Quick Takes

Testing the law

A German teenager has used the nation’s freedom of information law to try to get early access to the nation’s equivalent of the SAT test. Simon Schrader of Munster filed the official request on March 21 for a copy of the nation’s Abitur exam given to all secondary education graduates. According to German press accounts, the education ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia said it would respond to the 17-year-old’s request within the one month time frame expiring April 21. The problem for Schrader: The Abitur tests are scheduled for April 16.

Leaving a mark

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone makes a $450,000 mistake. Roberto Cinti, a valet in Rome, Italy, destroyed a Ferrari 599 GTO when he mistakenly stepped on the vehicle’s accelerator instead of its brake while retrieving the car from a parking garage on March 30. The powerful car, the fastest Ferrari has ever made and worth $450,000, zoomed across the street and crashed hard into a store. Ferrari made only 599 examples of the model, and the Dutch owner of the car was in Rome for a meeting of the Ferrari Owners Club. No one was injured in the accident, although Cinti was reportedly treated for shock.

Absentee vote-getter

Frank Roland Jr. coasted to reelection on April 7 for another term as Mayor of Hillsboro, Mo. The only problem: Roland, who was 81, died on March 9. The long-time mayor’s death occurred after the ballot deadline, and despite local media coverage of the race, Roland outpaced all the write-in candidates combined. Local aldermen will decide whether interim mayor Jim Gowan will continue on in his role or whether the town will conduct another election.

Lake swamped

Two years ago, someone dumped a handful of pet goldfish into a Boulder County, Colo., lake, according to Colorado wildlife officials. Now, officials say the invasive, giant goldfish number more than 4,000 and are threatening to take over the small lake with their prodigious reproduction. Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Jennifer Churchill said the agency is considering at least two ways to clear Teller Lake #5 of the unwanted fish: electroshock the fish or, as a last resort, drain the lake. In any event, CPW officials plan to use the intruding goldfish as feed at its raptor rehabilitation center.

Left behind

Airport patrons in the United States lost nearly $675,000 in loose change while cycling through security queues in 2014. The Transportation Security Administration knows, because the agency has pocketed the loot. The loose coins left in trays or found on the floor represent a 5.8 percent increase in lost change recovered by the TSA in 2013. Since 2008, the agency has collected $3.5 million—all of which, spokesmen say, goes to funding agency operations.

Cattle call

A DeKalb, Texas, couple with a prolific heifer have hit the bovine jackpot. A cow belonging to Jimmy Barling and his wife Dora gave birth to quadruplets on March 23. “We knew she was pregnant, but we didn’t know she was going to do this,” the 76-year-old Barling said. “This was a shock. This blew our minds.” The owner said he plans to DNA test the three bull calves and single heifer calf to prove their matrilineal descent. After the birth, Barling let his granddaughter name the four black calves: Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moo.

Accidental exposure

Worlds collided for a young Chinese man from Hunan province when a March 24 car accident left him in the hospital. While there, Yuan, only identified by his surname in press reports, was visited by his 17 girlfriends, none of whom knew about the other women in his life. “I was really worried when I heard that he was in hospital,” one of the women told the South China Morning Post. “But when I started seeing more and more beautiful girls show up, I couldn’t cry any more.”

Line of fire

How hard is it to cancel cable service? St. Paul, Minn., resident Jimmy Ware, 66, lost everything when his home burned to the ground April 1. Everything, except his cable bill. Ware and his daughter Jessica Schmidt tried for a week to cut through Comcast red tape. After four phone calls, Schmidt was no closer to solving the issue. Finally, Ware’s daughter issued an ultimatum to a Comcast customer service representative: “I said, ‘Here’s your choice, disconnect the service or send someone out to fix the cable, because it’s not working.’ The (Comcast) guy said, ‘That doesn’t make sense, because the house burned down.’ I said, ‘Exactly, shut the service off.’” Executives with the cable giant caught wind of the story and issued an apology, backdated the cancellation to the time of the fire, and waived the cost of the cable box.

Space to spare

Many would think Brooklyn’s most exclusive address would make an ideal home. But Stuart Leaf and his wife have decided to sell their 11,000-square-foot condo in Brooklyn Heights, complaining they often get lost and can’t find one another in the sprawling domicile. The apartment consumes the 10th, 11th, and 12th floors of the One Brooklyn Bridge Park tower overlooking the Hudson River. Sotheby’s has listed the condo for $32 million.