Quick Takes: Rampant rodents

WHILE OFFICERS of the New Orleans Police Depart­ment are out fighting crime, other staffers are back at headquarters fighting grime. According to high-­ranking officials, the department’s office building is a deteriorating mess. While requesting additional funding at a hearing in March, police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick testified that the building is crawling with cockroaches and rats. She said her officers have complained about finding rat droppings on their desks. According to WWL-TV, the headquarters’ elevators don’t work and the air conditioner is on the fritz. Then there’s the police evidence room. Kirkpatrick told the city’s Criminal Justice Committee that rats have invaded the evidence room and are taking certain liberties: “The rats are eating our marijuana. They’re all high.”

Landing site rights

Finders keepers? Not when it comes to Swedish space rocks. On March 21, a Swedish man won the right to reclaim a meteorite that scientists took from his land. The iron meteorite fell on Johan Benzelstierna von Engeström’s property north of Stockholm in 2020, but a pair of geologists discovered it. Swedish law allows people to roam through private property, which is how the scientists located the metallic meteorite. But a Swedish appeals court ruled the two geologists had no right to take the 31-pound object because it constituted “immovable property” belonging to the landowner.

Playing a sour tune

There will be no more dancing in Cambodia’s streets after the nation announced a ban on musical vehicle horns March 18. According to Prime Minister Hun Manet, the nonstandard horns, which blare rhythmic tunes, pose a risk to safety and roadway efficiency because they could cause traffic jams and make people less aware of their surroundings. He announced the action after videos appeared on social media of young pedestrians dancing in roadways as tune-playing trucks drove by.

Off with their brick heads

It’s back to the drawing board for the Murrieta Police Department, which came up with a clever way to comply with a new California law only to be ordered to cease and desist. Earlier this year, the department began posting on social media images of criminal suspects with their faces digitally replaced with Lego heads. That allowed police to shield identities of the accused in compliance with the law. But in March, the Lego Group sent a letter asking police to stop using its products to represent suspects.

Feline fiasco

For Bruce Robinson, it all started when he took in his neighbor’s pregnant cat in 2019. The rural British Columbia man lived alone, so he decided to keep the kittens for company. But then more and more people left cats on his property. Unable to spay or neuter them all, he watched his feline population flourish. Last month, Robinson threw in the towel: “I ended up in a crazy situation,” he told the CBC. “I made a bad decision … I thought I could handle the cats.” By the time he phoned the local SPCA for help, he was spending thousands of dollars a month on food and litter. SPCA officials say the nearly 300 cats will be put up for adoption.

Votes for Anybody Else

A Texas man has his gimmick ready to go for the 2024 presidential election: The 35-year-old teacher from North Richland Hills legally changed his first, middle, and last name to “Literally Anybody Else” in hopes of appearing on Texas’ general election ballot for president. In March, news reporters spotted him soliciting signatures before a Dallas Stars hockey game. That’s because according to state law, he’ll need to amass signatures of at least 113,151 non-primary voters prior to May 13. The Federal Election Commission struck another blow against the campaign in March, warning Mr. Else he hadn’t filled out his federal election paperwork correctly.

Dad against homework

An Ohio father complained his way into an arrest warrant after he repeatedly harassed local school officials for giving his son too much homework. Police in Oxford, Ohio, say 37-year-old Adam Sizemore began making abusive and profanity-laced phone calls to the staff at Kramer Elementary School on Feb. 29. The phone calls didn’t stop even after school officials told him not to call back. When school officials began hanging up on Sizemore, the irate father called and harangued police. Authorities later arrested Sizemore for three misdemeanor counts of harassment and menacing, and a judge scheduled the man’s arraignment for March 28.