Mini Stories Chinese - Story 9 / Questions / Q1:
Does Andy have a new girlfriend?
安迪 有 了 一个 新 女朋友 么？
seems to me like a very strange translation.
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Why 了 ?
It is not past tense, and it’s not a new situation or change of situation.
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Why this strange question form with 么 at the end?
I would translate like this:
安迪 有没有 一个 新 女朋友？
Nearly all other questions in Chinese Stories - Story 9 are created in the same strange pattern with 了 and 么:
Does Andy have a new girlfriend? 安迪 有 了 一个 新 女朋友 么？
Does Andy go to the supermarket? 安迪 去 了 超市 么？
Does Andy buy vegetables? 安迪 买 了 蔬菜 么？
Does Andy look at the fish? 安迪 看 鱼 了 么？
Does Andy stay in the store? 安迪 呆在 超市 里 了 么？
Does Andy make dinner? 安迪 做 碗饭 了 么？
If you really want to ask about the PAST and use 了, then I would negate with 没有。
E.g. Did Andy buy vegetables? 安迪 买 了 蔬菜 没有？
Did Andy look at the fish? 安迪 看 鱼 了 没有？
Maybe the creator/translator can comment on this.
That 么 is a variation of 吗. Many Chinese people use it interchangeably.
About the 了, it’s such a weird particle that people write whole phd’s about it. It’s not equal to talking about past, more as a completion of action, change, new situation or sometimes analogical to present perfect in English (sth has happened, already, now and continuing)).
So in the sentences above it’s function could be attributed to the “now, change…”.
When I asked my girlfriend (Chinese) a few times before, she would always tell me sth like “it doesn’t mean anything!! We just put it there to emphasize the meaning and because it sounds better”
So there you go 
But I would also be interested in the author’s explanation.
Another thing is, and I experienced this when translating the stories to Slovak, is that the original is so weird sometimes. The tenses used are so unnatural, one would almost never hear the sentences in real life. So it’s difficult to capture the exact feel and grammar when translating.
“Does Andy stay in the store?” (?!) A more natural version would be sth like “is Andy (still) in that store?” “Has he stayed there” and so on. The tenses are a bit forced in the ministories
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No Chinese grammar book (and I own many) says that 么 is a variation of 吗. Maybe a result of poor education or an abbreviation like many that Chinese use especially in the time of Internet …
In these times many Chinese don’t even know the differences between 的, 得, and 地. Maybe it’s the same with 吗, 嘛, and 么 …
But IMHO the mini stories should teach grammatically correct Chinese.
The problem with LingQ is that you never know how correct or incorrect the texts are. In a textbook you can be quite sure that it was created by talented and educated people…
PS
Here is a discussion about 么 and 吗:
The last answer says it all…
“i’m Chinese. I seldom use 么, except when saying “What”, I say “什么”, anywhere else at the end of an sentence, I use 吗. the reason why you often see sentences end with 么, is that We often use pinyin input software, and when it pops up 么, we just choose it, because we don’t want to spend time for searching the right one: 吗. if you input the character rightly once, the next time you use the same pinyin to type 吗, computer will always give 吗 first. if not, they will be wrong forever, because most of us are not willing to spend time for searching. when writing the formal articles, i think you will seldom see the 么 at the end of sentence.”
Yes you are most probably right. Same with 的，得 so many native speakers just never use 得 where it actually should be, 说的对 was the first example that confused me, then I found out they are really just lazy or plain don’t know the difference haha
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