If high-schoolers seem stressed by active lifestyles and competitive pressures, and consequently fail to sleep the recommended nine to 10 hours a day, it must be a good idea for the federal government to give grants (including to Las Cruces High School in New Mexico) to purchase comfy, $14,000 "nap pods" that drive out the racket with soft music, for 20 minutes a shot during those frenzied classroom days. A May NPR report based on Las Cruces' experience quoted favorable reviews by students, backed by a doctor and a nurse practitioner who pointed to research showing that adequate sleep "can" boost memory and attention and thus "can" improve school performance (and therefore must be a great use of federal education dollars). [NPR Morning Edition, 5-17-2017]

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam argues that his "hands are tied" by "federal food laws" and that fresh, "all-natural" milk with the cream skimmed off the top cannot be sold in Florida as "milk" (or "skim milk") but must be labeled "imitation milk" -- unless the "all-natural" milk adds (artificial) vitamin A to the product. A family farm in the state's panhandle (Ocheesee Creamery) decided to challenge the law, and Putnam, who recently announced his candidacy for governor, said he would try to resolve the issue soon. [WTVT (Tampa), 5-12-2017]

(1) Briton Fred Whitelaw, 64, who has bowel cancer, recently began working "therapeutic" breast milk into his diet, but only that supplied by his daughter, Jill Turner, who recently gave birth and said she is happy to double-pump to assure both Fred and baby Llewyn adequate supplies (although husband Kyle is trying it out for his eczema, as well). (2) Scientists writing in the journal of the American Society for Microbiology recently recommended that parents not discourage children from picking their noses because snot contains a "rich reservoir of good bacteria" beneficial to teeth and overall health (fighting, for example, respiratory infections and even HIV). [Metro News (London), 5-2-2017] [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-5-2017]

(1) It recently became necessary for Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski to acquire a bigger home in the Los Angeles area because their 33,000 "bunny"-related items (stuffed bunnies, antique bunnies, bunny paintings, bunny dinnerware, etc.) needed more space. (2) The world's only museum devoted to the "house cat" allows self-guided tours in Sylva, North Carolina, where curator Harold Sims displays 10,000 artifacts including a genuine petrified cat (with whiskers!) pulled from a 16th-century English chimney. (3) Brantford, Ontario, real estate agent Kyle Jansink, speaking for unidentified sellers, said he accepted the challenge of selling the meticulously maintained home "as is" -- still packed with the sellers' clown-related items (dolls, miniatures, porcelain statues, paintings). [New York Post, 5-19-2017] [Charlotte Observer, 5-18-2017] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 5-8-2017]

-- They're "therapists," not "strippers," argued New York City's Penthouse Executive Club, creatively characterizing its dancers to avoid $3 million in back taxes, but the state's appeals board ruled against it in April. Penthouse had insisted that its performers were more akin to counselors for lonely men, and that the club's "door charge" was an untaxable fee for therapeutic health services. [New York Daily News, 5-12-2017]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/nyc-strip-club-claimed-dancers-therapists-avoid-taxes-article-1.3146393

-- James Pelletier, 46, was arrested in Hollis, Maine, in May after he fired a BB gun point-blank at his two sons, ages 9 and 11 -- but only, he said, as a "rite of passage" into maturity (perhaps thinking the experience would help them become as mature as their father). He said if the kids knew how it felt to get shot, perhaps they would not be so quick to fire their own guns. [Portland Press Herald, 5-6-2017]

You Mean Jethro and Abby, Too? In contrast to the exciting work of the TV series (near the top of broadcast ratings for the last decade), real agents in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have labored over computer screens eight to 10 hours a day for two months now employing their facial-recognition software -- just to scour websites to identify victims of nude-photo postings of military personnel that came to light earlier this year. "(Y)ou get pretty burned out," said the NCIS director. A simple word search of "uniformed military nude" got nearly 80 million hits, according to a May Associated Press dispatch from the Quantico Marine base, where the 20 investigators labor side-by-side. [Associated Press via NBC News, 5-6-2017]

(1) In April, three days after ISIS fighters reportedly executed 25 villagers about 50 miles south of Kirkuk, Iraq, the three murderers were themselves killed (and eight more wounded) when a pack of wild boars overran their position and gnawed them into martyrdom. (2) In April, a Russian naval reconnaissance ship sank in the Black Sea off of Turkey (likely op: Syria-related) when it collided with a livestock barge flying the flag of Togo. All aboard the Russian ship were rescued; the much-heavier Togolese vessel suffered barely a scratch. [USA Today, 4-25-2017] [New York Times, 4-27-2017]

Rights in Conflict: An elderly German man, unnamed in news reports, was fined the equivalent of $110 in May for "terrorizing" neighbors in the town of Hennef by violating a 2015 agreement to lower the sound of his pornographic videos. He demanded sympathy because of his hearing disability, arguing that if he wore headphones, he could not hear the doorbell, or burglars, and therefore would feel unsafe. (At his May hearing, he objected to the characterization that the "sex sounds" were from videos; on the day in question, he said, he had a prostitute in the room. "It was not porn," he insisted, confusingly. "It was live!") [Metro News (London), 5-6-2017]

-- In May, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley apparently mindlessly signed the proclamation designating a special day for the late Tre Hummons (submitted by his grieving father, to honor the son's "sacrifice"). Tre Hummons was killed in 2015 by a police officer -- but only after Tre had just shot and killed another Cincinnati police officer. [WXIX-TV (Cleveland), 5-19-2017]

-- Winneshiek County (Iowa) Engineer Lee Bjerke said he had no idea how the driver of the loaded 18-wheeler had missed the "Load Limit 3 Tons" sign at the entrance of the small, rickety bridge near Cresco in May, but in seconds, the span was wiped out, and the tractor-trailer had become part of the Turkey River. The loaded grain truck weighed more than 30 tons. [KCCI-TV (Des Moines), 5-5-2017]

Still more incidents in which people (make that, "men") accidentally shoot themselves: a National Rifle Association staff member, 46, training on a firing range (Fairfax County, Virginia, April); a fleeing robber, run over by his victim, with the collision causing the robber's gun to fire into his own mouth (Hawthorne, California, March); two boys, 17 and 19, "practicing" loading and unloading a handgun, managing to hit each other (Houston, March); a homeless man, 45, in a now-classic waistband-holster-crotch malfunction (Lake Panasoffee, Florida, Oct.); U.S. Park Police officer, shot his foot in a confrontation with a raccoon (Washington, D.C., Nov.); man, 48, shot himself, then, apparently angry at how it happened, shot his bed (Oceana County, Michigan, July).[Burke Patch, 4-7-2017] [Daily Breeze (Torrance), 3-15-2017] [Houston Chronicle, 3-22-2017] [Citrus County Chronicle (Crystal River), 10-10-2016] [Washingtonian, 11-3-2016] [MLive.com, 7-5-2016]

Just another October (2013) day in Kelso, Washington: At the courthouse, a woman carrying a cake was approached by Robert Fredrickson, a stranger who was also in the building on business. Without warning, Fredrickson attacked -- not the woman, the cake -- grabbing it with both hands and stuffing his face. As he washed up a minute later at a drinking fountain, a deputy who witnessed the scene attempted to bring Fredrickson to justice, yelling, "(S)tand right there. Don't move." As soon as the officer looked away, however, Fredrickson returned to the cake and clawed at it again. Finally, several deputies subdued him and charged him with theft and resisting arrest. [KATU-TV (Portland, Ore.), 10-3-2013]

A country-and-western radio station in Benson, Arizona (near Tucson), owned by Paul Lotsof, has periodically run "public service announcements" about one of Lotsof's pet peeves: the harsh sentences usually given to mere "collectors" of child pornography. Many, he believes, are non-dangerous, daydreaming hermits -- but often imprisoned for long stretches. Thus, his PSAs publicize tips for avoiding the police, such as saving child porn only on an external computer drive (and hiding the drive securely). Despite recent community outrage (causing Lotsof to retire the announcements), he remains defiant that, since he personally avoids child porn, he is merely exercising a free-speech right. [Washington Post, 5-11-2017]

-- The inexplicable ease with which foreign hackers attack U.S. computers and security systems is finally grabbing the attention of officials. In a March Washington Post report, a technology expert from Britain's King's College London told a reporter of his astonishment to realize that the "security chips" on Congressional staff members' identification badges are fake: The badge "doesn't actually have a proper chip," he said. "It has a picture of a chip." Apparently, he added, "It's (there) only to prevent chip envy." [Washington Post, 3-31-2017]

