Lead Story “Tall, slim, facial symmetry,” “good teeth,” along with classic makeup and dress and graceful movement, might comprise the inventory list for any beauty contest winner, and they are also the criteria for victors in Niger’s traditional “Gerewol” festival—except that the contestants are all males and the judges all females.

Lead Story Those Ingenious Western Spies! In January, Saudi officials detained a vulture from Tel Aviv University (part of endangered-species research), calling it a spy and alarming its Israeli handlers that the bird might face a gruesome execution as an espionage agent.

Lead Story Do Ask, Must Tell (and Show): The Turkish military’s legendary homophobia (rare among NATO countries) comprises both zero-tolerance for homosexuality by service personnel and the requirement of rigorous proof by anyone applying for exemption from service by claiming to be gay.

Lead Story Two hundred boredom “activists” gathered in London in December at James Ward’s annual banal-apalooza conference, “Boring 2010,” to listen to ennui-stricken speakers glorify all things dreary, including a demonstration of milk-tasting (in wine glasses, describing flavor and smoothness), charts breaking down the characteristics of a man’s sneezes for three years, and a PowerPoint presentation on the color distribution and materials of a man’s necktie collection from one year to the next.

Lead Story A now-10-year-old church in Denver ministers to (as contemplated by 1 Corinthians 4:11- 13) the homeless, the reviled and the persecuted, and formally named itself after the actual words in verse 13, the “Scum of the Earth” Church.

Lead Story Catch-22 Catches Disabled Veteran: David Henderson, a Korean War veteran long suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, applied 15 days past the deadline for enhanced care under a 2001 veterans-benefits law and thus was, as required by the statute, disqualified from the additional benefits.

Lead Story Biologists Studying Rare Species Have to Be Quick: Researchers learned from reports in early 2010 of a new monkey species in Myanmar, with a nose so recessed that it habitually collects rainfall and constantly sneezes.

Lead Story The Cabral Chrysler dealership in Manteca, Calif., was so desperate for a sale in October that one of its employees picked up potential customer Donald Davis, 67, at his nursing home...

Lead Story Among the oppressive patriarchal customs that remain in force in Saudi Arabia is a requirement that females obtain their father’s (or guardian’s) permission before marrying—even women who are profoundly independent, such as the 42-year-old surgeon

Britain’s National Health Service acknowledged in November that, because of a shortage of healthy lungs and other organs available for transplant, it was offering those on waiting lists the option of receiving them from former smokers, drug addicts, cancer patients and the elderly.