Weird news - Universities and colleges buying up XXX domains

People who use the internet are used to domain names such as .com, .info, .biz, and some others such as .de or .jp. For many years now, there was the planning to create a new set of domains that will end in .xxx, so that these domains can be identified to belong to the sex entertainment industry, and also allows better filters to prevent children and others from seeing sex related content.
So, when the availability of these domains was finally started, one expected that many players of the adult entertainment industry would sign up to buy these domains (and well known people were allowed to buy domain names with their names so that these would not get in controversy).
However, once these domains were available, one of the funny aspects was about some of the groups that started booking these domains. These were those of colleges and universities that were booking these domains with the thought of ensuring that they did not get into the wrong hands (these domains would not be available for anybody else to book) (link to article):

Colleges, museums and well known groups have rushed to grab online addresses in the ".xxx" domain to prevent porn purveyors from using their names in the Internet's new red light district.
Well-known colleges were among those quick to stake claims to .xxx websites, paying $200 for a decade of exclusive control over addresses based on their names.
Despite painful budget woes in the California State college system, the University of California, Berkeley, paid $1,200 for six .xxx web addresses based on name variations for the school and its Golden Bears football team.

Weird news - Man dies after his penis is injected with silicone

The length of the male sexual organ is something that drives a large amount of spam on the internet, and is actually a huge part of the self-esteem of a large number of males. People will do all kinds of treatments to increase the length of the male organ, and this is something that is fraught with danger. The penis, the male organ, is very sensitive, and is a center for pain as well, so any mis-step in this area can be very dangerous.
Taking medicines or any other medical treatment is a dangerous step if you are not sure of the credentials of the person who is doing it, such as this case where young male got his penis injected with a silicone implant, and it was this implant that was the cause of death (link to article):

Authorities have filed homicide charges against a woman after she allegedly administered a silicone injection into the penis of a 22-year-old man, who suffered a fatal blood clot.
The victim, who died in May, had been seeking a penis enhancement, authorities said today.
Kasia Rivera, 34, of East Orange, was arrested today on manslaughter charges and unauthorized practice of medicine in the death of Justin Street, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said.

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Weird news - Cat willed 10 million pounds, but won't get it

From time to time, you hear of rich people bypassing any relatives they have, and donating sizable sums of money to some of their pets, and you can wonder about the significance of such wills, since you are leaving money (which is a creation of man) to non-humans. An animal has no knowledge of money, how to handle it, or any other item related to money (except that if they live in a rich house, they get used to more luxury, food at regular intervals, and so on).
In another case, an Italian lady left a huge fortune of 10 million pounds to her cat, a stray that the lady had adopted since she loved animals. The lady had no close relatives, so this decision was all the more easy, and unlikely that you would get relatives stepping up to challenge such a decision (link to article):

Believe it or not, an Italian cat has inherited a fortune of £10 million after her owner died aged 94, reportedly making her the third richest pet in the world.
Maria Assunta died last month and according to lawyers entrusted with her estate, she left the fortune in property to Tommasino, a stray cat she had found and looked after because of her love for animals, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

However, as per Italian law, the gift cannot be made directly to the animal, and hence there is a hunt for animal rights organizations.

Weird news - Man spies on his wife at home, using cameras

Believing your partner to be unfaithful is one of the most common reasons for divorces, as well as violence inside the home. A marriage is a coming together of people, but it does not mean that a person totally loses all their rights, including a right to privacy. Won't it feel creepy when you get to know that every action of yours is getting recorded by the spouse who wants to find some evidence of your disloyalty; and this is even more so when there are already tensions in the house.
In this case, the man believed that his wife was cheating on him, and had installed a number of spy cameras inside the house, trying to catch his wife cheating on him in some way, and when she detected the cameras, she was horrified (link to article):

Police said around 2pm on Tuesday, when Mahendran was out on duty, Kamala found a few spy cameras "hidden in different objects," in the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Shocked, she confronted Mahendran about it when he returned home but was allegedly insulted. Kamala then decided to seek divorce but Mahendran refused and said he was ready to talk, police said.On Wednesday, Kamala lodged a complaint with the Ambattur police who registered a case under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Women Harassment Act and IPC Sections 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 290 (punishment for public nuisance).
Police said Mahendran allegedly suspected the fidelity of his wife and often ill treated her. The couple frequently quarrelled over trivial issues and after the confrontation on Tuesday "Kamala said she would live separately and went away," a police officer said. However, Mahendran convinced her and brought her home the same day, the officer said. The couple have a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.

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Weird news - Woman beheaded over sorcery claims in Saudi Arabia

Witchcraft was a major problem for women in the medieval ages, with the official law and order system of countries actually trying women and killing them for the same. This was with the sanction of the Church, but was something that was stopped many centuries. However, even now, in many parts of the world, you hear of some poor lady or the other being accused of witchcraft (this provides somebody who is suffering an outlet to blame somebody for their problems, and when combined with societies where people believe in magic) and being killed. However, these are not officially sanctioned, and are more individual or mob actions.
So it was very surprising when I read this news article about a woman being beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practising sorcery. Does Saudi Arabia believe that a person could actually know magic, and yet not be able to save herself from being accused and executed for such a crime ? Apparently yes, since the news report makes it clear that the conviction was for forgery, which led to a beheading (link to article):

A Saudi woman was beheaded on Monday after being convicted of practising sorcery, which is banned in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said.
Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was executed in the northern province of Jawf for "practising witchcraft and sorcery," the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

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Weird news - Man sentenced to 500 lashes for blasphemy

When you pick up novels about medieval times, you see so many cases where people were sentenced to many sorts of different sentences for crimes against God, such as the extreme one of being burned at the stake for blasphemy. A number of people were convicted and killed in such a manner, which even encompassed acts such as proposing that the universe did not center around the earth, rather that the earth moved around the sun. But these were all stories of what used to happen many centuries earlier.
So, it seems very surprising that such cases happen even now, primarily in Islamic countries where uttering anything that could be construed to be against god can actually be punished by death. And this is not a hypothetical case, there have been numerous cases where people have been convicted of blasphemy on flimsy evidence, or in the more horrid cases, mobs have believed about these utterances of blasphemy and lynched people. Consider this case, where a person on the Haj was convicted of uttering something against the relatives of the Prophet Mohammed and sentenced to a prison term as well as 500 lashes (which could actually kill him) (link to article)

Mansor Almaribe, 45, was found guilty of blasphemy after he was arrested last month in Medina while on a pilgrimage, Australian officials said.
It's unclear what Almaribe, a Shia Muslim from Victoria state, said or did to get arrested.
"The ambassador has urgently contacted Saudi authorities and will make strong representations, including to key figures in the Saudi government, seeking leniency," said Kate Sieper, a foreign affairs spokeswoman.

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Weird news - Bananas and cucumbers prohibited for women as per Islamic preacher

Sometimes one comes across religious sanctions that seem utterly strange. There was a case where a husband divorced his wife when angry, but when he became normal, was unable to take her back since the divorce (of uttering the words talaq 3 times) was held valid; and if he wanted to marry her, she had to marry somebody else first, then get divorced and then only could they marry again. Such cases seem so weird; now consider this wisdom from a preacher about how to keep woman pure. Apparently if a lady sees something resembling the make sexual organ, then it will cause her to have impure thoughts, and hence the lady should keep away from such fruits and vegetables. No word on the many other items that seem similar in shape to the male organ such as pens, tubes, and so on (or looks like the preacher has been seeing too many X-rated movies) (link to article):

The Egyptian news website Bikya Masr on Wednesday quoted the cleric whose diktat featured in an article on el-Senousa, a religious publication. The cleric has said that women should not even get close to bananas or cucumbers. "If women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve," the cleric dictated.
According to the cleric, bananas and cucumbers "resemble the male penis" and therefore could arouse women or "make them think of sex." The cleric also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

Such ridiculous statements get a lot of attention (and ridicule) on the internet, and can make moderate Muslims embarrassed. But on a serious note, such a statement also shows what the opinion many of these clergy have of women.

