Weird news - In Britain, man banned from speaking to women strangers for 10 years, will face prison if he does

Sometimes one comes across strange court judgments, which do not make sense from a layman's perspective. A typical judgment from the court typically would involve either a person getting exonerated by a court, or being sentenced to some sort of community service, or to probation, or to a prison term. These are the sort of court judgments in criminal matters that we have come to expect, and if something deviates from such a judgment, it seems weird. What would you say to a court judgment where a man is sentenced to a prison term if he speaks to a unknown woman in public, unless it is an emergency. This was a strange case where a man walked up to a lady in her mid 20's, kissed her on the cheek and told her that he was a sex offender.
You can imagine the shock that this lady would have felt, including the fear that she would have felt. The only reassurance that she would have felt was that they were in public; the problem is that such a situation is so odd that one does not know whether such a man is safe in public. At the same time, since the offence conducted was not one to jail him for a long period of time (in a sort of preventive custody), there was not much that the judge could do; and hence the unusual judgment. But how does one make such a judgment effective ? How do you determine whether the man spoke to an unknown lady, or just replied back. Similarly, how do you determine what is an emergency ? Read this news article (link):

A 56-year-old Briton has been banned by court from speaking to women for 10 years after he told a woman he was a rapist who had just been freed from prison. David Delahunty, 56, faces up to five years in jail if he just says hello to a woman he does not know, The Sun reported. A judge imposed the ban after the man admitted sexual assault. The order bans him from speaking to any woman he does not know in a public place for the next 10 years, except in an emergency. He said he walked up to a woman stranger at a bus stop, kissed her on the cheek and told her she was a "bonny lass".

Weird news - Man wins jury award for eating too much popcorn

You would keep on reading stories about how some of the ingredients in modern food can cause health problems, about how artificial additives to food can cause issues to the body depending upon the quantity that one is exposed to, and so on. Over a period of time, the food industry has invented a number of items that makes food look better, maybe even taste better and last for longer periods of time. From time to time, these inventions also end up causing problems to a section of consumers, and then there are the cases where people don't know that stuff that they can eat has the potential to cause them to fall ill.
Consider the case where popcorn has been treated with a chemical to make it more buttery and is found in microwave popcorn. People working in popcorn factories are exposed to such chemicals in high enough conditions that it can cause problems, but bet you did not know that. What could you further unease is that a person who ate this popcorn in high enough quantities was also affected and filed a case claiming impact to health and won millions in damages (link to article):

A Denver man has just won $7.2 million in damages from the makers and sellers of his favorite snack — microwave popcorn. Wayne Watson, 59, ate bags of the stuff every day for years, and developed a potentially fatal condition known as "popcorn lung." What is this odd-sounding ailment, and is the company that made the treat really to blame? It's relatively common in people who have been exposed to high levels of diacetyl, an artificial flavoring used to give popcorn a buttery taste. Workers in factories that make microwave popcorn are the ones who usually suffer from it. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that anyone subjected regularly to the chemical wear a respirator and get regular breathing tests. Hundreds of popcorn-factory workers have sued over diacetyl exposure — winning settlements as high as $34 million — but Watson was the first consumer to go to court.

Weird news - Hacking into a bank without any special skills

Banks routinely tout their extra high security, with most instances talking about bit length (256 and above) encryption keys. Given the nature of business that banks are involved in, ensuring that there is a high amount of security is also critical. Also, given today's fast paced world, there is a need for banks to ensure that they remain on all the time, with no delays. A downtime can cause problems to many customers of the bank, and can cause them to take their business to other banks along with penalties to the bank concerned, especially if their security measures are not as strong as they should be.
So what do you do when it seems that a person can stop a bank's operations or trigger a stoppage on the operations of the bank, such as in this case when a person called into a number that was tied to a back end service machine in the bank and entered some codes that caused the software to trigger an alarm and stoppage of services. The person was arrested by the police, but finally exonerated by the court after there was no malice detected in the 'hack' (link to article):

A Frenchman has been cleared of wrongdoing after a court accepted he accessed the Bank of France's internal telephone systems by accident. An unnamed 37-year-old Breton longed to avoid premium-rate calls while using Skype back in 2008, and set about hunting for a cheap-rate gateway number to the public networks. Judges sitting in a criminal court of Rennes, northwest France, dismissed the case against the man on Thursday, citing the prosecution team's failure to demonstrate any criminal intent in his actions.

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.