Lead Story

* Update:  Last week's News of the Weird gave serial impregnator
Desmond Hatchett, of Knoxville, Tenn., too much credit.  It is true
that he has fathered at least 24 kids by at least 11 different women
(and has no hope of meeting child-support obligations), but he is
hardly Tennessee's most prolific.  A June summary by the Daily
Mail of London (citing WMC-TV and WREG-TV in Memphis)
revealed that Terry Turnage of Memphis has 23 children by 17
different women, and Richard M. Colbert (also from Memphis) has
25 with 18 women.  Courts have ordered the men to pay the various
mothers monthly support ranging from $259 to $309, but one
woman said the most she had ever seen from Turnage was nine
bucks.  [Daily Mail, 6-14-2012]

To the Ninth Ring of Hell

* Debbie Stevens, 47, filed a claim before the New York Human
Rights commission in April alleging that she was fired in November
by Ms. Jackie Brucia, head of the Atlantic Automotive Group of
West Islip, N.Y., after Stevens failed to recover quickly enough from
major surgery in August.  Stevens had donated a kidney to Brucia,
who apparently could not understand why Stevens was still in pain
by September 6th so that she needed more time off.  (Actually, since
Brucia and Stevens were not perfect matches, Brucia had Stevens
donate to a woman ahead of Brucia on the waiting list, which created
an opening for Brucia.)  (Brucia's husband told a New York Post
reporter in April that Stevens's claims were "far from the truth" but
would not elaborate.)  [New York Post, 4-23-2012]

* In April, a jury in Charlotte, N.C., convicted Charles Hinton, 47,
for a break-in at the Levine Children's Hospital in 2010, where he
had been charged with stealing 10 video gaming systems that sick
children relied on for entertainment while they received cancer
treatment.  [Charlotte Observer, 4-26-2012]

* A CNN investigation revealed in May that the Disabled Veterans
National Foundation had collected almost $56 million in donations
over four years but given nearly all of it to two direct-mail
fundraising companies.  CNN was able to locate a small veterans
charity in Birmingham, Ala., that received help, but mainly in the
form of 2,600 bags of cough drops, 2,200 bottles of sanitizers,
11,520 bags of coconut M&Ms, and 700 pairs of Navy dress shoes.
Another, in Prescott, Ariz., received hundreds of chef's coats and
aprons, cans of acrylic paint, and a needlepoint design pillowcase.
Said the manager of the Birmingham charity, "I ask myself what the
heck are these people doing." [CNN, 5-8-2012]

Oops!

* Andrea Amanatides suffered a boo-boo 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 to 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. [Times Union
(Albany), 5-31-2012]

* Weekend WTMW-TV (Portland, Maine) news anchor Meghan
Torjussen was called on to deliver breaking sports news on June
3rd:  the score of a playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the
Miami Heat.  Time had run out in the 4th quarter with the score tied,
89-89.  "I guess the game just ended," Torjussen announced.  "This is
what my producer is telling me right now."  "There's the score [on
the screen], 89-89.  Uh, went down to the wire . . . ended in a tie.
[A]ll right, let's move on to professional baseball."  (Boston
eventually won, in overtime, 93-91.)  [Huffington Post, 6-4-2012]

The Continuing Crisis

* Things People Believe:  Seattle attorney Andrew Basiago told
Huffington Post in April that he "time-traveled" eight times as a
child as part of the secret Project Pegasus staged by the Pentagon's
notorious Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  Another
lawyer, Alfred Webre, recently explained, matter-of-factly, to a
seminar audience in Vancouver, British Columbia, that teleportation
is an "inexpensive, environmentally friendly means of
transportation" and was used most recently by then-Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "to transport troops to battle."  Basiago
said, in a flourish of detail, that he was at Ford's Theater the night
of Abraham Lincoln's assassination but did not witness it, and said
that twice, he ran into himself while back in the past.  [Huffington
Post, 4-28-2012]

* In June, the North Carolina Senate passed a state House of
Representatives bill (House Bill 819) which 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-
more-inch rise in sea level, by 2100, predicted by many scientists
would threaten property values and would rather believe the perhaps-
8-inch rise that House Bill 819 would dictate.)  [Scientific American,
5-30-2012] [EarthObservatory.NASA.gov, 1-19-2012]

Sounds Like a Joke

* In testimony at an extortion trial in New York City in June,
Anthony Russo (alleged Colombo family associate) told prosecutors
that a mob war was narrowly averted after another Colombo hand
learned that a new Staten Island pizza parlor (run by an alleged
Bonanno associate) featured pies that suspiciously resembled those
of the top-rated L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn, which has
Colombo ties.  Representatives of the families had a "sit-down" (at a
neutral site--a Panera Bread restaurant!) and worked out a payment
plan to satisfy L&B. [New York Daily News, 6-13-2012]

* Seattle police reported that a woman had been walking her dog in
Plymouth Pilliars Park at about 2 a.m.on May 10th and allegedly
making noise that disturbed another man.  Both were carrying pooper
scoopers, and it is unclear which of the two started it, but the woman
claimed the man jousted his toward her off and on in a "30 minute"
duel, as she used hers to block his assaults.  Police said a search
failed to turn up suspects. [KOMO News via KVAL-TV (Eugene,
Ore.), 5-15-2012]

Bright Ideas

* Good to Know:  Five hikers on holiday from Miami, Fla., got lost
overnight on May 3rd 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 of the hikers, desperate for
warmth, got to test one theory of body-heating, but learned that its
benefit was illusory.  That is, warming up a cold body by urinating
on it provides only momentary, if any, relief.  [Times Union
(Albany), 5-8-2012]

* 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. [News & Star (Cumbria), 5-21-2012]

People Different From Us

* Earlier this year, Tokyo artist Mao Suginama, 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 8th, 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 13th.  According to a May
report on Huffington Post, the well-photographed story "went viral"
in Japan, and authorities had to repeatedly assure journalists that no
law had been violated. [Huffington Post, 5-24-2012]

     Thanks This Week to John Kearney, Glenn Mitchell and
David Henshaw, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.

                   * * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.