xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
The agency that oversees Spain’s stock market announced that it will implement a rule starting in July to require each director of an exchange-listed company to disclose not just names of family members but of any other “affectionate relationship,” straight or gay, that the director may have. The purpose is to help monitor insider trading. (Also, in Nanjing, China, municipal officials were ordered in May to disclose any extramarital affairs, as a way of reducing officials’ payoffs to mistresses, according to Xinhua news agency.)
Aberdeen, Wash., fourth-grader Tyler Stoken was suspended in May for a week for balking, on a statewide test, at composing a short essay on what would happen if, one day at school, you “see your principal flying by a window.” Tyler, reportedly a good student, said he thought any passage he wrote would be making fun of the principal, which he refused to do. The principal subsequently viewed that as insubordination (perhaps because it also lowered the school’s overall score) and suspended Tyler, but the superintendent later apologized.
Official guidelines issued in May by Britain’s Joint Council on Qualifications, directed to agencies that administer high school and junior-high standardized tests, call for students to receive extra points on the test if they have experienced pre-exam stress due to selected circumstances: death of a parent or close relative (up to 5 percent extra), death of other relative (up to 4 percent), death of pet (2 percent if on exam day, 1 percent if the day before), witnessing a distressing event on exam day (up to 3 percent), just-broken arm or leg (up to 3 percent), headache (1 percent).
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD