Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the "world's worst tennis pro" by London's Daily Telegraph (and other news organizations) sued the newspaper for libel last year. After taking testimony in February 2010, the judge tossed out the lawsuit in April, persuaded by Dee's having lost 54 consecutive international tour matches (all in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result, 30 other news organizations had already apologized to Dee for disparaging him, and some even paid him money in repentance, but the Telegraph had stood its ground (and was, of course, humble in victory, titling its story on the outcome, "'World's Worst' Tennis Player Loses Again").
Mexican police, raiding a suspected hideout of drug kingpin Oscar Nava Valencia in the city of Zapopan in December, found the expected items (weapons, drugs, cash) but also 38 gold- or silver-plated guns emblazoned with ornate designs and studded with diamonds, which it placed on public display in May. Included were seven bejeweled assault weapons.
In war-torn Gaza, with little relief from the tedium of destruction and poverty, the Mediterranean Sea offers some relief, especially for about 40 people who belong to the Gaza Surf Club, riding waves on secondhand, beaten-down boards. While the waves might not be as challenging as those in Huntington Beach, Calif., the surfers nonetheless must be skilled enough to avoid the estimated 60 million liters of raw sewage that Gaza city, with no practical alternative, has routinely emptied into the sea.An April ABC News TV report featured a Westford, Mass., couple as the face of the "radical unschooling" philosophy, which challenges both the formal classroom system and home schooling. Typically, home-schooling parents believe they can organize their kids' educations better than schools can, but "unschoolers" simply put kids on their own, free to decide by themselves what, or whether, to learn any of the traditional school subjects. The key, said parent Christine Yablonski, "is that you've got to trust your kids."
Bolinas, Calif., north of San Francisco, is famously reclusive, even to the point of residents' removing state highway signs pointing to the town, hoping that outsiders will get lost enroute and give up the quest. It limits its population to about 1,500 by officially fixing the number of municipal water hookups at 580, but in April, one of the meters became available when the city purchased a residential lot to convert to a park. The meter was to be sold at a May auction, with a minimum bid of $300,000.
A lawsuit filed by an employee of the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., the hotel complied with a February request by a wealthy British traveler that, during their stay, his family not be served by "people of colour" or anyone who spoke with a "foreign accent." The hotel has apologized to the employee, but denied that it had complied with the traveler's request. (Lawyers for the employee told the Associated Press that nine witnesses and a copy of a computer entry prove their claim.)