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Weird news - A crash that caused $4 million in damages to expensive cars

Road crashes are caused by various reasons, such as bad weather, car malfunction, slippery roads, too much to drink, or other such causes. They can be fatal to people, but very rarely do you see a car crash measured in terms of the amount of damage caused to vehicles, especially expensive vehicles such as a Ferrari. However, this article is more about the total damage caused during an accident which involved very expensive cars - how often have you heard of an accident that caused more than $4 million in damage (link to article):

Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini -- plus a Toyota Prius -- were among the vehicles involved in the crash, which witnesses said happened when a speeding car slid across a wet road surface. Television footage showed mangled Ferraris -- many of them racing red -- and debris spread over some 400 metres (yards) of the east-bound side of the Chugoku Expressway, the main trunk road in southern Honshu.
A pack of about 20 supercars was travelling in convoy on Sunday morning on a stretch of wet highway when the leading Ferrari slid into a guardrail, police said.
Those behind slammed on their brakes, but for many of them it was apparently too late.
"I've never seen such a thing," highway patrol lieutenant Eiichiro Kamitani told AFP by telephone. "Ferraris rarely travel in such large numbers."

Weird news - Charter airline forces passengers to withdraw money from ATM's midway

Seems horrid. Imagine booking a charter airlines for your group, getting to the airport, getting all the formalities done, and finally taking off. You would have covered the most of your flight time relaxing, getting together with friends, and generally having a good time (and if you are on the return journey of your trip, you would be thinking about the good times that have been spent).
But would you ever think that at the midway flight stop, the airline would force you to withdraw additional money from any ATM that you could find, just so that you could complete your trip, else they would not leave the airport (and this is neither your departure nor your arrival airport).
What would you do in such a case ? You would mostly pay up, right ? You would be very angry, but you would pay up - which is what the people in this particular case also did (link to article):

A six-hour stay on the tarmac left passengers with no choice but to withdraw money from cash machines in the terminal building and pay the operator to complete the journey. The incident involved four chartered Austria-based carrier Comtel Air flights over the weekend and occurred during refuel stops in Vienna. Three of these have now reached Birmingham ; the other is said to be indefinitely delayed.
Dalvinder Batra, whose 80-year-old visually-challenged relative was forced to go without medicine during the ordeal, told the UK's Daily Mail website: "It is absolutely disgusting how they treated us. There are still people stuck out there. We have been told that the company has gone bust mid flight."

Weird news - Dropping an iPad from 1300 feet, and it still survives ..

... continues to work.
We are used to our electronic instruments being somewhat fragile, not able to take drops very well, and because they can be very expensive, any malfunction can hit us hard. In the recent past, with the introduction of Gorilla glass, the large touch screens are more resistant to impact and to damage from scratches. Only very recently my HTC phone fell down, and the volume rocker switch got twisted with loss in functionality.
As a result, there are a number of accessories that can reduce the chance of such devices being impacted due to falls or cuts, or even when they are kept in a pocket along with keys. But, imagine dropping the iPad from a plane and it still works; this requires a special kind of protection, such as the iPad covers at G-form (link to article):

Gadget sadists at G-Form, who make rather unattractive but undeniably tough cases for iPads, threw the tablet computer out of a plane from 1,300 feet, and it not only survived, the film on screen was still playing.
Previously, the company had thrown an iPad from 500 feet, and dropped a bowling ball on one, but the current test, choreographed using altimeters, is wince-inducing to watch, the Daily Mail reported.

Weird news - Being sentenced to a prison term for a Facebook entry

Earlier this year, England was struck by a large number of riots in multiple cities across the country. The riots were totally unexpected and stuck the country with horror at the ferocity, and it took the confused administration and police some time to tackle the riots and to bring order back. Post the riots, there was a massive push to strike back with ferocity at the people involved in the rights, with talk of removal of benefits to those who were involved, as well as passing sentences that were at the higher end of the typical sentences for such crimes.
These riots were also fanned by social media, with Twitter and Facebook being used for organizing people and passing on information about possible locations of riots. This usage of social media is also considered as involvement in the crime, so you had the police and investigating agencies getting involved in finding out who said what on Facebook, and using such investigation as a part of the case against them. Consider this case where a person was sentenced to 4 years for such a crime (link to article):

A British court on Wednesday sent a stern warning to thugs using social media to incite riots by sentencing a man to four years in jail after he admitted inciting public disorder on Facebook during riots in England.
Jamie Counsel, 25, set up a page called Bring the Riots to Cardiff, later changed to Bring the Riots to Swansea. The sentence should be a warning that anyone using modern media to incite riots would face stiff punishment, said the judge at Cardiff Crown court.

Weird news - Man digs up dead bodies, and turns them into mummies

People sometimes do such strange things that they puzzle everybody around them. This gets particularly horrid when it comes to such things such as dead bodies, where there is a morbid feeling with regard to dead bodies. In addition, even when a person is dead, there are some rights attached to a person, which dictates laws that prohibit mis-handling of dead bodies. In fact, people tampering with a dead body can face severe legal issues.
So when something happens such as this person, who dug up dead bodies at cemetaries (an offence by itself), where all of these were young girls, and then kept them like dolls. This created a furore in the region, since initially these digging up of graves was considered to be the work of extremist groups, and was finally blamed on this person (link to article):

Ministry spokesman Valery Gribakin said on Monday that the suspect from the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod dug up the bodies at several cemeteries in the region. The man, whose identity was withheld, dressed them in clothes dug up from the graves.
Gribakin said that the suspect is a historian who has authored several books. He said the arrest followed a police probe into the desecration of graves in the region, which was initially blamed on extremist groups. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Moscow.

Weird news - A woman gets a huge phone bill due to data roaming charges

You must have heard of those stories where people get huge phone bills for roaming charges on their mobile phones; and you see people worrying about data plans when they go roaming. So, when somebody plans a trip abroad, they also do a lot of planning about their phone and internet data links, how to get the best plan that would not cost them a packet, and so on. Many of us think that this is strange, after all, how much extra cost would there be when you are on a roaming charge ?
Well, consider the fate of this lady. Her brothers depended on her for their phone bills, and neglected to change their data plans when they went out of their city, and then the lady was hit for a bill that exceeded $200,000 (and when the lady checked, the bill was found to be genuine). What a shock. It was only after some publicity that the phone company decided to be generous and reduce the bill to a much more manageable $2500 (link to article):

A South Florida woman opened up her monthly cell phone bill to find a balance due of $201,000-- and it wasn’t a typo.
Celina Aarons, who uses T-Mobile, usually sees a bill of about $175 per month. Her plan not only includes her phone, but her two deaf-mute brothers, the Associated Press reports. Her brothers communicate primarily through texting and also use their phones to watch videos.
But when her brothers spent two weeks in Canada, with their cell phones on and changed to an international plan, Aarons saw her bill jump to $201,000, the AP reports. They had sent more than 2,000 texts and downloaded videos, charging up close to $2,000 data charges at a time.

Weird news - Hot chilli contest causes hospitalization of contestants

There are always people who like to think that they can handle all sorts of situations, and then end up in trouble that other people have to handle. And we are not talking about the hikers who end up lost and have to be evacuated by rangers from some isolated site and so on. In this specific case, the situation was that a contest was arranged where it could be said that things would turn nasty.
So, consider a case where a contest was arranged for something that most people would stay away from; namely dishes in the form of curries where the amount of spice was such that it would affect most people. People who took part suffered a great deal due to the dangerous nature of the curries, with even the Red Cross people standing by unable to provide help. External emergency services were required, along with hospitalization (link to article):

Two people have been taken to hospital following the "world's hottest chilli" competition at an Edinburgh Indian restaurant.
Emergency services were called to the Kismot restaurant in St Leonards Street on Saturday afternoon after some competitors became "very unwell".
The competition involves people eating the "Kismot Killer" curry.
The Scottish Ambulance Service is now calling for a review into how the event is managed.

