truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Pastor Walter Steen pleaded guilty in Detroit in August to tax fraud and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. He had started the God Will Provide Tax Service in 2005, but prosecutors said 1,573 out of the 1,578 returns he prepared for clients claimed tax refunds.

After a 25-year-old woman was accused of murdering her father and sister (and wounding her mother) in July in Sydney, Australia, authorities revealed that she had been diagnosed with a psychotic illness in 2006. However, she had been discouraged from seeking psychiatric treatment by her parents because they are Scientologists, who by doctrine reject psychiatry and psychotropic-drug treatment.

News of the Weird first mentioned "Breatharians" in a 1999 report, referring to people who claim to subsist on only water, air and sunlight, even though there is scant proof of their self-denial and utterly no scientific evidence that humans can live beyond a few weeks on such a diet. In June, London's Daily Mail profiled German Michael Werner, who claims not to have eaten (except for fruit juice, coffee, wine and an occasional grape or nut) since 2001 yet is active and appears robust at 6-feet-2 and 175 pounds, attributing his success to a hunger-ignoring state of mind. The two most famous Breatharians (Australian Ellen Greve and American Wiley Brooks) were both later exposed in the press as having sneaked food on the side.

Some radio stations in Israel have banned male singer Eliyahu Faizkov, 20, supposedly because he sings in a falsetto voice. According to some rabbinical scholars, Jewish law forbids men to listen to females' voices, or female-sounding voices, just as it forbids men from seeing certain uncovered parts of women's bodies.

Some radio stations in Israel have banned male singer Eliyahu Faizkov, 20, supposedly because he sings in a high-pitched voice. According to some rabbinical scholars, Jewish law forbids men to listen to females' voices, or female-sounding voices, just as it forbids men from seeing certain uncovered parts of women's bodies.

Arab researchers writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported in June, not surprisingly, that Middle Eastern women who dress covering all or nearly all their skin may have significant vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight.