Quick Takes

Flunked out

An Indian woman about to exchange vows with her potential husband called off the wedding when he was unable to solve a basic arithmetic question. At the March 11 ceremony in India’s north, the bride asked the groom to solve 15 plus 6. When the groom answered, “17,” the bride fled the scene. The bride’s father, Mohar Singh, blamed the groom and his family for the kerfuffle. “The groom’s family kept us in the dark about his poor education,” Singh said. “Even a first grader can answer this.”

Wandering Cub

Chicago Cubs pitcher Edwin Jackson has had trouble finding the strike zone throughout his career. Now, the 31-year-old veteran is apparently having trouble finding the ballpark. Jackson missed his scheduled start for a spring training contest between the Chicago Cubs and Oakland A’s when he drove to the wrong Phoenix-area stadium. Jackson blamed Google Maps for the error, saying the phone app directed him to the A’s old spring training location.

Quiet company

Even “The Most Interesting Man in the World” couldn’t get an unidentified driver in Tacoma, Wash., out of a fine. A state trooper pulled over the motorist on March 23 and issued him a $124 fine for driving in a high occupancy vehicle lane without a passenger. Instead, the driver had seat-belted a cutout of the actor who portrays “The Most Interesting Man in the World” from Dos Equis beer commercials into the passenger seat. The trooper allowed the man to keep the cutout.

Surprise visit

Reaching under her bed to find her cat, a 61-year-old woman felt the flesh of a hiding burglar instead. The incident, which happened during the daytime hours of March 17, shocked both the Palm Springs, Fla., homeowner and the burglar. Police say accused thief Christian Vatovec had been casing the neighborhood and probably believed the homeowner was away. Officers later found the 25-year-old Lake Worth, Fla., man in possession of the homeowner’s gold ankle bracelet and digital camera. Vatovec was charged with burglary and grand theft.

Pedestrian privilege

A Canadian city gave a group of salamanders the right of way when officials closed a busy street in order to ensure a safe crossing. Kitchener, Ontario, authorities said they were merely complying with Ontario’s Endangered Species Act by closing down Stauffer Drive. The salamanders migrate yearly across the road and into a nearby pond fed by snowmelt. After closing the street in March, the city said it didn’t expect Stauffer Drive to reopen until May 1. “Being salamanders, they’re pretty slow,” University of Waterloo ecologist Stephan Murphy explained to the CBC. “They actually have a hard time crossing large things like roads.”

Double threat

One of the lead authors of a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Computational Mathematics may sound familiar to Baltimore sports fans. That’s because John Urschel is both a talented offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens and a publishing mathematician. Urschel graduated early from Penn State University with a 4.0 GPA and used his remaining football scholarship to complete a master’s degree in math. In the paper, Urschel and his co-author used a new method to compute the Fiedler vector of a graph Laplacian.

Stride wrong

Old habits are hard to break. On March 9, Christopher Miller, 41, confessed to police that he had robbed a Toms River, N.J., Stride Rite shoe store in March last year. The crime had apparently occurred only hours after Miller had been released from jail after serving 15 years for a 1999 stickup. The scene of that years-old crime: the Toms River Stride Rite. After pleading guilty, Miller will have to wait 10 to 20 years for his third shot at the shoe store.

State of the law

Kimberly Kitchen of James Creek, Pa., reportedly managed to become a practicing lawyer without years of study or mountains of debt. How did she do it? She, allegedly, pretended. Authorities on March 26 charged Kitchen, 45, with forgery and unauthorized practice of law. They say she forged a law license, bar exam results, and law school credentials to become an attorney handling estate planning for more than 30 clients at BMZ Law in Huntingdon. She worked for the firm for a decade and was made a partner.

Veggie theft

An Irish thief made away with a lot of green on March 20. According to local police, someone stole a truck containing 50,000 just-sprouted lettuce plants from a lot in the northern Irish town of Rush. According to the truck’s owner Brian McNamara, unless the plants got water or sunlight quickly after the theft, they are likely to have all died. Days later police still had no leads.