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Internationally known West Papuan freedom-fighter Jacob Rumbiak, 49, who was once locked up for 10 years by Indonesia as a political prisoner, was convicted in April of three separate incidents, on the same day in 2005, of masturbating in public on trains in Australia (where he is a research associate at RMIT University). According to […]

In a Palmerston, New Zealand, court in March, lawyer Janet Robertshawe was called as a witness on behalf of an “alternative health” practitioner who had been charged with taking indecent liberties with female clients, and Robertshawe (a long-time client) agreed to help demonstrate the man’s massage technique. Just feet from the jury, she removed her […]

Stylin’ and Profilin’: For fashionable women this season, the area just above the breasts is the most important part of her chest, according to a May New York Times report. A protruding collarbone is said to suggest a taut, fit (even though covered up) body. Many young Sikhs in India are dispiriting their traditionalist parents […]

The international movement to anoint apes with “human rights” suffered a slight setback in April when an Austrian judge refused to declare a chimpanzee a “person” (which, under Austrian law, would have entitled it to a legal guardian and allowed individuals to donate money to it). The chimp, Hiasl, and a companion are in limbo […]

While the California Assembly debated an open-hand-only spanking bill for parents this spring, the Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante continued to demand that spanking by flexible rod is the only punishment acceptable to God and that will produce wisdom in the child. No sturdier weapon may be used, nor the open or closed hand, […]

Sachio Kawabata, 61, was awarded the equivalent of about $5,000 by a court in Kagoshima in January because the police abused him during interrogation over possible violations of election law. The judge found that Kawabata suffered “great mental anguish” when police wrote his family name and derogatory messages on pieces of paper and forced Kawabata […]

In April, Bishop Michael Babin, for 25 years a leader of Genesis Ministries International in Oceanside, Calif., was charged (along with his son) with beating a golfer unconscious after accusing the man of stealing his ball at a local course. (Two years ago, Babin was nominated for a Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Award.) In […]

Zimbabwe’s almost comically sad hyperinflation, which News of the Weird reported had reached 1,593 percent in January (one could buy a house, pool and tennis court in 1990 for the same dollars as would buy a single brick today), was up to 3,731 percent in May, and is expected to get much worse. Star Trek […]

In November, News of the Weird reported the arrest of Michael McPhail of Spanaway, Wash., who was charged with bestiality under the state’s brand-new law, having allegedly been caught by his wife having sex with the family dog. In May 2007, a jury in Tacoma, Wash., found McPhail not guilty.