-- Suzette Welton has been in prison in Alaska for 17 years based almost solely on now-debunked forensic evidence, but the state's lack of a clemency process means she cannot challenge her life sentence unless she proves "complete" innocence. Evidence that the fire that killed her son was "arson" was based not on science but on widely believed (but wrong) folklore on how intentional fires burn differently than accidental ones. (The bogus arson "trademarks" are similar to those used to convict Texan Cameron Todd Willingham, who suffered an even worse fate than Welton's: Willingham was executed for his "arson" in 2004.) [Alaska Dispatch News, 5-14-2017]

-- Reverence for the lineage of asparagus continues in epic yearly Anglican church festivities in Worcester, England, where in April celebrants obtained a special blessing for the vegetable by local priests as a costumed asparagus pranced through the street praising the stalks as representing "the generosity of God." Critics (including clergy from other parishes) likened the parades to a Monty Python sketch, and "an infantile pantomime," with one pleading plaintively, "Really, for (God's) sake," can't the Church of England offer "more dignified" worship? [Daily Telegraph, 4-25-2017]

(1) Andrew Bogut, signed as a free agent by the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers in March and expected to be a key player in the team's quest to defend its league championship, checked into his first game and played 58 seconds before crashing into a bench and breaking his leg. For that 58 seconds, the Cavs owe Bogut $383,000. (2) Jose Calderon signed as a free agent with the Golden State Warriors in March, but the NBA-leading Warriors changed their mind (for unforeseen reasons) two hours after the deal and released Calderon. For his 119 minutes as a Warrior (6:06 p.m. to 8:05 p.m.), Calderon was paid $415,000. [Cleveland.com, 3-7-2017] [San Jose Mercury News, 3-2-2017]

-- In May, as Taunton, Massachusetts, police were about to arrest Amy Rebello-McCarthy, 39, for DUI after she left the road and crashed through several mailboxes (with the crash causing all of her tires to deflate), she, laughing, told officers there was one other thing: She had a bearded dragon in her bra (where it was riding while she drove). The lizard was turned over to animal control. [Providence Journal, 5-16-2017]

-- Felicia Nevins complained to reporters in May that the Pasco County (Florida) Sheriff's Office had improperly drawn attention to her on a matter of a purely personal nature -- that she had called for help, concerned that the sperm she was storing for in-vitro fertilization (kept under liquid nitrogen in a thermos) might explode. Deputies had placed the details (but not her name) on the office's Facebook page, but the Tampa Bay Times deduced her name from public sources. [Tampa Bay Times, 5-20-2017]

In a legislative battle waged since a 1979 state court decision, some North Carolinians tried once again this year to change a state law that explicitly states that once a person (almost always, of course, a "female") has "consented" to an act of sexual intercourse, that consent cannot be withdrawn -- even if the encounter turns violent. (The violence might be prosecuted as an "assault," but never the more serious crime of "rape.") Said state Sen. Jeff Jackson, whose bill to change the law failed in April to get a legislative hearing, "We're the only state in the country where 'no' doesn't mean 'no.'" [WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham), 5-2-2017]

-- Skills: (1) In May, the British tribunal dealing with student cheating rejected the appeal of a law student who was caught taking an in-class exam with her textbook open (permitted) but containing handwritten notes in the margins -- not permitted, but written in invisible ink legible via the UV light on her pen. (2) On testing day in March for Romania's 14- and 15-year-olds, administrators of the country's popular DEX online dictionary, acting on suspicion, changed the definitions of two words likely to be improperly looked up by cheaters during the exam. "(H)undreds" of school searches for the words took place that morning, but administrators were still mulling an appropriate punishment for the cheaters (who were, of course, easily identified by their misapplication of the suspect words). [NBC News, 5-6-2017] [BBC News, 3-16-2017]

-- With limited trade, investment and ownership rights, many Cuban producers are forced to improvise in order to bring products to market -- like Orestes Estevez, a Havana winemaker, who finds condoms indispensable, according to an April Associated Press dispatch. The "most remarkable sight" the reporter saw was "hundreds of (open) bottles capped with condoms," which inflate from gases as the fruit ferments. When fermentation is done, the condom goes limp. (The AP also noted that fishermen use condoms to carry bait far from shore and which also increase tugging resistance when nibbling fish fight the line.) [Associated Press via Virgin Islands Daily News, 4-4-2017]

