Weird news - Punishing a father since his son not granting divorce

It seems like a weird case. After all, in cases of a divorce, legal matters are typically between the husband and wife, and parents are mostly not included; unless there is some kind of harassment that is also part of the overall separation and divorce proceedings However this divorce proceeding in Israel is different, since the divorce law over there (which in turn is based on religious laws) ensures that the husband gets a veto over the divorce. Unless the divorce is granted by the husband, it will not happen. Over a period of time, the rabbinical courts have been granted powers to 'persuade' the husband in case he is not willing.
However, in this case, the husband was not present in Israel, instead spending time in the United States, primarily due his rich father who provides his son a stipend and a job. So when the father came to Israel for a visit, he was prevented from leaving and his passport taken away. The father is protesting about the court doing a kind of extortion attempt on him to ensure that his son comes to Israel and grants the divorce, and it would seem that the rabbinical courts have no other leverage (link to article):

According to the court documents, the wife suffered the stroke on a visit to Israel with her husband in 2005. Shortly after, the husband returned to the U.S., where he remains. His wife and their two children stayed in Israel and she became an Israeli citizen. The court says the husband has ignored her request and a court ruling for a divorce as well as another ruling demanding he pay alimony. The father is in his late 60s and according to court documents is a wealthy member of New York's Hasidic community who runs a real estate company. He was in Israel last year on a family visit when he was summoned to the court, told to hand in his and his wife's passports and barred from leaving the country. He was later sentenced to 30 days in prison for contempt of court. The rabbinical court argues that by providing his son with a job and stipend, the father is responsible for his son's intransigence. His lawyers argue he is being used as leverage to pressure his son and are appealing to the Supreme Court.

Weird news - Saudi woman divorced husband because he was too short

This one is a weird one, but maybe not so much. Divorce rates are increasing, and the reasons for the divorce may not seem logical for somebody seeing it from much further away, and may be entirely logical and reasonable for somebody who is involved in the whole matter. And divorce based on physical appearances is something very common, even though in many cases, some other reason may be given for the same.
What seems funny in this case is the public perception of Saudi Arabia as a place where women are oppressed, where they have no rights. This may be true to a large extent (for example, they are not allowed to drive), but this case where a wife filed a petition for divorce seems to suggest that there are many rights available to a women. In this case, the wife wanted a divorce since her husband was much shorter than her, and the public reaction to their height differences was enough that she wanted out of this marriage (link to article)

The woman, in her 20s, has reportedly told the endowment department in the country's eastern province that she wanted to separate from her husband because she is painfully uneasy with, and caused distress by, attitudes towards the union from strangers in public. The head of the endowment department in Al Qatif, Shaikh Mohammed Al Jirani, said the case was among the strangest it had dealt with. News of the woman's bold move has received a mixed response on social media, with some blaming her for accepting to marry him to begin with, while a few said she was right to be divorcing the man as his height was not an issue which could be overcome with mere patience.

Weird news: Arizona woman sentenced to prison for 3.5 years for driving over husband

Now, you might think that there might have been some reasons for this to happen ? Maybe she was being persecuted for such a long time by her husband that she finally burst and took this action, or maybe she was just plain loco and hence did this ? Well, the second one seems more likely, since the reason why she did sounds plain crazy. On a different note, even friends can get into arguments over politics, when they are passionate about it. And you do find a lot of people passionate about politics, since the right leader and the policies followed by them can sometimes make a difference to your lifestyle; or when you have a leader who follows policies that are different from the ones you follow, it can cause a lot of unease, and in extreme cases, you can even get into arguments with people who disagree with you (you just have to look at the comments section of news about politics and leaders to figure out the amount of passion some people have).
However, to take this passion into violent action is something that most people would consider out of normal, and to take this violent action against somebody in the family, or in this case, the husband, would seem weird. The lady tried to run her husband down with a jeep over a reason that most people would consider weird considering the action she tried to take; she was finally sentenced for 3 and a half years in prison for the injuries she caused (and it is of course to be expected that they were divorced) (link to article):

PHOENIX: An Arizona woman was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison on Thursday for running over her husband with the family car because he failed to vote in the 2012 presidential election, court officials said. Holly Nicole Solomon, 31, pleaded guilty in April to two counts of aggravated assault under a plea agreement with prosecutors over the incident at a parking lot in Gilbert, a southeastern suburb of Phoenix. Police said Solomon was upset with her husband, Daniel Solomon, in the days following the November 6 re-election of US President Barack Obama and believed the family would face hardship from his winning another term in office. The 36-year-old man suffered a fractured pelvis from being run over following a wild chase on November 10, 2012, that left him pinned beneath the Jeep.

Weird news - Man kills his own children after estrangement with his wife

In today's world, marriages are made easily, but can also get broken far more easily. This is a far cry from medieval times where the church refused to let divorces happen, and a bad marriage still meant an existing marriage. With the number of broken marriages increasing, there are more tensions due to children and the issues related to who gets to keep the children as part of divorce proceedings.
However nasty such divorce proceedings go, it is in the very rare case that such proceedings lead to violence, and even less so that the father actually kills his own children and that too in such a brutal manner, by knifing them to death (link to article):

A jilted man in Britain killed his daughter and son by slitting their throats to hurt his estranged wife as he was about to be evicted from their flat. Jean Francis Say, 62, murdered his eight-year-old daughter Regina and son Rolls, ten, when he had custody of them for the weekend, the Sun reported Thursday.
He carried out the killings shortly after receiving a letter confirming that he was being kicked out of the family's three-bedroom property where he lived alone. His estranged wife Adjoua had moved out with the children six months earlier. So, Say wasn't entitled to the flat any longer.

