doors incorrectly numbered; a chief planner who turned out to be an impostor; complete failure of the "futuristic" fire safety system, e.g., no smoke exhaust and no working alarms (provoking a suggested alternative to just hire 800 low-paid staff to walk around the airport and watch for fires). The initial $2.2 billion price tag is now $6.5 billion (and counting). [News.com.au (Sydney), 3-27-2017]

-- Rich Numbers in the News: (1) A one-bedroom, rotting-wood bungalow (built in 1905) in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, California, sold in April for $755,000 ($260,000 over the asking price). (2) Business Week reported in April that Wins Finance Holdings (part of the Russell 2000 small-company index) has reported stock price fluctuations since its 2015 startup -- of as much as 4,555 percent (and that no one knows why). (3) New Zealand officials reported in March that Apple had earned more than NZ$4.2 billion ($2.88 billion in U.S. dollars) in sales last year, but according to the country's rules, did not owe a penny in income tax. [SFGate.com, 4-19-2017] [Business Week, 4-21-2017] [ArsTechnica.com, 3-20-2017]

Why? Just ... Because: (1) The AquaGenie, subject of a current crowdfunding campaign, would be a $70 water bottle with Wi-Fi. Fill the bottle and enter your "water goals"; the app will alert you to various courses of action if you've insufficiently hydrated yourself. (2) Already on the market: A company called Blacksocks has introduced Calf Socks Classic With Plus -- a pair of socks with an internet connection. The smartphone app can help you color-match your socks and tell you, among other things, whether it's time to wash them. (Ten pairs, $189) [PR Web, 4-17-2017] [TechDigg.com, 4-27-2017]

Dark Day for Competitive Eating: A 42-year-old man choked to death on April 2 at a Voodoo Doughnut shop in Denver as he accepted the store's "Tex-Ass Challenge" to eat a half-pounder (equivalent of six regular donuts) in 80 seconds. Later the same day, in Fairfield, Connecticut, a 21-year-old college student died, three days after collapsing, choking, at a pancake-eating contest at the Sacred Heart University student center. [KUSA-TV. 4-3-2017] [Connecticut Post, 4-4-2017]

Prominent tax avoider Winston Shrout, 69, was convicted in April on 13 fraud counts and six of "willful" failure to file federal returns during 2009 to 2014 -- despite his clever defense, which jurors in Portland, Oregon, apparently ignored. Shrout, through seminars and publications, had created a cottage industry teaching ways to beat the tax code, but had managed always to slyly mention that his tips were "void where prohibited by law" (to show that he lacked the requisite "intent" to commit crimes). Among Shrout's schemes: He once sent homemade "International Bills of Exchange" to a small community bank in Chicago apparently hoping the bank would carelessly launder them into legal currency, but (in violation of the "keep a low profile" rule) he had given each IBE a face value of $1 trillion. [The Oregonian, 4-21-2017]

(1) A successful business in Austin, Texas, collapsed recently with the arrests of the husband and wife owners of a "massage parlor," who had come to police attention when sewer workers fixing a backed-up pipe noticed that the problem was caused by "hundreds of condoms" jamming the connection to the couple's Jade Massage Therapy. (2) Scott Dion, who has a sometimes-contentious relationship with the Hill County (Montana) tax office, complained in April that he had paid his property bill with a check, but, as before, had written a snarky message on the "memo" line. He told reporters that the treasurer had delayed cashing the check (potentially creating a "late fee" for Dion), apparently because Dion had written "sexual favors" on the memo line. [KVUE-TV (Austin), 4-11-2017] [Associated Press via Great Falls Tribune, 4-11-2017]

British birdwatchers were especially excited by news in early 2013 that a rare white-throated needletail (the world's fastest flying bird) had been spotted on the U.K.'s Isle of Harris -- only the eighth such sighting in Britain in 170 years. Ornithologists arranged an expedition that attracted about 80 of the planet's most dedicated, adventurous birders, who were thrilled as, indeed, the bird appeared again -- and then inadvertently flew straight into the blades of a wind turbine (becoming, as Monty Python might describe it, an ex-white-throated needletail). [Daily Telegraph, 6-27-2013]

Robotic models of living organisms are useful to scientists, who can study the effects of stimuli without risk to actual people. Northwestern University researchers announced in March that its laboratory model of the "female reproductive system" has reached a milestone: its first menstrual period. The "ovary," using mouse tissue, had produced hormones that stimulated the system (uterus, cervix, vagina, fallopian tubes, liver) for 28 days, reaching the predictable result. Chief researcher Teresa Woodruff said she imagines eventually growing a model from tissue provided by the patient undergoing treatment. [New York Times, 4-4-2017]

-- Chutzpah! Henry Wachtel, 24, continues in legal limbo after being found "not criminally responsible" for the death of his mother in 2014, despite having beaten her in the head and elsewhere up to 100 times -- because he was having an epileptic seizure at that moment and has no memory of the attack. A judge must still decide the terms of Wachtel's psychiatric hospitalization, but Wachtel's mind is clear enough now that, in March, he demanded, as sole heir, payoff on his mother's life insurance policy (which, under New York law, is still technically feasible). [New York Post, 3-30-2017]

-- Epic Smugglers: In February, federal customs agents seized 22 pounds of illegal animal meat (in a wide array) at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Among the tasty items were raw chicken, pig and cow meat, brains, hearts, heads, tongues and feet -- in addition to (wrote a reporter) "other body parts" (if there even are any other edible parts). In a typical day nationwide, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizes about 4,600 smuggled plant or animal products. [WFAA-TV, 2-10-2017]

