Quick Takes

Naming names

Singer Taylor Swift has racked up 22 Billboard Music Awards, 10 Grammy Awards, and one Emmy Award. And on May 10, she’ll be able to add a new award to her collection: the Taylor Swift Award. Music licensing giant BMI announced it would create a new award named after Swift and make her the first recipient at this year’s BMI Pop Awards. This marks the second time BMI has created an award in the name of its first recipient. In 1990, the licensing group gave the Michael Jackson Award to the King of Pop.

Long weekend

A Waco woman’s bathroom break lasted much longer than she expected when she found herself locked in a public library restroom as the building closed for the evening on Saturday, April 2. Without a cell phone and with no one to hear her cries for help, the unidentified woman spent all of Sunday in the restroom and was not rescued until Monday, April 4, at 7 a.m. After a quick check from paramedics, the woman was declared uninjured, at least physically, by the mishap.

Not so sweet

A prolonged fire in a silo has an entire North Carolina community smelling sweet potatoes. Since Nov. 27, firefighters in Farmville, N.C., have been battling a smoldering fire at a sweet potato silo. And while the months-old fire poses no serious health risks to the nearby inhabitants of Farmville, the town of 5,000 has been intermittently blanketed for more than four months by pungent sweet potato smoke. As of early April, fire crews had dumped more than 25 million gallons of water on the fire, to no avail.

Judge and defendant

Ignorance of the law will not be a credible defense for Diane Kroupa. The U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota on April 4 charged Kroupa, 60, and her husband with tax evasion. Her former job: U.S. Tax Court judge. U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger claimed the couple filed false returns and obstructed an IRS audit and owe more than $400,000 in back taxes. President George W. Bush appointed Kroupa to the federal bench as a tax court judge in 2003. She retired in 2014.

Hog wild

Long after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster made parts of Japan uninhabitable for humans, a group of radioactive wild boars is now causing economic damage in Fukushima prefecture. According to government officials, the wild boar population has been breeding uncontrollably in the quarantined area near the nuclear plant and has increased 330 percent in the past few years. Despite culling from hunters—and from eating irradiated berries and roots—the wild boors have caused nearly $1 million in agricultural damage to the area.

Threat from above

Senior citizens at the Timber Pines retirement community in Spring Hill, Fla., are keeping their eyes on the sky—and a hat on their heads. For the past year, a pair of red-shouldered hawks have nested in the trees above the Gulf Coast community. At first, the hawks excited local bird watchers. Then, the birds began interpreting the senior citizens as slow-moving threats to their nests and commenced dive-bomb attacks on unsuspecting seniors. Now a year later, one resident is petitioning Florida Gov. Rick Scott to take care of the problem. “Somebody is going to get hit and die,” resident George Nott, 72, told the Tampa Bay Times. “I don’t want to go to a funeral because of a bird.” A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official suggested the residents carry big umbrellas.

Cut the glass

Sometimes a love of artisanal crafts and environmentalism don’t mix. Portland, Ore., residents were stunned recently to learn about high levels of toxic heavy metals floating above certain parts of the eco-conscious city. More surprising: According to research conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, the most likely culprit for the pollution is a handful of artisanal glassmakers that use cadmium and arsenic to color their products.

Joke’s on him

A North Dakota man who had second thoughts while allegedly robbing a gas station is hoping his jury will be in an understanding mood. Bismarck, N.D., police say the 36-year-old suspect demanded money from a gas station clerk on April 3 while pantomiming that he had a weapon in his sweat pants. The brave clerk told the would-be thief that he’d have to call the police after the robbery, to which the suspect responded that he was only kidding. After using the bathroom, the 36-year-old left the store. But police, notified by the clerk, quickly apprehended him.

Mass confusion

Thankfully for Walmart, the store also carries atlases. Customers of a Severn, Md., Walmart noticed an unusual T-shirt for sale at the retailer. The shirt, first noticed on March 30, bore the logo of the University of Maryland with the word Terps inside the state’s printed boundary. Problem: The state represented on the shirt was Massachusetts, not Maryland. Initially, a social media manager for Walmart took to Twitter to defend the shirts and explain that the states bear a resemblance. Days later on April 4, a different social media manager for Walmart apologized for the mistake.