Noisy games

Pickleball is falling victim to its own popularity in one Philadelphia neighborhood. Residents who live across from the Water Tower Recreation Center in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood say they’ve had enough of the loud recreational sport. “Eight-to-nine months a year you can’t open your windows,” resident Joe O’Donnell told Fox 29. “Did you ever try and live someplace where you can’t open your windows with the racket? That’s how loud it is.” Locals say the courts gained popularity once pandemic restrictions began altering lives. But the sound of pickleballs hitting paddles is louder than tennis balls hitting rackets. On May 23, local residents and pickleball players met to discuss solutions with some suggesting the use of softer balls or limiting the hours of operation at the courts. At least one threatened to file a lawsuit if players don’t stop violating noise ordinances.

Talking trash

A young employee at the BBC hates the Manchester United soccer club, and now the whole country knows it. The BBC had to offer an apology after the employee with the network took the liberty to post a message on the screen—“Manchester United are rubbish”—during a news broadcast. During a May 24 sports update about a tennis match, the broadcaster displayed the message on the crawl. Later that day, network officials apologized, explaining that a young employee learning to use the ticker was simply inputting words that were never meant to be broadcast. “So, apologies if you saw that and you were offended and you’re a fan of Manchester United,” a BBC host said later in the broadcast.

Not a lot of horsepower

Facing down rising gasoline prices, a German woman has decided to ditch the car and go old school. Horse trainer Stephanie Kirchner has turned a horse-drawn wagon into her daily driver for her 3.5-mile commute in western Germany. According to the 33-year old, her Toyota SUV costs her as much as $264 per month in gasoline. The downside: Her old 15-minute commute has turned into a one-hour journey that tends to annoy motorists who share the road. “Humanity is hectic,” Kirchner said, “and then some people are annoyed if they can’t get past me fast enough.”

Home wreckers

Two men in Iberia Parish, La., became a wrecking crew when they tried to illegally move a house to a residential lot without making the necessary preparations. According to police, homeowner Tony Domingue and a friend tried to move the house using a truck and trailer down a small drive, knocking down power lines and causing nearly 700 residents to lose power for hours. They also damaged mailboxes and trees while moving the oversized load. Police arrested the two men for obstructing a roadway after the pair abandoned the house. The pair were booked and held on $125,000 bail while Iberia Parish sheriff’s deputies prepared more charges.

Safety belt dangers

South Korean automaker Hyundai announced a recall of roughly 239,000 cars after complaints about exploding seat belts. The fault lies with the seat belt pretensioners, devices that tighten the safety belts in anticipation of an accident. When the pretensioners malfunction they explode, sending shrapnel throughout the passenger compartment. U.S. regulators found two cases of exploding seat belts in the United States, and a third case was reported in South Korea. The recall covers Hyundai Accents made for model years 2019 through 2022, Elantras from 2021 through 2023, as well as Elantra hybrids from 2021 and 2022. Owners in the United States will be notified by the company by July 15 and be able to get a safety cap installed over the pretensioners free of charge.

Not enough early birds

An Irish construction manager has complained that he can’t find skilled craftsmen to fill out his workforce because no one wants to wake up early in the morning. Construction manager Conor Gray told The Irish Times in May that he advertised 35 work opportunities on job websites and on social media but only got two applications. “The hours that we work, a lot of our projects will start at seven in the morning. I’d be perfectly honest, there’s an awful lot of young people that don’t like getting out of the bed for seven o’clock in the morning and that’s just a fact,” Gray told the newspaper. Other contractors interviewed by the Times pointed to a general shortage of skilled laborers, saying many building projects were being delayed as a result.

A drink to the alliance

A Finland-based brewery has seized on recent political events by releasing a first-of-its-kind NATO-themed beer. Based on the Western security alliance, Olaf Brewing’s OTAN lager borrows the French spelling of the alliance’s acronym as well as the Finnish expression, “Otan olutta,” which roughly translates to, “I’ll have a beer.” The brewery’s operator said the decision to release OTAN lager stems from Finnish concerns about Russian aggression following the nation’s invasion of Ukraine as well as renewed popularity of the NATO alliance in Finland. Finland filed an application to join NATO on May 18. The chief executive officer of the brewery described the new offering as having “a taste of security, with a hint of freedom.”