Quick Takes

Council corrected

The greater portion of the orange peel found its way to the trash can. The lesser portion hit the ground. And for that, a Broxbourne Borough, U.K., enforcement officer tagged Luke Gutteridge with a $116 fine for littering. Gutteridge, 29, immediately realized his mistake and swiftly swooped to pick up the errant orange peel. Unimpressed, the enforcement officer upheld the Sept. 3 fine. Gutteridge took the town council to court and in July won a ruling in his favor, citing English precedent that littering happens only when the offender knowingly intends to leave the trash. The town council has to pay Gutteridge’s $6,200 in legal fees.

King for a day

Continuing with his everyman demeanor, Pope Francis found a humble venue for changing clothes ahead of a mass in Bolivia on July 9 during the papal visit to South America. After spending more than a half-hour waving to crowds, Francis and his entourage briefly took over a nearby Burger King in Santa Cruz so he could put on his vestments before proceeding to Mass. The restaurant chain wasted no time bragging about the unorthodox papal visit, thanking Francis on its Facebook page “for choosing the BK restaurant as your sacristy.”

Pay it again

Like a set of Russian nesting dolls, Florida’s Turnpike and Sawgrass Expressway may soon receive express lanes creating toll roads within toll roads. The double-toll roads could soon appear in Broward County and in Miami-Dade County along I-95, according to Florida Turnpike officials. Under the proposal, once paying a toll to get onto the turnpike, drivers could then pay an additional fee to use express lanes to bypass traffic and exits. The proposed lanes should be completed by 2018.

Taking charge

A British transit patron found himself in trouble after plugging his iPhone into a wall outlet at a London Overground train station. On July 10, an auxiliary police officer spotted Robin Lee charging his phone on a train platform. The para-cop phoned transit police and demanded the 45-year-old be arrested on the charge of “abstracting electricity,” an offense under a 1968 British law. Transit police officers later arrested Lee on the charge, but quickly “de-arrested” him once higher-ups learned of the event.

Special anniversary

For their 50th wedding anniversary, Mike and Jan Maulsby left their home in Clear Lake, Iowa, and headed for Rochester, Minn. But the elderly couple wasn’t vacationing. The pair went to Minnesota to visit the Mayo Clinic, where Jan could donate a kidney to her ailing husband Mike as an anniversary gift on July 2. “Mom stepped up because he didn’t want to wait another year,” Grant Maulsby told the Mason City Globe Gazette. “With Dad suffering last year with dialysis, it shows the love the two have for each other.”

Back to the farm

A Polish cow on the run from its owner and the law for two years has finally been captured. A brown cow called Matylda escaped from the farm of her owner, Leszek Zasada, in Zloty Stok in 2013. For two years, Matylda has been living a free-range life: grazing freely, foraging, and evading capture. Local farmers complained the fugitive bovine was causing damage to their properties. But life on the run ended for Matylda on July 11 when farmer Zasada was finally able to wrangle his cow and return it to his farm.

Giving from poverty

In June, Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported a Good Samaritan turned in more than $1,500 in cash he found near Langford, British Columbia. Police there said the man, described only as homeless and in his 60s, could have easily pocketed the cash but was determined to get the money back to its rightful owner. When the story broke, Canadian news website operator Mike Kelly opened a GoFundMe account on June 15 to raise money for the man. By July 16, the site had raised $5,316—money the homeless man once again turned down, instead asking that the cash go to a British Columbia homeless charity.

Cat transport

Workers at a Mars Chocolate plant in Hackettstown, N.J., helped rescue a purring kitten discovered as a stowaway aboard a vehicle in the company parking lot. Company officials determined the 4-month-old cat had traveled inside the engine compartment of a car driven from East Stroudsburg, Pa.—28 miles away—on July 9. When Mars employees and Department of Public Works officials rescued the cat from the vehicle, the animal quickly got loose and scurried up into the fan blades of a nearby Nissan pickup truck. Police were later able to rescue the kitten and turn it over to Animal Control.

Fire in his belly

A German man discovered the wrong way to quench a powerful thirst after downing a bottle of Tabasco sauce during a July 7 crime spree. Berlin police spokesman Jens Berger said the unidentified 34-year-old suspect was drunk when he stole a bicycle and still inebriated when he flung the bike through a closed restaurant window in Berlin. After smashing the window, police say, the man probably confused the Tabasco bottle for a small container of liquor popular in Germany. Police arrested the flame-breathed man inside the restaurant a short time later.