Weird news - Iranian actress sentenced to an year in jail and lashes

It is always bad to be generic, but it has typically been found that Islamic societies tend to be more conservative than western countries, frowning upon expressions that are fine with other countries. For example, Saudi Arabia tends to be very conservative on the rights of women, not even allowing them to drive, or to move around with men who are not related to them. Iran is also conservative, but it gets more difficult since Iran lives in the condition of paranoia, especially when it comes to something that is like the expression of freedom or against the power of the theocratic state. Consider how this actress was sentenced to a relatively harsh punishment for her portrayal of scenes from inside homes in Iran, and was objected to by the censors inside Iran (link to article):

Actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to a year in jail and 90 lashes by an Iranian court for her role in an Australian film on the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic.
The film My Tehran for Sale which won the 2009 Independent Spirit Inside Film award and the jury award for best feature film at the Trimedia Film Festival in 2010 has been directed by Iranian-Australian Granaz Moussavi.
It was a production of Adelaide-based Cyan Films and the movie tells the story of a young actress in Tehran whose theatre work is banned by the authorities.

Weird news - Sharks in the water hole of a golf course

Typically, a golf course adds many obstacles to make things more challenging. So you can have a sand trap, water trap, trees, as well as many other natural obstacles to make things more difficult. However, people have not gone so far as to make such obstacles be deadly towards the players, although that would add to the attractions for thrill seekers, and probably pull in a number of people who would be attracted.
Consider how unlikely it is that, during a flood, sharks would swim in the waters and come to the water hole of a golf course, and grow there to become the normally dangerous bull sharks (bull sharks are known to be one of the more dangerous species of sharks). What must be worrisome for people as well is the thought that sharks can be found in flood waters, and people do get caught in flood waters (link to article):

But a golf course in southeast Queensland has a different kind of shark attraction: half a dozen bull sharks in a lake that are granting new meaning to the term “water hazard.”
Carbrook Golf Club has captured the bull sharks on video to prove it.
The lake, next to holes 12 through 15, is out-of-bounds to golfers. If a hook or a slice ends in the lake, players are advised to grab a new ball from their bag.
“If you lose a ball, you definitely don’t go in and chase it,” golfer Graham Casemore told the ABC.
That didn’t stop one determined golfer from taking on the sharks -- not wanting to incur a one-shot penalty -- before scampering out defeated.

Weird news - Man kills wife and beheads her

Once in a while, you will watch a particularly gory movie or read a book that describes a murder scene that is particularly gory. If you watch a movie such as "Saw", then you will be watching pretty gory scenes, and these can be disturbing. But what happens when you see such a scene in real life ? It can be utterly horrible, something that is very disturbing and in many cases, requires the people witnessing such scenes to get some sort of medical attention or counselling so that their memories of such scenes are somewhat mollified. Imagine seeing a person walking, carrying the head of his wife in his hand; most likely if you see such a scene, you would run away screaming (link to article):

An autorickshaw driver killed his wife and walked the roads of Guwahati's Hengrabari with her severed head and a blood-stained machete before he was arrested. The couple's younger son is missing.
Ranjit Das was charged with murder and produced in the chief judicial magistrate's court. He was remanded in judicial custody on Friday.

No matter what the reason be, it is just not justifiable to commit such an atrocity.

Weird news - Man kills unknown woman and then hides the body

When we read about murders or homicides, in most of the cases, there are motives for the incident. In many cases, these are revenge killings, or done in the heat of the moment, and when the person ends up in court, there is a motive. In some cases, where the reason is reason enough (such as in self-defence or to avenge some utter humiliation), people can think that the motive is something that may get convince that there was no option other than the killing, and the murder punishment can be reduced to that extent. However, there are cases where the killing is so random, or when there is no motive for the murder, and society cannot determine why the crime occurred. In such cases, the punishment is even more severe, with the trial typically ending in a very severe penalty (link to article):

A Dutch engineer accused of murdering the woman who lived next door in southwest England strangled her and then researched how long it would take a body to decompose, his trial heard on Monday.
Vincent Tabak, 33, admits manslaughter but denies murdering 25-year-old landscape architect Jo Yeates, whose body was discovered hidden under leaves and snow next to a country road near Bristol on December 25 last year.
Prosecutor Nigel Lickley told Bristol Crown court that Tabak attacked the woman in her flat, bundled her body into his car, dumped it and then sent a text message to his girlfriend saying he was "bored".
Yeates had gone missing on December 17 after going for a drink with colleagues and buying a pizza from a supermarket on the way home.

Weird news - Young girl dies in an amusement park in a freak accident

Amusement parks are meant as a place where people come to relax. Some of these rides seem very thrilling, with people dropping fast through large heights, or sitting in an open vehicle that runs on rails and moves at fast speeds. All of these provide great excitement, but need a lot of planning and design to ensure that everything goes right when they are in operation; however, from time to time, you do hear of problems that do occur in amusement parks, a few of which turn fatal. Parks need to have a thorough preventive maintenance program, and even then something can go wrong. But, the only good point is that such accidents are few and you only read about them once in a while. In this case, a girl was sitting in an amusement park ride, and the ride broke sending her dropping down (link to article):

A young boy who was on the ride suffered minor injuries, but walked away from the twisted metal on his own, Barcelona spokeswoman Rosa Diaz said.
The names of the victims have not been announced.
The mechanical arm of "El Pendulo" (The Pendulum) broke and the basket carrying the teens fell on top of the ride known as "The Golden Mine," said Sara Jaurriete, director of the Tibidabo amusement park.
The park's website describes El Pendulo as "the ultimate free fall and the first of its kind in Spain."

Weird news - Donkey entered as a candidate for mayoral elections

A donkey is a typical depiction of an animal who is stupid, can do whatever it is forced to do. Also, there is a symbol of donkeys in politics, where the Democratic party in the United States is also represented by a donkey (with the Republican Party being represented by an elephant). When people want to protest something, a donkey can be one of the symbols that is typically used; whether that be in terms of taking out a procession of donkeys, or carrying placards on donkeys, or placing an effigy of somebody on top of a donkey. However, in a satirical move, a political party is using a real donkey as a candidate for mayoral elections in Bulgaria (link to article):

The Society for New Bulgaria chose the animal, called Marko, as a candidate for the position in the town of Varna because he "doesn't steal" or "lie".
Angel Dyankov, head of the campaign headquarters of the Society for New Bulgaria party, said: "Unlike the other mayor candidates and politicians, the Donkey has a strong character, doesn't steal, doesn't lie, and gets work done."

Weird news - Girl eats a lightbulb, and is only 3 years old

You read about people doing all sorts of weird things, many of them for some sort of publicity or the other. If you read some of the facts listed in Ripley's books, or even the Guinness World Records, some of those exploits seem so weird. But most of those are done by adults who want the publicity.
When a young child does something that seems weird, the immediate need for doing that act is blamed on the parents (since it is assumed that the parents are the one who are forcing the child to act, and the child is too young to do something on his / her own). Consider the following case where a very young girl (all of 3 years old) ate a lightbulb due to a medical condition (link to article):

A three-year-old girl has eaten a light bulb.
Natalie Hayhurst - who suffers from Pica, a condition characterised by an appetite for non-nutritive substances - nearly died when she consumed the inedible object, and she polished off nearly a whole brick "like a chocolate chip cookie" in the past.
Her mum Colleen told the Daily Mail newspaper: "She doesn't try to eat glass so much since it hurt her, but she will try and eat rocks and sticks she finds in the garden.

Weird news - Saudi lady sentenced to 10 lashes for driving

Sometimes we take our independence for granted. The ability to drive wherever we want, live the way we want, and so on. This is particularly true for woman's rights, where many countries had to go through long struggles to establish rights.
Even in the modern western democracies, where the spirit of freedom is taken for granted, rights for women such as the right to drive, and most important, the right to vote were won only in the last century, and too after long struggles. So it seems strange when you hear that in some societies, women are still deprived of the right to drive because of cultural and religious reasons.
But to expect that a woman can be expected to be lashed because she had the guts to drive is something that is totally unexpected, and yet that is the scene in the conservative Islamic society of Saudi Arabia where a religious police governs everything (link to article):

A Saudi woman has been sentenced to be lashed 10 times with a whip for defying the kingdom's prohibition on female drivers, the first time a legal punishment has been handed down for a violation of the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation.
The driver, Shaima Jastaina, in her 30s, was found guilty of driving without permission, activist Samar Badawi said. The punishment is usually carried out within a month. It was not possible to reach Jastaina, but Badawi, in touch with Jastaina's family, said she appealed the verdict.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women _ both Saudi and foreign _ from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.

In the end, the king over-turned the judgment, but it also showed how far backward the country actually is and the sorry state of women's rights.

