When six-year-old Kevin Long took a plastic butter knife from the lunchroom of Ohio's Struthers Elementary School, officials suspended him for violating the school's weapons ban, and even threatened expulsion. To have the suspension lifted, the boy's parents responded by threatening to have school officials brought up on charges of providing a weapon to a minor.

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A Pakistani couple who worked around the clock at their Montreal convenience store were ordered to speak better French to their customers as required by Quebec law. An Anglo-Canadian computer consultant was ordered to post a French version of the website advertising his services even though he knows no French. A Greek immigrant had his truck seized because it said "Bill's Plumbing" on the side, an illegal use of language since he pursued his trade only in Quebec. A mason cutting gravestones was also cited because the epitaphs were not bilingual.

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In the midst of California's multibillion-dollar budget deficit, a state and federal task force offered grief therapy to Riverside poultry farmers whose birds were killed in order to halt the spread of Exotic Newcastle Disease.

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