Quick Takes: Daisy dodgers club

A blossoming civil disobedience scheme is dividing residents in Staten Island. A shadowy group calling itself the Staten Island Beautification Squad has affixed bouquets of fake flowers to the front of speed cameras in the New York borough to try to prevent island residents from picking up more speeding tickets. In an interview with the New York Post published Jan. 21, city officials said they have found 14 obstructed traffic cameras, each bearing a calling card from the anonymous group. Local talk radio host and City Council candidate Frank Morano told the Staten Island Advance he sympathizes with the anti-­camera vandals. “I’d be lying if I said I don’t understand the frustration that’s driving this so-called beautification movement,” he said. “At some point we have to ask, ‘Are these cameras really about safety, or are they just another way to milk every last dime from hard-working New Yorkers?’” Other New Yorkers decried the lawlessness, however. A city Department of Transportation spokesperson pleaded with citizens not to tamper with the speed cameras and said police will investigate and hold the perpetrators accountable for “jeopardizing public safety.”

Roach you be mine?

Valentine’s Day at a Kentucky preserve didn’t come with much love in the air this year. In an effort to raise money for a new turtle enclosure, the Louisville Nature Center offered locals a chance to make petty gestures toward their exes. As part of the anti-­romantic event, the center allowed patrons to pay $10 to name a cockroach. Employees said they would then begin feeding the named roaches to Francis the turtle around Feb. 14. Officials hoped proceeds from the event would cover the cost of a better enclosure for the turtle, who was rescued from a hoarder.

Duty before dinner

Three Australian teens accounted for the distracted liquor store cashier when they tried shoplifting bottles Feb. 1, but they hadn’t planned on Brad. As he watched the teens stuff liquor bottles in their backpacks, the man, identified only by his first name, gave up his place in line for kebabs at a nearby restaurant so he could bar the teens’ exit. Brad told the teens he wouldn’t let them out of the shop until they showed a receipt or could prove their backpacks were empty. “They tried to argue,” he told 9News. “They came out and tried to push me. I grabbed them, and threw them aside.” The would-be thieves fled empty-­handed before police arrived.

Record to remember

On Jan. 25, an Alabama woman became the first American to live more than two months with a modified animal organ. In November, Towana Looney underwent experimental transplant surgery to receive a gene-edited pig kidney. To make the pig kidney work, doctors had to genetically modify the organ to make it more compatible with the human body. For now, the cutting-edge transplant seems to be working. Looney, who donated one kidney to her mother in 1999 before her other kidney suffered damage due to a pregnancy complication, said she’s now regularly outpacing her family on walks through New York City as she recovers near her doctors: “I’m superwoman.”

Donations take a dive

A massive fish donation to a New York food bank came with one crucial catch—the fish were still alive. Owners of the LocalCoho in Auburn, N.Y., contacted the Food Bank of Central New York to donate approximately 40,000 pounds of coho salmon before the company’s planned closure at the end of January. Officials in charge of the food bank had to quickly rally a group of volunteers to help retrieve roughly 13,000 farm-raised salmon from the tanks and cold pack the fish for shipment to a processor. More than 40 volunteers teamed with local businesses to get the job done before the salmon farm closed its doors for good. They harvested enough salmon for more than 26,000 servings, which will go to local food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters.

Icing on the cake

The first year with a newborn is an adjustment for new parents, but the long nights and sleepy days will be sweet for one Alabama couple. Expectant parents Sha’nya Bennett and Keon Mitchell faced unexpected complications from a historic winter storm as they raced to the hospital in Dothan, Ala., on Jan. 22. Icy roads hampered their progress as Bennett’s labor intensified, forcing the pair to pull over in a Krispy Kreme parking lot just a mile from the emergency room. By the time paramedics arrived, Bennett had already given birth in the car. Though the doughnut chain was closed at the time, the store manager has promised the family free doughnuts for a year and offered to host their son’s first birthday.

Not current on currency

The note on the bill says it can be used “for all debts, public and private”—but that only works if cashiers can distinguish it from Monopoly money. On Jan. 27, New York state resident Richard Scott Steger pulled some $2 bills from his wallet to pay his tab at an Aldi grocery store. According to Steger, the young cashier refused his unusual but legal tender because it looked like funny money. Steger said the cashier conferred with another employee before erroneously concluding the bills were probably counterfeit.