-- India's Supreme Court approved an order recently that forced bars and liquor stores to close down if they were located less than 500 meters (1,640 feet) from state or national highways. India Times reported in April that the Aishwarya Bar in North Paravoor, Kerala, is still (legally) operating at its old location even though it is clearly within the 500-meter restricted area. The owner explained that since he owns the land behind the bar, too, he had constructed a "serpentine" wooden maze in back and front that requires any entering customer to take the equivalent number of steps it would take to walk 500 meters. (A tax office official reluctantly accepted the arrangement.) [India Times, 4-8-2017]

-- Canadian Anton Pilipa, 39, who suffers from schizophrenia, was discovered -- safe -- in the Amazon rainforest state of Rondonia, Brazil, in November 2016, which was the first sighting of him since his disappearance in March 2012. He was unable to communicate well and had no ID or money, but his family has actively been searching for him and believe the only way he could have traveled from the family home in Scarborough, Ontario, to Brazil (6,300 miles) was by hitchhiking or walking. (Bonus: The area in which he was found is noted for alligators and snakes.) [CTV News, 2-9-2017]

Secrets of Highly Successful Business Owners: When Michelle Esquenazi was asked by a New York Post reporter in September (2013) why her all-female crew of licensed bounty hunters (Empire Bail Bonds of New York) is so successful at tricking bail-jumpers into the open, she offered a (five-letter-long) euphemism for a female body part. "It's timeless," she counseled. "Of course he's going to open his door for a nice piece of (deleted)." "The thing about defendants is no matter who they are (of whatever color), they're all dumb. Every single last one of them is stupid." [New York Post, 9-27-2013]

Jordan Haskins, 26, was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys." [MLive.com, 5-9-2017]

-- Le Plat Sal (The Dirty Plate) restaurant in the Marais district of Paris features specialties actually containing dirt -- or as Chef Solange Gregoire calls it, "the mud of the earth that caresses our toes, the sand kissed by the sun, and rocks." Mused a Food Network host in April, "What's left? People are already eating snout-to-tail, leaves-to-roots...." Gregoire extolled her four-star dishes, including pastry crust a la Mont Lachat rock and a Boue Ragout stew simmered with silt from the River Seine. (NPR also noted that the founder of The Shake Shack was "quietly" planning a new American chain, Rock in Roll.) [NPR, 4-1-2017]

-- Goldman Sachs analyst Noah Poponak's 98-page paper (leaked to Business Insider in April) touted the wealth obtainable by capturing the platinum reputed to be in asteroids. The costs to mine the stone (rockets, launch expenses, etc.) might have dropped recently to about $3 billion -- a trifle next to the $50 billion worth of platinum Poponak said a single asteroid might contain. (On the other hand, experts point out, such abundance of platinum might crash the worldwide price.) [Business Insider, 4-6-2017]

-- The Twisted Ranch restaurant in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis, saw crowds swell in March after it revamped its menu with more than two dozen items made with ranch dressing (including ranch-infused Bloody Marys). As one satisfied visitor put it, "Ranch is everyone's guilty pleasure." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3-29-2017]

Yale University graduate students (well, at least eight of them), claiming "union" status, demonstrated in front of the Yale president's home in April demanding better benefits (beyond the annual free tuition, $30,000 stipends and free health care). Some of the students characterized their action as an "indefinite fast" while others called it a "hunger strike." However, a pamphlet associated with the unionizing made it clear that strikers could go eat any time they got hungry. [Chronicle of Higher Education, 5-9-2017]

(1) Police in Cleveland are searching for the woman whose patience ran out on April 14 awaiting her young son's slow haircut at Allstate Barber College. She pulled out a pistol, took aim at the barber and warned: "I got two clips! I'll pop you." (She allowed him to finish up -- more purposefully, obviously -- and left without further incident.) (2) Barbara Lowery, 24, was arrested for disorderly conduct in Cullman, Alabama, in May after police spotted her standing on a car, stomping out the windshield and smashing the sun roof. She said it was a boyfriend's car, that she thought he was cheating on her, and that she had spent the previous night "thinking" about what to do, "pray(ing) about it and stuff." (However, she said, "I did it anyway.") [WOIO-TV (Cleveland), 4-28-2017] [AL.com (Birmingham), 5-2-2017]

