In May 2008, classroom disrupter Alex Barton, 5, was finally made by his teacher at Morningside Elementary kindergarten in St. Lucie County, Fla., to sit down and listen to the accumulated complaints of his classmates, who then were asked to vote on asking Alex to leave the class.
He lost, 14-2.
Shortly afterward, Alex was diagnosed with a form of autism, and his mother filed a federal disability discrimination lawsuit, citing Alex’s “humiliation” by the voting incident.
A settlement was reached in recently when the school district agreed to pay Alex $350,000 (which included legal expenses).
Said Ms. Barton, “Money can’t take care of what the school district did to my family.”
Oh, was
that
wrong?   
Lawyer Terry Watkins admitted to a judge in Faribault, Minn., that his client William Melchert-Dinkel did things that were “abhorrent,” “sick” and “creepy,” but that doesn’t make him a criminal.
Melchert-Dinkel has been charged with two felonies for counseling depressed people online on the techniques and virtues of suicide.
For example, he recommended positioning for a noose to a Briton who hanged himself three days later.
A judge’s decision was pending at press time.
Not
jealous,
just
nauseous   
From time to time a woman appears in the news proudly displaying her years-long cultivation of fingernail growth.
This time it was Ms. Jazz Ison Sinkfield, a grandmother from Atlanta, who showed off her hands for WXIA-TV.
She admits some handicaps from her 20- to 24-inch long nails that skew and curl in seemingly random directions — e.g., no bowling, shoe-tying or computer work, and the expense of a five-hour, $250 salon session each month.
But she claims to be unfazed if people she meets find the sight of her nails repulsive.
Said Sinkfield, “Some people are jealous.”
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)