News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

Can't possibly be true

-- Wanda Hudson, 44, said she was inadvertently padlocked into her 30-by-10-foot locker by a careless employee of the Dauphin Island Parkway storage facility near Mobile, Ala., on Nov. 7, 2001, and did not get out until a neighboring unit renter heard her cries 63 days later. Hudson, who said she survived on canned foods and juice, was found weighing 85 pounds and in a clinical state of "advanced starvation." She sued Parkway for $10 million but in September 2003 was awarded $100,000 by a jury.

-- Americans continue to be divided over the wisdom of "zero tolerance" laws that require heavy punishment even for slight, technical violations, especially as applied to public school students. In December, for example, the Bossier Parish, La., school board voted to uphold the year-long expulsion of a 10th-grade girl for "drug" possession, specifically an Advil tablet. And in January, a Rio Rancho, N.M., middle school student was drug-suspended for five days for possession of a Gas-X tablet. (National media attention eventually caused both school districts to lessen the penalties.)

- In December, payoff checks started arriving from Citibank's class-action lawsuit settlement that required it to refund overcharges for credit-card fees, but since the $18 million payout had to be split among 20 million customers and former customers, the checks were for as little as 4 cents, while the lawyers who brought the lawsuit shared $7.2 million. A major Citibank "abuse" corrected by the lawsuit: It was charging interest from 10 a.m. on the payment-due date but agreed to start charging it only as of 1 p.m.

Lady in red

National Wear Red Day

On Friday, February 6, 2004, GLAMOUR Magazine guarantees that no matter what you wear, you'll be a "GLAMOUR DO" - as long as you're wearing RED. GLAMOUR is urging women to wear red on Friday, February 6th for "National Wear Red Day," an initiative spearheaded by GLAMOUR, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the American Heart Association (AHA), and WomenHeart, to raise awareness of the number one killer of American women: heart disease.

GLAMOUR recently named women's heart health as the magazine's official cause since more women die each day of cardiovascular conditions than any other disease - yet many women are unaware of this danger. In every issue GLAMOUR continues to devote editorial coverage to women's heart disease.

In October 2003, GLAMOUR partnered with the groundbreaking "Red Dress Project," an on-going health initiative led by First Lady Laura Bush and the NHLBI. Co-sponsors of the campaign are the AHA, the Department of Health and Human Services, and WomenHeart, the only national group for women with heart disease. "The Red Dress" is the new symbol for women and heart disease. Like the pink ribbon of breast cancer, this icon was created to call attention to this deadly yet often preventable illness.

He ain't heavy

He's my brother

Do you wish you had more siblings or fewer? Here's what kids are saying:

bc-kidspost-siblings

-- 8- to 9-year-olds: More, 37 percent; fewer, 14 percent

-- 10- to 12-year-olds: More, 33 percent; fewer: 18 percent

Source: Harris Interactive