Weird news - Man blows up his own house while trying to make vodka

There is a certain old charm in making your own liquour. There is a large amount of literature on the net that deals with recipes and methods on how to do your own distillation in the house, and people are able to do so successfully. One needs to keep in mind that even though the process has been followed by a large number of people, you are dealing with liquids that are combustible. In addition, when the process is not followed well, there can be a number of fumes created, and any introduction of any sort of flame cam be very destructive. Once in a while, you will hear about people who fail in their efforts and the results can be dangerous. Consider the following article (link) where a person blew up portions of his own house:

Lawrence Toms, 44, from Tynewydd, Wales, was brewing the alcohol when the explosion occurred, which led to four fire engines and a water bowser being called to his home.
South Wales Police think the incident was caused by homemade alcohol - and a spokesman said: "The windows were blown out of the property and it was lucky no one in the street was injured.

Weird news - 17 year old girl gives birth, surprised at this fact

During pregnancy, there are a number of changes that happen in a woman's body. Women who are pregnant can sometimes suffer from serious health problems, suffer changes in their pattern. Their entire pattern can change, and it is hard to believe that a lady can be pregnant and not be aware of it. However, this couple claims that they were surprised when they gave birth to a child; the lady apparently went to the hospital for some sort of treatment regarding stomach ache; further, all the increase in the stomach was supposed to be part of a gain in weight. Refer this article (link to article):

A 17-year-old British student has given birth without even knowing she was pregnant.
Alexandra Staddon just thought she had "put on a bit of weight" and went to hospital complaining of suffering from stomach ache before giving birth to a baby boy, who she called Matthew, weighing 7lb 6oz.
She said: "I didn't have any idea I was pregnant. I didn't have symptoms. I just thought I had put on a bit of weight."

Weird news - How to get scammed into buying a wooden iPad

iPads are some of the most sought after consumer items in the world right now. Ever since Apple released the first version of the iPad, it became a much sought after item, creating a market for tablets where none existed before. And the strength of the appeal of the iPad is such that other manufacturers are unable to compete with Apple, giving the iPad a huge lead over the rest of the market.
When a new iPad is released, consumers are ready to wait for a lot of time to queue for the iPad, and when somebody offers a great deal, one cannot withstand the pressure of temptation. In such cases, people are even willing to throw away any safeguards with regard to buying the iPad. Otherwise, how can you think of the case whereby a lady managed to buy a wooden iPad in the hope of getting a good deal (link to article):

The golden rule is that if you're buying grey market products, always take the device out of the box to check it before you go home. The secondary golden rule is that you don't buy from a dude who has a gold tooth in the middle of a McDonald's parking lot. And that is the story of how one Ashley McDowell of Spartanburg, South Carolina ended up with a wooden iPad.
Ms. McDowell, age 22, met two men at the back of a McDonald's. The two dudes explained to the girl that they had bought iPads in bulk, and wanted to sell them for $300 per device. She didn't have $300—but she did have $180—so they agreed to give her one for the cash she had on her. Do you hear warning bells going off? I THINK SO.

Weird news - Prosecuting and sentencing people for posting on social networking sites

In recent times, social networking sites, derided initially as tools of no consequence, showed their power by their usage in the attempts to overthrow governments of many countries, including the attempts in Egypt, Syria, China, Libya, and many others. Some of these attempts were successful, others were unsuccessful. In some countries, the governments actually tried to shut down internet and mobile services in order to prevent the mobilization that happens with these services. But one thing was true; these social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, were extremely popular in galvanizing and organizing people, and played a major role in the protests by people.
Social networking also was widely used in the recent riots in Britain, thus showing even societies that were supposedly people friendly could face turbulence from the power of social networking. As a result, there is an increasing trend to prosecute people for their opinions expressed online, whether these be through blogs, facebook or through Twitter. Consider the following case where people are sought to be prosecuted and jailed for their twitter feeds (link to article):

A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account.
Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools. Gerardo Buganza, interior secretary for Veracruz state, compared the panic to that caused by Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds." But he said the fear roused by that account of a Martian invasion of New Jersey "was small compared to what happened here."
"Here, there were 26 car accidents, or people left their cars in the middle of the streets to run and pick up their children, because they thought these things were occurring at their kids' schools," Buganza told local reporters. The charges say the messages caused such panic that emergency numbers "totally collapsed because people were terrified," damaging service for real emergencies.

Weird news - the fascinating story of a penguin far away from home

In recent years, there was a movie called "Happy Feet" that chronicled the story of a penguin who got separated from the rest of its family and group, and got moved to a enclosure far away. The movie was fairly popular and increased the awareness of penguins to a large degree (increasing the concept of them being seen as cuddly and fun creatures).
So, it became international headlines when an Emperor Penguin was found on the beach outside the New Zealand capital Wellington, at a distance of 3000 km from the traditional location. Medical observation showed that the penguin was weak, and was eating sand and sticks in order to cool down (which was making the penguin even weaker). The penguin became the center of attention, and was eagerly watched by people all over (link to article):

Fattened up on a diet of "fish milkshakes" and escorted by his own personal veterinary team, the world's most famous penguin, Happy Feet, sets sail on Monday for the icy waters he calls home. The emperor penguin washed up on a beach just outside the New Zealand capital Wellington in mid-June -- weak, emaciated and more than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) from the
Antarctic colony where he hatched about three-and-a-half years ago.
The wayward bird's unexpected appearance stunned wildlife experts, who said he was only the second emperor ever recorded in New Zealand, and captivated the public, which closely followed every turn in his struggle for survival. "The level of interest has been incredible, not
just in Wellington or New Zealand, but around the world," Wellington Zoo's veterinary manager Lisa Argilla said. "Everyone's been really curious to see what happens."

Finally, after some treatment, the penguin was taken in a ship and released back in the water near the penguin colony.

Weird news - Husband fined for not having enough sex with his wife

This is a strange case. Would you ever believe that a person could be fined in a court of law because his ex-wife filed a case against him for not having enough sex in the marriage ? Seems a bit strange, isn't it ? Many societies would be aghast that such an intimate discussion / discord is brought out in the public like this particular case. In this particular case in France, the ex-wife used a particular clause in the law which states that part of the duties of a marriage is a shared communal life, and the judge has used this clause to mean that sexual relations must happen in a marriage, and based on the complaint by the wife, awarded compensation to her. It is interesting however to determine how it an be decided whether the amount of sexual relations is enough or not (link to article):

In a unique ruling, a French court has reportedly ordered a 51-year-old man to pay his ex-wife nearly 8,500 pounds in damages for failing to have enough sex with her during their 21-year marriage.
The man, Jean-Louis B, was fined under Article 215 of France's civil code which states that married couples must agree to a "shared communal life", the 'Daily Express' reported. The judge in the south of France's highest court in Aix-en-Provence ruled that this law clearly implies "sexual relations must form part of a marriage".
"A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to share their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other," the judge said.

Weird news - 11 year old tried and prosecuted for participating in the recent London riots

The recent riots in London and other cities shocked the people of Great Britain, causing a greater than normal deployment of police. Once the riots and disturbances ended, it resulted in a huge amount of counter-reaction against the rioters; this included calls to ensure that the rioters were evicted from state provided housing; that rioters received quick and harsh sentences as a deterrence; parents were encouraged to turn in their children if these children took part in the rioting, and so on.
But there have been calls after the first series of judgments that came out against some of the rioters that the sentences have been too harsh, that normal norms of sentencing have been set aside in some kind of harsh vigilante mode. What would you call sentencing an 11 year old boy for stealing a waste bin costing around 50 pounds (link to article):

A 11-year-old boy today became the youngest person to be sentenced for stealing a waste bin worth £50 during the recent London riots.
He was given an 18-month youth rehabilitation order at Havering Magistrates' Court in Essex after admitting burglary.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, stole a waste bin from Debenhams in Romford, Essex, on August 8 after the windows of the store were smashed by looters.