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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.

Man wins a fortune just the day after his divorce

This man can truly claim that his wife brought him bad luck, since he got something that most people never get in their life time. After a long divorce that dragged on for a number of years, it was clear that the divorce was done and he was now free of his wife. As a part of the celebration, he decided to spend the evening out with friends, getting drunk and enjoying the freedom. The bus driver used his last amount of money left to buy a lottery ticket, and given the probability of lottery tickets, it is difficult to believe that something would come out of them. However, the man did win half the top prize, giving him 2.3 million pounds, enough that his wife might want to come back to him (link to article)

Kevin Halstead, a 50-year-old bus driver, spent Friday out with friends after his divorce and the next day he bought a Lotto ticket. Later, he was left stunned when he won the lottery, Daily Express reported Wednesday.
Halstead's friend said: "Kevin's divorce dragged on for a couple of years. Everything was settled on Friday so he went out and got drunk. On Saturday he decided to spend his last quid on a lottery ticket. He checked the papers next morning and saw he'd won half the jackpot."

Cutting a house in 2 as part of a divorce - husband takes separation of assets too far

Divorce proceedings sometimes can get too heated, when earlier close spouses can get bitter, especially when all attempts to save the marriage have failed. At that time, it is difficult for them to go ahead with separation of assets, many of these assets have very strong memories. But, the action this husband took was unprecedented; living in a village in Cambodia, the husband was angry that his wife would not take care of him when he was ill, and they decided to separate (link to article):

The husband and wife had been living together in the house in a village in the Prey Veng province of southern Cambodia, roughly 50 miles (80 km) from the capital. The couple would not talk to the newspaper, but the village chief told May Titthara that the husband was angry because his wife wouldn't tend to him when he was ill.
Last week, the husband and his friends moved his belongings to one side of the house -- and sawed and chiseled it off, said the reporter, who interviewed the village chief and neighbors. The couple also divided their property into four sections: for themselves and their two children.

However, this was not a legal divorce through the courts, more an action by them themselves.

Staying with your husband and ex-husband

After the bitterness of a divorce, it has been known to happen that the couple make up in many cases, in some cases going to the extent of getting back together, or in other cases, becoming friends who can depend on each other for many items. However, the situation described below can be pretty rare, after all, how often do you know of a wife re-marrying, and then moving in with her new husband into the home of her ex-husband. The divorced husband initiated the move, partly to get to meet his children more often (link to article):

Struggling to make ends meet, trying to dig themselves out of debt, Nicole Thompson-Arce and her husband have moved in with her ex-husband. Together, the unlikely threesome of Omaha, Nebraska, is raising two young daughters from the first marriage. When she and Craig Thompson, 42, were going through a divorce in 2005, this was not a deal either of them could have imagined striking. It was a messy divorce, the kind involving a custody dispute. But once they ironed out that battle, agreeing to joint custody, Thompson-Arce said they were able to move on and forward.
Soon after the Florida wedding, the new lovebirds flew into a financial mess. She had left a job, and as soon as she found another (a temp position), her 22-year-old husband was fired from his higher-paying gig. They fell behind in rent. The bills stacked up. The credit card debt grew. In walked the ex with an offer, just in time for Christmas. Thompson, an 18-year bakery employee at Wal-Mart, lives in a three-bedroom, one-bath home. "I knew they were having money problems, so I just asked them to move in," he said. "I figured I'd get to see my girls, my daughters, more often. And Nicole said yes right away."

Sounds surprising, right ? After all, it might be a bit embarrassing as well to move in with your ex-husband, but in this bad economy, many decisions get made that would not seem possible earlier.

Husband wants his kidney back

Divorce cases can be smooth, or they can be very messy. In many divorce cases, the settlement process can be very tension filled and full of acrimony. People have emotional attachment to many items, and will fight tooth and nail for each item. However, the demand from the estranged man in this divorce case was totally out of the ordinary - he had donated his kidney to her when she needed it. After that, he found out that he was cheating on her, and now he wants his kidney back, or he wants the value of the kidney back:

GARDEN CITY, New York: A New York doctor is demanding his estranged wife pay him $US1.5 million ($2.1 million) to compensate him for the kidney he gave her while they were still on good terms. Richard Batista, 49, said he gave his kidney to Dawnell Batista in June 2001, and she filed for divorce in July 2005.
Dominic Barbara, a lawyer for Dr Batista, was quoted as saying: "The main reason the doctor is doing this is because of how he's been treated in this case." Dr Batista, a vascular surgeon for Nassau University Medical Centre, has demanded the $US1.5 million as part of the distribution of assets in the divorce. A medical expert estimated the value of the kidney for the legal team.

An interesting case, and one does not know how the judge will react in this case.