NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Oops! Andrea Amanatides suffered a booboo in May while being booked to begin a six-month jail sentence in Albany, N.Y., for a probation violation. As she was being placed in a holding cell, a cache of drugs fell onto the floor. Deputies soon figured out that a condom Amanatides had placed into a bodily orifice had burst. The final inventory: 26 Oxycontins, 10 Ambiens, 50 Valiums, 37 Adderalls, plus 133 more prescription pills and four baggies containing heroin. The sequence was captured on surveillance video.

The continuing crisis In June, the North Carolina Senate passed a state House of Representatives bill (House Bill 819) that orders scientists to use the “correct” way to predict weather in North Carolina. The bill requires that only historical analogies back to 1900 be used to predict sea-level rise — meaning that scientists must ignore “feedback loops” in which recent, consistent heat and violent atmospheric conditions suggest more radical weather. For example, nine of the hottest 10 years on record have occurred since 2000, but North Carolina scientists must not be swayed by that fact because only patterns of the more stable 20th century can forecast 21st-century sea levels. (Many North Carolina coastal property owners believe the 40-or-moreinch rise in sea level by 2100 that is predicted by most scientists would threaten property values and would rather believe the perhaps-8-inch rise that HB 819 would dictate.)

Bright ideas —Five hikers on holiday from Miami got lost overnight on May 3 high in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, N.Y., and endured a night of rain with temperatures in the 40s before they were rescued. One or more of the hikers (number unclear in the news report) got to test one theory of body-warming, but learned that its benefit was illusory. That is, warming up a cold body by urinating on it provides only momentary, if any, relief.

—Serial flasher-alcoholic Michael McShane, 55, of Workington, England, seems well aware of the serious problem he has. He has been arrested 283 times (190 convictions) for indecent exposure and public drinking, and was apparently trying to keep himself out of trouble one night in April by dressing in two pairs of pants, so that if he shed one, he would still be within the law. However, on that night, police picked up a passed-out McShane outside a bar where he had already managed to pull both pairs of trousers down past his buttocks, and in May, he garnered conviction number 191, in Carlisle Crown Court.

People different from us Earlier this year, Tokyo artist Mao Sugiyama, 22, had elective surgery to remove his genitals, underscoring his commitment to an “asexual” lifestyle in which his behavior and attitude are supposedly completely irrelevant to whether he is male or female. Then, on April 8, he solicited diners to a meal (for the equivalent of about $250 each) in which his genitals were cooked and served, garnished with button mushrooms and Italian parsley. One applicant was a no-show, but five dined with him on April 13. According to a May report on Huffington Post, the well-photographed story “went viral” in Japan, and authorities repeatedly assured journalists that no law had been violated. —Chuck Shepherd