Weird news - Lady strips in Bermudas airport after security check

Modern aviation suffers from increasing security issues. Hijacking of planes has happened for many decades now, and as a result, security measures have only increased over the years. As technology has advanced, and the concealment and miniaturization of terrorist technology has increased, the level of security scanning has become more intensive. Further, earlier hijacking still ended up killing at the maximum, only a few of the passengers of the plane, but the 2001 New York attacks showed up a breed of terrorists who were determined, who were not averse to killing all the passengers of the plane, and who were hard to totally exterminate. Then, in 2001 again, there was the shoe bomber who tried to blow up a plane by setting fire to his shoes. And in the recent past, there was the case where explosives were sought to be smuggled onto a plane in the form of printer cartridges.
This has in turn led to a much higher level of security before a plane can take off, and this security is getting more intense, and seemingly much more invasive of the privacy of people. When explosives can be hidden in body cavities, it gets much more difficult; however, this increased security (including devices such as deeper penetrating X-rays that reveal the outline of the body) also puts off a lot of people. This in turn led to a weird reaction from one lady (link to article):

A 36-year-old woman faced with a customs search at Bermuda's LF Wade International Airport rather brilliantly responded by instantly shedding her clothes and telling officers: “If you want to see me naked, you can do it right fucking here.”
Loukai Phillips, a Bermudian native now living abroad, had just flown in from London on 19 August to close her bank account, but had to schedule in an appearance before magistrates on a "indecent exposure in a public place" rap following her protest strip.
Her lawyer, Charles Richardson, explained to the court that because of an unspecified "past association", his client had been strip-searched every time she faced customs operatives.

Weird news - An agency in Germany declares the 'Facebook like' button as illegal

For software companies, especially in the area of web, the different standards followed by Government agencies the world over can make their job very difficult. What works in one area does not work in another area, and these restrictions can cause problems to the companies.
Consider the case of Facebook. It is one of the most widely used platforms in the area of social networks, and one of the most important tools is the 'Like' button that is there in the Facebook page. These allow items to become popular, and get more people access to such news / updates. For Facebook, the Like button is a very important tool, and any restrictions on such a tool can be significant. Well, a data protection agency in Germany is threatening the 'Like' button (link to article):

A German data protection authority is "unliking" Facebook's "Like" button.
The state of Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, on Friday ordered state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the "Like" button from their websites, saying it leads to profiling that violates German and European law.
Facebook insisted on Friday that is in full compliance with European data protection laws.
On Friday, Weichert issued a statement saying technical analysis by his office shows Facebook violated German and European data protection laws by passing content data to the social network's servers in the U.S.

Weird news - Precious items stolen, even after death

One of the biggest fears that people have with respect to airline travel is not about the fear of some accident, but more about losing their luggage. So, consider that you reach a different location after a long flight, and then find that your luggage has not made it, or something has been pilfered from your luggage (and the airline authorities are not really concerned about what has happened). What would you do ?
In this case, something even more horrific happened. When somebody dies in a different land, their relatives are worried about the process of getting the body back to their native land, and then, if they find that things have been stolen from inside the coffin, they would be shocked. This is what happened in the current case, where items were actually stolen from inside the coffin, including valuables that belonged to the person who dies (link to article):

Conception D'Souza died of natural causes in Singapore on June 5, while on her way back from New Zealand after visiting her daughter, Zulfiya Chawdhary.
After the post-mortem, the body was sent to Mumbai in a coffin, which also contained some of her other belongings- jewellery, cash, clothes and some chocolates she had bought during her trip.
When the coffin reached Mumbai on June 7, it was kept at the morgue at the Bhabha Hospital in Bandra, where it was opened by D'Souza's son, only to find that the cash and jewellery was missing.

Weird news - Man sucked into a plane engine at maintenance bay

Once in a while, you would have seen stories of how powerful a jet engine is, and in an occasional movie, you would see a fight between a hero and villain (typically in a plane) being terminated by somebody or something being sucked into the engine of the plane. You might wonder about whether such a thing really exists, and can people really be sucked into a plane engine.
You need to consider that a plane engine has so much power that it pushes out gases at such a high speed that it can propel a heavy plane at very high speeds. To this effect, it sucks in air from the front part of the engine, and this creates a powerful sucking force when the engine is at full operating speed (article).

SAFE Air did not detail how the man died but Fairfax Media said it was informed by sources that the man was sucked into the engine of a C-130 Hercules. The engine had been removed from the aircraft and was installed in the airline's testing bay.
The man had apparently walked into the testing bay while the engine was running, Fairfax reported.

Weird news - TSA agent accused of stealing from flyers

When your stuff gets stolen, you can get pretty angry. If you can catch the thief, you can be pretty harsh on them. What happens however when you find who are expected to be saviors doing wrong ? For example, when a police office commits a crime, or somebody from the IRS commits a tax fraud, and so on. In such cases, the anger is even higher, since a thief steals and is known to steal; but a protector should not be caught stealing. Have you ever thought that when you stuff is being inspected at an airport security system, one of the inspectors may actually be stealing the stuff (link to article):

A US Transportation Security Administration officer has been charged with theft after he allegedly stole a passenger's luxury watch that wound up for sale on eBay.
Paul Yashou, 38, of Torrance, California, was indicted Friday on two felony and three misdemeanor theft counts. Federal prosecutors allege he stole four watches and a debit card contained in luggage being screened at Los Angeles International Airport.
Yashou first came under suspicion when one victim saw his IWC GST chrono perpetual calendar moonphase watch, priced at $15,000, for sale on eBay, prosecutors said. Investigators soon learned Yashou had sold the watch to a jewelry store that was offering the watch for sale online.

Weird news - Parents offered sex with their young girl for paying off loan

Parents are normally seen as extremely protective of their children, especially when the children are vulnerable. It is only when children get much older that they let their children make their critical decisions, especially when it comes to matters such as sex. However, once in a while you come across parents who pervert this relationship, and try to use their children for personal benefits. And when the law finds out such an attempt, the law comes on top of them like a ton of bricks and will almost always penalize them with jail terms, and also take their children away. Read the following story and see whether society has any other option other than what was described in this article (link to target):

Police arrested three people including the parents of an eight-year-old girl, after they allegedly negotiated a deal involving sex with the minor to help pay off a loan, Dutch prosecutors said on Thursday.
“We have detained the parents of the girl after a relative discovered on a laptop, that her parents were offering sex with her as a downpayment to a loan,” Jeichien de Graaff of the Rotterdam prosecutors’ office, said.
Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad reported that the parents negotiated an amount to be paid in return for sex with the girl and that photos have been exchanged, including pictures of the girl.
The three are facing charges of child abuse, and the making and distribution of child pornography “within the next few weeks,” De Graaff said.

Weird news - Turtles brings an airport to a stop

Airports typically worry about the weather causing problems to their smooth operations, and in fact, high winds, or a blizzard can be a threat to planes. There have been cases where wind drafts have caused planes to suddenly rise or drop hundreds of feet, and when this happens near the runway, it can get very dangerous.
Similarly, birds circling near the airport make the operators nervous, since a bird hit at those speeds can be dangerous, and also impact the engine of the plane. But, when was the last time you heard about an airport runway getting shut because of turtles on the runway ? That's right, those slow moving lovable animals that children also love. Any such movement on the runway can cause danger to a fast moving airplane, and when this movement of turtles is because of the need to lay eggs, you can do nothing but wait (link to article):

About 150 turtles crawled onto the tarmac at New York's John F Kennedy airport today in search of beaches to lay their eggs, delaying dozens of flights, aviation authorities said.
The slow-motion stampede began about 6:45 am, and within three hours there were so many turtles on Runway 4L and nearby taxiways that controllers were forced to move departing flights to another runway.
Workers from the Port Authority and the US Department of Agriculture were scooping up turtles and moving them across the airport, he said. Flight delays averaged about 30 minutes, the FAA said.

