-- Among the oppressive patriarchal customs that remain in force in Saudi Arabia is a requirement that females obtain their father's (or guardian's) permission before marrying -- even women who are pr... more

Britain's National Health Service acknowledged in November that, because of a shortage of healthy lungs and other organs available for transplant, it was offering those on waiting lists the option of ... more

The collapse of the economy in 2008 might have reached the far corners of Earth, but evidently not to Planet Calypso, the make-believe asteroid containing make-believe real estate in the multiplayer o... more

-- Librarian Graham Barker, 45, of Perth, Australia, casually revealed to a reporter in October that his hobby of 26 years -- harvesting his own navel lint daily, just before he showers -- has now won... more

Surreal Estate: Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani's 27-story private residence (37,000 square feet, 600 employees s... more

About 20 percent of Japan's adult-video market is now "elder porn" with each production featuring one or more studly seniors and Shigeo Tokuda, 76, among the most popular. He told Toronto's Globe and ... more

Belt-Tightening Greeks: In October, Greece's largest health insurance provider announced, in a letter to a diabetes foundation, that it would no longer pay for the special footwear that diabetics need... more

Modern Mummies: New York City artist Sally Davies offered in October the latest evidence of how unattractive today's fast foods are to bacteria and maggots. Davies bought a McDonald's Happy Meal in Ap... more

-- David Winkelman, 48, was arrested in Davenport, Iowa, in September on a misdemeanor warrant, still sporting "The Tattoo." In late 2000, Winkelman, reacting to a radio "contest," had his forehead in... more

-- More Creative Alternate-Site Surgery: Doctors from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington announced in September that they could just as well handle certain brain... more

Edible "dirt" has recently appeared on the menus of several of the world's most renowned restaurants (e.g., the top-rated Noma in Copenhagen, Shakuf in Tel Aviv, Gilt in New York City). "People are re... more

Ingrid Paulicivic filed a lawsuit in September against Laguna Beach, Calif., gynecologist Red Alinsod over leg burns she bafflingly acquired during her 2009 hysterectomy -- a procedure that was topped... more

Civilization in Decline: "Tom Tom," a 2-year-old Yorkshire terrier, was laid to rest at the Oakland Cemetery in Monticello, Ark., in March, even though he was in good health. His owner, Donald Ellis, ... more

More than a half-million children in the U.S. take antipsychotic medicines and (reported The New York Times in September) "(e)ven the most reluctant (doctors) encounter a marketing juggernaut that has... more

Professional Training Required: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced in August that it had contract work for up to 2,100 language specialists to transcribe wiretaps, with immediate needs... more

-- In 2007 News of the Weird highlighted the clothes cults of impoverished Congo: "In (the country that) has lost an estimated 4 million people in the civil wars of the last decade and where many must... more

-- The Yaohnanen tribe on the South Pacific island of Tanna believe their true ancestral god is Britain's Prince Philip (based on photographs of him with the queen during a 1974 visit to Tanna's mothe... more

A recent surge of neo-Nazism in several countries -- including, improbably, Israel, and Mongolia (where some dark-skinned natives are rabidly anti-Chinese) -- has generally been denounced, but Corinna... more

Woody Allen Joke Come to Life: Shirley Anderson, 71, is suing her son Ken, 46, in Vancouver, British Columbia, for parental support -- even though she and his father had abandoned him when he was 15 (... more

The Outer Frontiers of U.S. Immigration Policy: The $125 million Jay Peak ski resort in Vermont, with 120-room hotel, ice arena, golf course and the Northeast's largest water park, is just months away... more

Among the promotions offered by New York City's upscale Marmara Manhattan hotel is a "birth tourism" package exploiting the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. For about $35,000, a foreign expectant m... more

While the morbidly obese struggle with their health (and society's scorn), those who eroticize massive weight gain are capturing increased attention, according to a July ABC News report. Commercial an... more

"Why are you still alive?" is the question doctors ask Ozzy Osbourne, the hard-rock singer and reality-TV star, who says he is now clean and sober after a lifetime of almost unimaginably bad habits. I... more

A severe but underappreciated American drug problem (sometimes deadly and often expensive) is patients' failure to take prescribed medications -- even to save their own lives (such as with anti-coagul... more

-- In the midst of World Cup fever, readers might have missed Germany's win over host Barbados in June for the Woz Challenge Cup, following an eight-team polo tournament with players not on horses but... more

New York state school officials had promised to crack down on soft test-grading to end the near-automatic grade-advancement by students unprepared for promotion. However, a June New York Post report f... more

-- Catholic Youth Organization coach Michael Kman, 45, was charged in May with various misdemeanors regarding an alleged attempt over a several-month period to fix kids' basketball games for Kman's Ou... more

It's clear, based on a May Time magazine dispatch, that Norway's felons and miscreants are of a superior class than America's. When Norway's brand-new Halden prison opened in April, the country's King... more