Quick Takes

Off-season job

In politics, name recognition can be everything. Armed with that sentiment, a man who legally changed his name to Santa Claus was elected last month to the City Council of North Pole, a town near Fairbanks, Alaska. Claus began his red-velvet-suit campaign just two weeks prior to the Oct. 6 election. Despite the late start, the white-bearded man managed to successfully wage a write-in campaign and won a seat on the six-person council.

Plane chase

A Colorado man was sentenced to two years’ probation and 100 hours of community service Oct. 19 after reaching a plea bargain stemming from a fiasco at Denver International Airport. Marc Rehmar apparently arrived late at an airport gate on Aug. 6 and narrowly missed a flight to Ohio for his 40th high-school reunion. Undaunted, Rehmar crashed through an emergency exit onto the tarmac with carry-on luggage in tow and attempted to flag down his plane, which had already pulled away from the gate. The captain of the flight continued his taxi toward the runway, and airport baggage personnel surrounded Rehmar before police arrived and placed him under arrest.

See no evil

Workers at a Subway restaurant had a novel method of deterring a criminal attempting to rob the store: ignore him. Police in Coventry, R.I., say two teenage sandwich clerks played it cool on July 28 when a man approached their store counter and demanded money. According to store video, the would-be robber was wearing a T-shirt for a hat and a plastic grocery bag as a fake beard. Despite his outlandish appearance, the teens pretended the man wasn’t there. Soon thereafter, the suspect muttered under his breath and walked out of the store empty-handed. The man’s unusual disguise worked: Coventry police have made no arrests in the case.

Highly named baby

A court in France has prevented a local couple from naming their French baby after a member of the British royal family because, the judges said, it would result in a “lifetime of mockery” for the child. The family had attempted to name their child Prince William, but the court, empowered by a French civil code that gives judges the right to strike down troublesome names, decided the British moniker would do the French child no good. The family’s second name of choice, Mini Cooper, was also overruled.

Undercover elections

A ruling in 2011 by late Saudi King Abdullah granted women both the right to vote and the right to stand for elected office. But four years later, Saudi Arabia’s electoral commission has decided female politicians should be neither seen nor heard. Commission spokesman Judiea Al-Qahtani announced in October that the 366 female candidates for office registered for Dec. 12 elections must abide by Shariah law restrictions that will make campaigning difficult. According to Al-Qahtani, female candidates will be barred from addressing voters directly, will not be allowed to publish photographs, and are advised to hire men to campaign on their behalf. Female candidates caught breaking the rules could be fined more than $13,000 or sentenced to one year in jail.

24-hour loan

A fat-finger mistake by a Deutsche Bank employee meant a client received a massive surprise on his next statement. According to a Financial Times report, a junior employee of the massive German bank accidentally transferred $6 billion into one client’s personal account in June. Deutsche Bank discovered the error a day later and managed to recover the money before the client could make a withdrawal or transfer.

Soup-up artist

No one asked Max Siedentopf for an auto-body makeover. Nevertheless, the Dutch artist prowled Amsterdam neighborhoods from August to October adding cardboard body kits to parked cars—presumably to the delight of their pranked owners. Using cardboard and tape, Siedentopf added the glamour of rear spoilers, hood vents, and reimagined grills to Volkswagens, Hyundais, and Audis parked around the city. The artist named the project “Slapdash Supercars.”

Highway scooter

Police in Austria pulled over an elderly woman for driving on the nation’s high-speed autobahn highway—in her mobility scooter. The 89-year-old woman was returning from a local festival near St. Poelten, Austria, on Oct. 18 when authorities found her. She was not intoxicated, but rather said she had accidentally driven her mobility scooter the wrong way up an exit ramp. Realizing her mistake, the frail woman turned her red scooter around and proceeded the right way on the 81 mph recommended speed limit highway for two miles before police caught up to her. The unidentified woman’s scooter had a top speed of 6 mph.

Birds on the run

Police in Round Rock, Texas, might have felt foolish chasing four birds around town. But in their defense, they were big birds: Four emus—named Emmitt, Huey, Dewey, and Louie—got loose from their owner’s fenced-in backyard and sprinted through a neighborhood on Oct. 22, evading efforts to corral them all afternoon. Police posted pictures of the emu escapees on social media and warned citizens not to feed or attempt to catch the flightless birds. “These animals are considered feral fowl,” they said. The emus weren’t captured until the next day.