Weird news - Want to steal money from an ATM ? Take the entire ATM with you

Seems like the most logical step to take, right ? You are a group of thieves and are planning to steal money / need some money. Well, there is this machine that is dispensing cash to everybody, so it must contain a lot of money. Now, how to take the money ? It is not so easy to break into an ATM machine since it contains a number of security safeguards, and there would be people nearby (because of which you cannot take the amount of time you would require to break into the machine). Further, because of security issues, or even because of thieves forcing people to withdraw money at gun-point, ATM's now come equipped with CCTV cameras. This makes thieving a bit difficult. The solution ? Take the entire ATM with you, and then you can open the ATM at your own time, and the company has no way to find out where you have gone (link to article):

A shopkeeper noticed that the machine inside the ATM cabinet was missing and immediately informed the police. The police said the thieves had first blocked the view of the camera fitted at the entrance of the ATM booth with a flex board and then decamped with the cash machine containing Rs. 7.6 lakh. This happened just a day after a similar attempt-to-break-in occurred at the ATM centre on Jangali Maharaj Road. The thieves there were, however, unsuccessful. The Dehu road police said the incident took place in the wee hours yesterday. The burglars were successful in their handiwork because the machine was not fixed properly to the floor.

Weird news - Plane has to make an emergency landing after a man drinks poison

There are a lot of weird people, or people with tendencies that seem odd to others. However, as long as it does not affect us, we could not care less. We start getting involved when we see such problems starting to impact us. Consider the case of a plane journey where people are heading off for a 2-3 hour trip. People are normally in a hurry, and expect that they will reach their destination at the expected time, and a lot of schedules can get impacted if the plane travel does not happen on time (link to article):

A Delhi-bound SpiceJet flight made an emergency landing at Chaudhary Charan Singh airport in Lucknow on Thursday after a passenger allegedly consumed poison on board, police said.
Sumit Rajak, who consumed poison, was rushed to a private hospital after the Kolkata-Delhi SpiceJet flight made an emergency landing.
"After being alerted by the pilot about the medical emergency, arrangements were made for the emergency landing," airport director A.K. Dixit told reporters.

Weird news - Man strips inside the plane, and causes trouble for others in the flight

Sometimes people behave so strangely that normal people cannot believe as to why something happens. However, when it troubles other people, then it gets beyond weird and becomes something that needs to be avoided, and also prosecuted if the annoyance becomes intense.
In this case, what do you do when you see behavior where a man comes on a plane, and then takes off all his clothes ? In today's security conscious environment, in such cases, safety is the higher criteria, and pilots are no longer willing to take risks if something weird or out of the ordinary happens (link to article):

Spanish airline Iberia says a man stripped naked on a flight bound for Germany carrying 110 passengers, causing the pilot to turn back to Madrid airport minutes after take-off.
"The flight took off around 7:45 p.m. Thursday and not long after a man took all his clothes off, became disruptive and then locked himself in a toilet," Iberia spokesman Santiago de Juan said Saturday.
He declined to give the passenger's nationality but said the incident caused considerable inconvenience to a "nearly full flight of passengers who reached their destination of Frankfurt late, after police had to come aboard to take the man off."

Weird news - Girl falls from Ferris wheel, dies after the fall

Ferris wheels are some of the most popular attractions at amusement parks with even small time carnivals carrying out Ferris wheels. Millions of people enjoy rides on Ferris wheels on a regular basis and they have been around for more than a century. You would expect that they would be completely safe, since they can be used only when people are sure that they are safe. So, it gets shocking when an accident happens on such a measure of enjoyment, and in recent times, there has been a quest for amusement parks to gain an image of being the best, having the most exciting rides, and so on.
In this case, a girl died when she fell from the ride and hit the ground (link to article):

An 11-year-old girl died Friday after falling from a Ferris wheel while on a class trip to an amusement park in New Jersey, police said.
Abiah Jones fell at Morey Piers Mariner's Landing Pier about 12:30 p.m., according to the Wildwood Police Department.
First responders gave her first aid and took her to Cape Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead about 1:15 p.m., according to police.
The girl was riding one of the park's main attractions, "The Great Wheel." At 156 feet, it's one of the tallest wheels on the East Coast, according to Morey Piers spokeswoman Lindsey Young.

Weird news - Woman cuts off the penis of attacker, takes it to the police

Attacks against women are one of the most problematic areas of law and order, especially in poorer countries. Most attacks that take place on a large scale also involve sexual attacks on the women (especially in situations where a community or members of one community attack one another). However, even otherwise, in poorer countries or poorer regions, the cause of law and order is never as serious as it would be in the more well off regions.
There are a much larger number of people in the same area, complaints made by women are not investigated with the same intensity and all this encourages such attacks. It is rare that women are able to get an upper hand; this incident shows a specific case where a lady managed to get the upper hand on the person who attacked her, and left him with a grievous wound. One does not encourage breaking of the law, but actions taken in self-defense are normally fine (link to article):

A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of Bangladesh said on Monday. The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Dhaka, on Saturday night, officers said.
"As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime," police chief Abul Khaer said.

Weird news - Chinese boy unable to afford iPad, sells his kidney

One does not know whether this is weird news or stupid news. In our current modern generation, there is a craze to have the most modern gadgets, and there is a lot of peer pressure dealing with the same issue. So, for example, if somebody got a new phone, there will be a lot of comparison with other people, and you would find that some of the peer group will find themselves under pressure to also get a new phone.
However, this can take a strange and tragic turn when the peer pressure gets to so much that people lose their sense of reasoning, and want to do anything to get hold of such gadgets. For buying a new desired gadget, you can consider pooling up your savings, or even trading in some of the items you already own, but to do something as dangerous and life-threatening as selling one of your kidneys is unheard of, but this boy in China did this, and now his family is desperate to get him some help (link to article):

Zheng found an agent ready to buy his kidney and travelled to Hunan province in central China to undergo surgery in a local hospital. With the 22,000 yuan ($3,900) he was paid, Zheng bought a new iPad 2 and iPhone and then returned home, according to a report on the Dongfang TV channel Thursday.
"Xiao Zheng returned home with a computer and a new Apple phone. We do not have the money for such expensive gadgets. At first, he did not want to tell me where he got that much money from. Later he confessed he had sold his right kidney to buy these things," his mother told the channel.

Weird news - Mom sentenced to jail, killed baby by putting her in a microwave

One wonders about parents such as this one. One normally expects parents to protect their children, especially when their children are not in a condition to take care of themselves (in fact, in nature, the deadliest wild animals are those mothers who are protecting their children; after all, they say that you should never be in the way of a wild animal and her children, since this is the easiest way of getting killed).
So what do you say to a mother who, when arguing with her boyfriend, gets so angry that she takes her poor defenceless baby girl, puts her in a microwave for 2 minutes, until the girl is dead ? The girl is only a month old, an age when the girl could not take care of herself for even a brief minute ? The only thing society can do is to take the mother, try her for the crime she did, and sentence her. But the tragedy of the event remains (link to article):

After deliberating for six hours over the course of two days, an Ohio jury recommended life in prison without parole Friday for a mother convicted of killing her month-old baby in a microwave. The jury, which had found her guilty of aggravated murder a week earlier, spared 31-year-old China Arnold from the death penalty in her third trial for daughter Paris Talley’s 2005 death.
The sentencing phase of Arnold’s trial had been delayed for a few days earlier in the week so she could undergo a mental exam, but two psychologists testified Thursday that she showed no signs of mental illness. In an effort to avoid a death sentence, the defense told the jury that Arnold was very drunk at the time of the killing and that she had no prior criminal history. Prosecutors argued that there were no mitigating factors that outweighed her crime.

Weird news - Egyptian military did virginity tests on arrested female protesters

This is really weird. After the deposition of President Hosni Mubarak, the military took power with a promise to better things; but the military in the past has also been associated with the rule of Mubarak, and it did not make conditions any better after it took over and had been ruling for some time. This in turn brought protesters onto the street, something that was not liked by the ruling military and it decided to turn tough on the protesters and arrested and jailed some of them.
However, soon after the arrest, one of the arrested made an accusation that was horrific, claiming that they were administered a virginity test by the authorities, and that too without any female doctor or personnel being present. At that time, the military forcefully denied that any such thing was done, but now a senior office has claimed that the denied tests were done, but stated that it was fine to do such tests. In further comments, the general claimed that these were 'loose' girls, and were done to protect the forces from future claims by the protesters that the girls were not virgins.
This is horrific behavior, to first state that the morals of a girl were loose if she was a virgin, to actually conduct such tests as if this was a crime, and then to justify such tests. No wonder the military regime is facing more pressure (link to article):

A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities. The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.
The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. "We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)."