-- Over the years, News of the Weird has covered the long-standing campaign by animal-rights activists to bestow "human" rights upon animals (begun, of course, with intelligent orangutans and gorillas). In March, the New Zealand parliament gave human rights to a river -- the Whanganui, long revered by the country's indigenous Maori. (One Maori and one civil servant were appointed as the river's representatives.) Within a week, activists in India, scouring court rulings, found two of that country's waterways deserved similar status -- the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, which were then so designated by judges in Uttarakhand state. (The Ganges' "rights" seem hollow since an estimated one billion gallons of waste still enters it every day despite its being a holy bathing spot for Hindus.) [Washington Post, 3-21-2017]

-- Yet another intimate accessory with weak security drew attention when hackers broke down a $249 Svakom Siime Eye personal vibrator in April, revealing a lazily created default password ("88888888") and Wi-Fi network name ("Siime Eye"). Since the Eye's camera and internet access facilitate livestream video of a user's most personal body parts, anyone within Wi-Fi range can break in (and be entertained) by just driving around a city looking for the Siime Eye network. [Vice.com, 4-3-2017]

-- Ewwww! Luu Cong Huyen, 58, in Yen Giao, Vietnam, is the most recent to attract reporters' attention with disturbingly long fingernails. A March OddityCentral.com report, with cringe-inducing photos, failed to disclose their precise length, but Huyen said he has not clipped them since a 2013 report on VietnamNet revealed that each measured up to 19.7 inches. Huyen explained (inadequately) that his nail obsession started merely as a hobby and that he is not yet over it. (The Guinness Book record is not exactly within fingertip reach: 73.5 inches per nail, by Shridhar Chillal of India.) [Oddity Central, 3-23-2017; VietnamNet (Ho Chi Minh City), 5-11-2013; LiveScience, 10-1-2015]

-- And a Partridge in a Pear Tree: In February, a pet welfare organization complained of a raid on a home near Lockhart, Texas, that housed more than 400 animals (and, of course, reeked "overpowering(ly)" of urine). The inventory: 86 snakes, 56 guinea pigs, 28 dogs, 26 rabbits, 15 goats, 9 doves, 8 skinks, 7 pigs, 6 pigeons, 4 gerbils, 3 bearded dragons, 2 ducks and 1 tarantula -- plus about 150 rats and mice (to feed the menagerie) and 20 other animals whose numbers did not fit the above lyric pattern. [San Antonio Express-News, 2-22-2017]

For more than a decade, an "editor" has been roaming the streets at night in Bristol, England, "correcting" violations of standard grammar, lately being described as "The Apostrophiser" since much of his work involves adjusting (or often obliterating) that punctuation mark. On April 3, the BBC at last portrayed the vigilante in action, in a "ride-along" documentary that featured him using the special marking and climbing tools that facilitate his work. His first mission, in 2003, involved a government sign "Monday's to Friday's" ("ridiculous," he said), and he recalled an even more cloying store sign -- "Amys Nail's" -- as "so loud and in your face.") [The Guardian, 4-3-2017]

-- New York City health officials have convinced most ultra-Orthodox Jewish "mohels" to perform their ritual circumcisions with sterile tools and gauze, but still, according to a March New York Post report, a few holdouts insist on the old-fashioned way of removing the blood from an incision -- by sucking it up with their mouths (and thus potentially passing along herpes). Some local temples are so protective of their customs that they refuse to name the "offending" mohels (who are not licensed medical professionals), thus limiting parents' ability to choose safe practitioners. [New York Post, 3-31-2017]

-- A "locked" cellphone (tied to a particular carrier), though a nuisance to purchasers, is only a several-hundred-dollar nuisance. A more serious crisis arises, as News of the Weird noted in 2015, when farmers buy $500,000 combines that they believe they "own," but then find that the John Deere company has "locked" the machines' sophisticated software, preventing even small repairs or upgrades until a Deere service rep shows up to enter the secret password (and, of course, leaves a bill!). Deere's business model has driven some farmers recently to a black market of fearless Ukrainian hackers (some of the same risky dark-net outlaws believed to pose online dangers), who help put the farmers back on track. Eight state legislatures are presently considering overriding Deere's contract to create a "right to repair." [NPR via High Plains Public Radio, 4-20-2017]

-- Paul Cobb (also known as Craig Cobb) continues to look for a tiny North Dakota town in which he (and, potentially, fellow white supremacists) can buy enough land to establish a Caucasian enclave. News of the Weird first noticed his work in 2013 when he was eyeing (unsuccessfully, it turned out) Leith (pop. 16) and Antler (pop. 28), but recently he purchased an old church in bustling Nome (pop. 61), likely renewing his quest. (His Leith plans ended badly after locals convinced him to prove his whiteness with a DNA test, which revealed him to be 14 percent "sub-Saharan African.") [WDAY-TV (Fargo), 3-21-2017]

-- No Longer Weird? For the 31st consecutive Easter in the Philippines, Ruben Enaje, 57, was among the throngs of devout Christians who slashed their own torsos bloody, then flogged themselves repeatedly as they marched through the streets to demonstrate homage to God, and dozens of men in San Pedro Cutud, Santa Lucia and other villages replicated the crucifixion of Jesus by having sterilized 4-inch nails driven into their own arms and legs. When News of the Weird first encountered the Philippine phenomenon in 1989, the crucifixions had built a 40-year history and still listed, as an official sponsor, the Philippines Department of Tourism (but no longer). (The Catholic Church, as usual, "banned" the extreme acts, to little effect.) [Manila Bulletin, 4-13-2017]