Wrong tense and wrong word used

In June 1998, the government had hired a team of experts from all over the world to be gathered here for a research project to compliment the history studies that we undertook in our secondary school.

The above is a sentence extracted from an article circulated through email.

Note that "had hired" is in the past perfect or pluperfect tense which should not be used here as there is only one action done [vide my earlier posting on Monday, February 8, 2010 concerning The Past Perfect (Pluperfect) Tense] while "compliment" has the meaning of "to praise or congratulate" that obviously is not the intended meaning which needs to be expressed instead by the word "complement" having the meaning of "to complete".

Hence, the sentence should correctly be "In June 1998, the government hired a team of experts from all over the world to be gathered here for a research project to complement the history studies that we undertook in our secondary school."

'A couple' can take a singular or plural verb

Appearing in an online newspaper report is the sentence, "A couple who was reconciling their marriage was found dead in a hotel room."

'Couple' here is referring to two people, and like many other collective nouns, it may take either a singular or a plural verb though most commonly, it is construed as a plural.

The sentence in italics is taking it as a singular which is, however, not in harmony with the word 'reconciling' and the plural pronoun 'their'.

To be grammatically correct, the sentence needs to be recast as "A couple who were reconciling their marriage were found dead in a hotel room."