Weird news - Mom tries to sell off her daughter's virginity, daughter is only 13 years old

Some time back, there were a couple of stories about how teenagers (college students) were offering their virginity in an online auction so that they could generate enough money to pay for their studies (or atleast that is what they claimed). There was a lot of controversy about those attempts, with most people accusing them of being immoral, but the law could not really do much about those cases.
Seems like those cases inspired this lady to act in this manner, and in this case, the law would get totally involved, and there would not be any moral or ethical doubt. Parents have the reputation of being able to do anything to help their children, to protect them; protecting them from sexual predators brings out one of the strongest protective instincts in parents. So what do you say when you see a mother trying to sell the virginity of her own daughter, that too somebody who is only 13 years old and is mentally unable to make these decisions by herself (link to article):

A Salt Lake City woman has been charged with offering her 13-year-old daughter's virginity to a man in exchange for $10,000.
The woman was charged Monday in Utah's 3rd District Court with two counts of aggravated sex abuse and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. KTVX Channel 4 reports that court documents claim she made the offer after the man asked about oral sex with the girl.

Weird news: Lady in Great Britain cannot stand being near electric devices

People are allergic to a number of things in their life, and many of these can be quite rare. However, what do you do when you witness a person being struck by a reaction when left exposed to electric devices, or even electricity. In our modern lives, the amount of electricity we are exposed to is incredible, so it can be very troublesome if some reaction like this is witnessed. The lady has to make sure that she remains away from all devices, which also means that she cannot go outside, and even in her own home, she has to remain away from such devices; if exposed, she will run into a number of problems (link to article):

A 55-year-old British woman is so sensitive to electricity that she cannot watch television, listen to the radio or talk on a mobile phone. Janice Tunnicliffe, a resident of Nottinghamshire, claims to suffer from an extremely rare condition called "electro sensitivity".
She was struck with the illness after she received chemotherapy for bowel cancer three years ago. Tunnicliffe cannot use an electric kettle, and keeps her washing machine in a concrete outhouse.
She cannot bear to be anywhere near an electromagnetic field, and hence has been left "completely isolated" from the modern world due to her medical condition.

Weird news - Person suspected of being a cannibal caught in Moscow

In human history, there have been many instances where the word of cannibalism has come up. There were ancient rituals where the eating of body parts such as the hearts of enemies was supposed to give strength (in fact would transfer the strength and valor of the enemy to the person who was eating the heart), there would be human sacrifices to the gods where after the sacrifice, the body parts would be cooked. In more modern times, there were tribes on isolated islands that would indulge in cannibalism, and would catch and eat people who wandered onto the island.
However, the thought of cannibalism, especially when it is present in modern times, makes people feel cold and clammy, there is the nightmare that it may happen to them, that the weird person who lives in the house nearby and does not let people come in is actually a cannibal.
In recent times, Moscow saw cases where pieces of human bodies were found scattered around the city, and there were worries about a serial killer (link to article):

A man suspected to be behind the appearance of dismembered body parts across Moscow in recent weeks was arrested early Tuesday morning after half-eaten human innards were found in his home, police said.
Police found a stew made from a human liver in the fridge at the suspect's apartment in east Moscow. They believe the liver to be part of the same body as various dismembered body parts found scattered around Moscow in recent weeks.
The decapitated head of a middle-aged man was found in the Moskva River in the west of the city Wednesday.

Weird news - An eye for an eye - Iranian man to be blinded for throwing acid in girl's face

This is a moral dilemma for many people. What do you consider the just punishment for a man who stalked and pursued after a girl, and when she said No, was angry enough that he decided to punish her for this refusal by throwing acid in her face. Now, getting acid on the face is a grievous and horrible fate, since the acid causes immense pain by burning the skin, and in her case, went into the eyes, blinding her. The acid also dissolves some of the structures of the skin, causing the face to become disfigured, and a huge number of victims of acid attacks never fully recover even after a number of plastic surgeries.
This happened in Iran, where there was a twist. The judicial system is based on the Sharia, which allows the victim to claim the same punishment on the accused as he has done, and the victim demanded this revenge. She refused to accept blood money, and pushed for reciprocal punishment, and the judicial system of Iran is delivering, where the accused is due to get 5 drops of Sulphuric acid in each eye, which will cause blindness. Causing blindness did not cause as much pain as the prospect of being blinded, and the accused is very repentant. However, this is also seen as a form of punishment that is barbaric, and is being opposed by many other countries who have filed protests (link to article):

A human rights group on Saturday urged Iranian authorities not to put acid in the eyes of a man found guilty of blinding a woman who scorned him. Majid Movahedi is scheduled to be blinded by having five drops of acid in each eye Saturday, according to Amnesty International.
Movahedi was convicted in 2008 of throwing a bucket of acid on Ameneh Bahrami.
The attack blinded Bahrami, who sought to have authorities render the ancient punishment of "an eye for an eye" in accordance with Islamic law. The rights group is urging Iran to forgo the acid punishment. "It is unbelievable that the Iranian authorities would consider implementing such a punishment," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, an Amnesty International deputy director.

Weird news - Young boy (10 years old) charged with murder of third degree murder

In normal murder cases, it is fairly easy to settle matters; in most cases, there is a murder suspect, and there are evidence and other details. In a majority of cases, the judges do not have to do too much, there are not too many ethical dilemma and so on. However, things get difficult when things are not so simple. What happens when the accused is a minor ? In some cases, things are somewhat clearer when the accused is almost an adult (say when the accused is around 16-17 years old) and is accused of a heinous crime - in such cases, the prosecution argues for treating the accused as an adult and the judge also accepts. But what do you do when you have a 10 year old girl ? Such a young girl is not developed enough to be held responsible for her actions, and yet you cannot leave her because of the nature of the crime, where the girl has actually killed a toddler (link to article):

A 10-year-old girl has been charged with murder after allegedly violently shaking a baby boy and throwing him into a crib.
The fifth-grader, from Pennsylvania, was charged on Friday after an inquest into the death of 11-month-old Heath Conrad Ryder, who died of a traumatic brain injury at Hershey Medical Center in August last year.
The baby boy was at day care when the alleged assault happened a few months earlier. His mother, Shelly Ryder, came to pick him up and found him 'limp and lifeless'.
The young girl, who has no history of behavioural problems, will be tried as a juvenile and has been released into the custody of her parents until the next hearing later this month on condition that she does not have unsupervised contact with children under five.

Weird news - Children as young as 11 in the US can now order condoms over email

In a development that seems necessary for the transmission of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, the US city of Philadelphia seems to have gone in for something very new and different. The rate of sexual activity among high school students is very high, and out of them, a number of them do not use any form of sexual prevention, around 37%, and as a result of this, the rate of STD among this population is very high. To enable more of this at-risk population to get sexual protection, the city has decided to allow girls in this age group to get sexual protection mailed to them without anyone knowing (and this includes the parents of the children). This program seems to meet approval of activists, but parents are concerned by this action (link to article):

"Playing it safe just got easier. If you live in Philadelphia and are between the ages of 11 and 19, you can now have condoms mailed directly to you for FREE. Maybe it's difficult for you to stop by one of our sites to pick up condoms. Or maybe you're just shy or feeling weird about picking up condoms," the website TakeControlPhilly.org reads. "Every girl is different. Figure out what position works for you. You can stand with one foot on a chair, sit on the edge of a chair, lie down, squat, or for fun, have your partner help you out," it says.
The website that asks visitors to the city to use condoms "each and every time", also provides an option where users can order free male condoms to be mailed directly to their homes. Recent national data shows that Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of STDs among comparable cities, with African-Americans and adolescents being disproportionately affected, officials said.

Weird news - Student dies in Yale after hair gets stuck in machine

One hears of freak accidents all the time; sometimes these accidents happen in regular everyday places where one would not dream that such accidents happen. Even when such accidents do happen, rare is the case where such an accident could cause a high degree of harm, or cause injury or loss of life. Consider the following case where a female student died in an accident inside a school lab at Yale (link to article):

A Yale University student nearing graduation was killed inside a school lab when her hair was pulled into a piece of machine-shop equipment, an official said today. Michele Dufault, a senior majoring in astronomy, died yesterday night "in what appears to have been a terrible accident involving a piece of equipment," school officials said Wednesday. The school said the accident took place inside a chemistry lab machine shop but didn't say what the equipment was.
On its website, Yale's chemistry department says it maintains a state-of-the-art machine shop to allow students, faculty and staff to construct or modify research instruments. Access is limited to those who have completed a shop course, according to the website.

