Last June, Beijing high-school student Xiao Na got hit by a basketball during gym class. She was prevented from going to the clinic because the school, in the process of an ideology and ethics assessment, would not authorize time off. Xiao Na was told by the hospital the following day to take 30 days rest, but she left after 2 days to return to school. Over the next three months, she missed 30 consecutive days of school, and over the following semester, she missed many crucial classes, severely affecting her test preparation.

She scored just above 300 on this year's college entrance exam (good scores are in the 500s or 600s), leading her mother to sue the high school for 13,000 yuan, claiming that it was negligent in not permitting her to see a doctor immediately. The school noted that Xiao Na's performance on last year's annual exam was middling, so missing the college cutoff was not entirely unexpected.

2. Bring it on! (from today's The Beijing News):

Shopowners on the third and fourth floors of Beijing's Dongding Wholesale Market barricaded the doors yesterday to protest a sudden hike in rent. The building's management recently tore up contracts currently in force in order to sign new ones, with rents 30%-80% higher than before. A stall that had been paying 150,000 yuan per year would now have to pay 100,000 yuan more; the new lease requires three years' rent in advance.

What has the shopowners riled up is that many of them still have several years left on their current leases, yet the management has already put out ads for new tenants for their stalls. The situation was resolved yesterday after the shopowners posted a notarized document confirming that they had attempted to pay their rent, which the management had refused to accept. According to TBN,

An upper-level manager with the building management...explained that the increased rental fee was in accord with current market prices. Many people had already expressed that they would continue to rent. If a few shopowners could not accept this, they could file a lawsuit. The Market is willing to take responsibility for violating the contract.

Shopowners countered by saying that the increased market prices were due to their own efforts at building up the shopping center; the management would pay out less than 100,000 yuan per shop at most in breach of contract compensation, but would gain over 100,000 yuan per year under the new lease. Stalls on the first and second floor were upset at the barricades, claiming that they would lose 50,000 or 60,000 yuan apiece every day the doors remained closed.

3. Huang Jianxiang takes the mantle from Chen Kaige (from today's Mirror):

No respite for Huang Jianxiang - though he may have apologized for his outburst during the Italy-Australia game (doubts have been cast on his authorship of the apology), China's forum posters and bloggers aren't giving him a break. Rock star Zheng Jun writes on his blog that he fully understands Huang's desire to see Australia fail - he bet on Italy, too. Other people speculated that he had too much to drink, or was paid off by various parties.

Scads of parodies have appeared, aiming hysterical commentary on Guo Jingming's plagiarism, Fan Bingbing's plastic surgery, China vs. Japan, northeast dialect, Outlaws of the Marsh, Faye Wong, and Liu Jianhong, the CCTV 5 personality who may take over from Huang. There's even a mock-up of a cellphone ringtone:

Connected! Connected! Connected! The mobile's not hung up, the phone call is connected! You're waiting, are you sure you didn't misdial? How will you feel in a few seconds? Answered! The phone's user has heard your phone call! You're victorious, the number you dialed was not a wrong number, O great you! Magnificent you did not dial a wrong number today! Long live friends who make phone calls!

Called in by the Mirror to put a damper on things, a lawyer explains that sports broadcasts, like other works, enjoy copyright protection, and CCTV could sue the parodists for infringement. Moreover, Huang himself could sue them for harming his reputation, if he feels that it hasn't yet been sufficiently damaged.