All U.S. states have forms of no-fault divorce, but not England, which requires that couples prove adultery or abandonment or “unreasonable behavior,” which leads to sometimes-epic weirdness, according to an April New York Times dispatch from London. For instance, one woman’s petition blamed her husband’s insistence that she speak and dress only in Klingon. Other examples of “unreasonable behavior” (gathered by the Times of London): a husband objecting to the “malicious” preparation of his most hated dish (tuna casserole), a spouse’s non-communication for the last 15 years (except by leaving Post-it Notes), a spouse’s too-rapid TV channel-changing, a husband’s distorting the fit of his wife’s best outfits by frequently wearing them, and one’s insistence that a pet tarantula reside in a glass case beside the marital bed. [The New York Times, 4-7-2012]

Compelling explanations

Lame: (1) Madison County, Ind., council member David McCartney admitted to the Herald Bulletin newspaper in March that he had exchanged “sexually explicit” emails with a female official in another county but would not resign. In fact, he said, he had engaged in the exchanges not for hanky-panky but in order to “expose corruption.” He has not elaborated. (2) Chris Windham, 27, was charged with improperly photographing a 57-year-old man in a men’s room in Trinity, Texas, in March after Windham, using a stall, allegedly snapped a cellphone photo of the man standing at the adjacent urinal. Windham explained that typically he braces himself with one hand on the floor while he wipes himself, and this time the hand on the floor was holding his cellphone.

Things leaders believe

Though recently elected Councillor Simon Parkes told the Scarborough Evening News in March that his work on the Whitby (England) Town Council would not be affected, he has famously (in a YouTube video) reported lifelong “horrific” invasive encounters with extra-terrestrials, including many visits from a 9-foot-tall, green “mother”-like being who sends him “messages” through his eyes, down his optic nerve to his brain.