-- The Drone Economy: (1) A Netherlands startup company announced in March its readiness to release drones capable of tracking freshly deposited dog poop (via an infrared glow from the pile) and, eventually, be guided (perhaps via GPS and artificial intelligence) to scoop up the deposits and carry them away. (2) Potentially Unemployed Bees: Researcher-inventor Eijiro Miyako announced in the journal Chem in March that he had created a drone that pollinates flowers (though requiring human guidance until GPS and AI can be enabled). Miyako's adhesive gel lightly brushes pollen grains, collecting just enough to touch down successfully onto another flower to pollinate it. [The Register (London), 3-29-2017] [CNN, 3-9-2017]

-- Social critics and futurists suggest that the next great market for computerization (already underway) will be selling "human improvement" (alas, perhaps merely helping already successful people to even greater heights). Some sports teams are experimenting with "transcranial direct current stimulation" as a way to put athletes' brains into constant alert, and KQED Radio reported in May that about a third of the San Francisco Giants players have donned weak-current headsets that cover the motor cortex at the top of the head. The team's sports scientist (bonus name: Geoff Head!) said players performed slightly better on some drills after the stimulation. (One the other hand, at press time, the Giants were still next-to-last in the National League West.) [KQED, 5-8-2017]

(1) Recent alarming headlines: "UK woman who urinated on Trump golf course loses case" (London). "Fish thief on unicycle busted by DNR (Department of Natural Resources)" (Battle Creek, Michigan). And, from the Northwest Florida Daily News (Fort Walton Beach), all on the same day (5-16-2017): (1) "Man throws fork at woman in fight over dog poop." (2) "Senior citizen punches husband for taking Lord's name in vain." (3) "Two people busted for creating fake football league, lawmen say." (4) "Man denies defecating in parking lot despite officer witnessing deed." [Associated Press (London) via U.S. News & World Report, 4-5-2017] [MLive.com (Battle Creek, Michigan), 5-5-2017] [via Orlando Sentinel, 5-17-2017]

Clearing the Conscience: (1) In February, a 52-year-old man who, arrested for DUI and taken to a police station in Germany's Lower Saxony state, wound up spontaneously confessing to a 1991 cold-case murder in Bonn. Police confirmed that, after reopening the files, they found details matching the man's account, though the man himself was "not quite clear" why he had confessed. (2) A game warden in Titus County, Texas, reported in December arresting a man for possessing a shotgun (the man's third arrest as a convicted felon with a firearm). The warden had spotted the weapon only because the man "out of the blue" approached him and asked if he wanted to inspect his hunting license (which, it turns out, was in order). [The Local (Berlin), 3-2-2017] [Beaumont Business Journal, 12-16-2016]

A 22-year-old Los Angeles makeup artist who calls himself Vinny Ohh has, according to his several TV and YouTube appearances and much social media presence, transformed himself into a "genderless," extraterrestrial-looking person via around 110 bodily procedures (so far), costing him at least $50,000. He says his appearance is merely an "all-in" representation of how he feels inside. (The "genderless" Vinny has yet to specify a pronoun preference.) [Metro News (London), 3-6-2017]

The impending retirement from public life of Britain's Prince Philip, announced in May, has likely quashed any slight chance he will visit the Imanourane people on Tanna (in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu) -- tragic, of course, because Tanna's Chief Jack and his followers continue to believe Philip descended from their own spiritual ancestors and has thus dominated their thoughts for the last seven decades. In fact, when Tanna was in the path of Cyclone Donna in May 2017, the Imanourane were quickly reminded of Philip's continuing "powers." (Philip has never visited, but Tannans have long prayed over an autographed photograph he sent years ago.) [Reuters, 5-6-2017]

The story of Kopi Luwak coffee has long been a News of the Weird staple, begun in 1993 with the first reports that a super-premium market existed for coffee beans digested (and excreted) by certain Asian civet cats, collected, washed and brewed. In June (2013), as news broke that civets were being mistreated -- captured and caged solely for their bean-adulterating utility -- the American Chemical Society was called on for ideas how to assure that the $227/pound coffee beans had, indeed, been expelled from genuine Asian civets. Hence, "gas chromatography and mass spectrometry" tests were finally developed to assure drinkers, at $80 a cup in California, that they were sipping the real thing. [USA Today, 9-11-2013]