Such deadly incidents remind us how much sudden tragedies can strike anywhere anytime.

Weird news - Getting infected due to a kidney donation, even after checking

Being affected by a kidney problem can be a severe issue, especially since it requires frequent attention and medical treatment. Getting replacement kidneys can be quite a problem, since there are long waiting lines for organ donation and there are also issues with regard to the body accepting the replacement organ. Also, based on previous cases where the replacement organ could be coming from a body / cadaver that had some sort of communicable disease, there is a check for some of the more common diseases before the transplant takes place.
But, one wonders about what can happen in the below case ? Here, when the donor (who was a living person) was checked for diseases, the person checked out fine. But, after the transplant took place, it was found that the recipient was suffering from AIDS, and investigation revealed that the transplanted organ was in fact responsible for the disease (link to article):

In 2009, a patient with hemodialysis-dependent kidney failure was given a new kidney from a living donor at a New York City hospital - known in the report as "Hospital A". There was no trace of any STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in the individual's medical history, neither was there any history of high-risk activity, such as injection drug use or sexual encounters with injection drug users.
The patient had received blood transfusions in 2006, but none before that date. 12 days before the transplantation procedure started, the recipient tested negative for HIV. After the operation the patient went through multiple hospitalizations, fevers, episodes of renal insufficiency, and evaluation of possible transplanted organ rejection. The recipient did not take part in any behaviors which might have increased his/her risk of becoming infected with HIV.

Weird news - A giant sinkhole in Guatemala City, looks like a scene from a science fiction movie

When you see horror science fiction movies, anything can happen. Aliens can attack from outside, giant creatures can be created due to nuclear mishaps, undersea monsters can rise up, tectonic movements in the earth's crust can cause huge damages, solar flares, and so on. when you see these in a movie, you know that this is just fiction, and you can move on. But, when you suddenly come across something major happening, you realize that there are many things that can happen on the earth itself, in real life. would you imagine that suddenly the earth opened up, a giant sinkhole appeared that went for a large depth, and houses, roads, and trees started falling into the sinkhole ? Well, it happened for real in Guatemala City, in Latin America (link to article):

The appearance of a massive sinkhole in Guatemala City (map), Guatemala, on Sunday is thought to have been triggered by tropical storm Agatha, a violent tempest that struck Central America over the weekend.
From photographs, the new Guatemala sinkhole appears to be about 60 feet (18 meters) wide and about 300 feet (100 meters) deep, said James Currens, a hydrogeologist at the University of Kentucky—which explains how the sinkhole was reportedly able to swallow an entire three-story building.
Sinkholes can form when water-saturated soil and other particles become too heavy and cause the roofs of existing voids in the soil to collapse, Currens said.

When you take a look at the photo in the linked article, it looks downright scary.

Weird news - Spiders killing trees by enveloping them with webs after floods

Was browsing around when I came across these extraordinary photos. In the year 2010, there was a series of massive floods in Pakistan; these floods occurred for days and weeks at a time, and caused wide-spread death and destruction. These floods also inundated wide sections of the country, including fields (which are typically low lying regions). As a result of all this, an unusual phenomenon was seen, something that you would see in some B-grade horror Hollywood movies. Imagine whole trees infested by spiders, with the trees totally covered by large spider webs (a communal mission by spiders to cover entire trees). One byproduct of this was that many trees covered by these webs did not get adequate nutrition or were impacted by the spiders, and died; here, in this report, you can see photos of these trees and wonder as to how this happened (link to article):

Trees shrouded in ghostly cocoons line the edges of a submerged farm field in the Pakistani village of Sindh, where 2010's massive floods drove millions of spiders into the trees to spin their webs.
Beginning last July, unprecedented monsoons dropped nearly ten years' worth of rainfall on Pakistan in one week, swelling the country's rivers. The water was slow to recede, creating vast pools of stagnant water across the countryside.

Ready to pay off education loan of children by selling their body parts

Parents can do anything for their children, this is a known fact. In the past, parents have fought wild animals, fought with Government authorities, robbers, and numerous other such people trying to hurt their children. Part of the effort to give children a better future is through higher education, and this can be fairly expensive. In one case, the amount of expenses and debt incurred was so high that the parents are willing to sell their body for this purpose (link to article):

Parents offer body parts to pay off kids' education loanHOUSTON: A Boston couple have offered to sell their own body parts to pay off their children's $2,00,000 student loan.
"Use my body for anything legal, or medically experimental . Simply pay off all of my children's student loans and you can use me anyway you need," an advertisement said asking "Do you need a live 'cadaver?'" posted on Craigslist Boston in the "jobs wanted" section of the website.

Weird news - Woman imprisoned in home for 20 years in a Brazil house

There have been a number of cases in the recent past which talk about people being found who have been confined to their homes, some for sexual purposes by their own family members, for many many years. Each other such a case is found, there is always a great amount of surprise, as to how such a thing can happen.
In yet another case, a woman was locked up in a house for over 20 years, and this was only recently discovered when police arrived for a raid, and found the lady calling for help (link to article):

Police in Brazil said they had freed a 45-year-old woman who had been locked in a house for 20 years with no communication with the outside world.
Police in the state of Parana yesterday said that the woman was locked in the home by her partner, a 60-year-old man, in the city of Mariluz, 550 kilometers (340 miles) from the state capital Curitiba.
In the complaint, "the assistant told the police that a person was kept imprisoned for 20 years and was going through health problems, since she was banned from medical supervision," said Viana.

Weird news - A girl in the US being treated for eating soap multiple times a week

There are a number of people in the world who eat very strange things, such as the performers who come on TV who eat things such as tube lights, etc. And it is a normal concept in books where children who use abusive language or swear words are told to wash their mouth out by soap by their parents. The taste of soap must not be very nice, which is one of the reasons why the washing out of the mouth by soap must be encouraged.
So, how is that a normal girl eats soap 5 days a week, and which is now being treated by doctors (she also apparently eats washing powder, with a funny reaction being that her body must be very clean with all the soap and washing powder that she is eating) (link to article):

Tempestt Henderson, from Florida, eats up to five bars of soap a week and washing powder as well, the Daily Mail reported here. According to doctors, the toxic compulsion is a rare medical condition, PICA, which causes an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive.
People suffering form PICA have been known to compulsively eat metal, coins, chalk, batteries and toothbrushes. It can often be caused by a mineral deficiency, which explains why pregnant women often crave eating coal when needing iron. The doctor gave Tempestt intensive Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), to give her replacement thoughts that will prevent her from compulsively reaching for soap.

Weird news - Maid has it as her mission to spread AIDS to all, through unprotected sex

Getting AIDS can cause a huge amount of emotional turmoil to the people afflicted with it. Earlier, getting AIDS was a certain death sentence, but now, with a number of medicines available, it is possible to live a healthy life for long periods of time. However, at the same time, there are a lot of laws in place that criminalize the wilful passing on of AIDS to other people, so passing on of the virus from one to another is a crime if done without the knowledge of the other person.
But, if a person has been given the virus by somebody else, it can cause a huge amount of anger and lead to a desire for revenge, which seems to have been the case here, where a lady was given the AIDS virus by her husband, and in her quest for revenge, she spread it to a number of other people (link to article):

A doctor treating HIV-positive patients has claimed that one of his patients has indulged in sexual relations with more than 100 partners "to take revenge" for her condition. While counselling her, the doctor learnt that she not only has multiple partners, but hunts for them with a vengeance to spread the virus she contracted through her husband.
"She was brought to us by her sister, who herself is HIV positive," said Gilada. "We found out that she had learnt of her husband's HIV-positive status in 2005, and that he had transmitted the disease to her as well. Although she divorced him, she couldn't come to terms with the fact that he had knowingly passed on the virus to her," he said.
Gilada said that during the counselling sessions, the woman, who works as a maid, claimed she has had more than 300 sexual encounters with 100 men over the past three years. "She admitted to frequent encounters with men ranging from her employers and their relatives, to the liftman and students - all of whom have had unprotected sex with her," said Gilada.