Quick Takes: Rodent restrictions

New York City’s war on rats isn’t over yet, even though the rats may be winning. Where poison, traps, and better trash pickup have failed, city officials want to give birth control a try. The City Council passed a ­measure Sept. 26 permitting officials to drug rats with contraceptives in certain parts of the city. The goal: interrupt the rodents’ reproductive cycle. One healthy breeding pair of rats can produce as many as 15,000 descendants in a single year, according to The New York Times. The initiative is just one of many anti-rodent strategies undertaken recently. The city appointed a rat czar in 2023 and held a National Urban Rat Summit earlier in September. It’s also not the first time the city has dabbled in rat contraceptives. In 1967, officials attempted to drug rats with estrogen, and in 2013 the Metropolitan Transportation Administration attempted a rat sterilization pilot program. Local lawmakers returned to the birth control idea after the February death of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that captured the interest of New Yorkers following his escape from the Central Park Zoo. A necropsy earlier this year revealed the bird had four kinds of rat poison in his system, spurring lawmakers to dub the newest anti-rat measure Flaco’s Law.

Aging out of the system

Most septuagenarians know plenty more about driving than the average 16-year-old. But if some have forgotten their traffic signs and road rules, now it won’t matter as much. In an effort to streamline services at driver’s license offices, officials from the California Department of Motor Vehicles say motorists 70 and older won’t have to take the written test any longer when renewing their licenses. However, the Sept. 30 announcement excludes older drivers with bad driving records. Additionally, senior drivers will still need to update their driver’s license photos and pass a vision test. And of course they will also need to pay the renewal fee.

Un-speedy delivery

Tizi Hodson didn’t get the job as a motorcycle stunt rider, but she moved along with her life anyway. The Gedney Hill, U.K., woman received the formal rejection letter in the mail recently—nearly 50 years after she applied. The letter came with an apology from a post office employee explaining that the 1976 letter had been lost behind a drawer. “I always wondered why I never heard back about the job,” Hodson told the BBC. “Now I know why.” Hodson, 70, is too old to pursue stunt riding anymore, but she nevertheless got her fill of adventure working as a snake handler and aerobatic pilot.

That’s a bunch of baloney!

Border officials hauled nearly 300 boxes of prescription medication and $7,600 in cash from a car stopped at the Mexican border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Sept. 25. But that was nothing compared with the bologna found in the back of the GMC Yukon. Officers, who had grown suspicious of several suitcases that felt too heavy, also found 40 rolls of Mexican bologna weighing a total of 748 pounds. According to a 2022 Texas Monthly report, contraband Mexican bologna rolls that sell for $10 to $15 in Mexico can be resold in the United States for $80 to $120. Border officials say they seized the medication and the cash but destroyed the lunch meat.

Celebrity trotter

Partway through a half-marathon race in Newfoundland, Canada, on Sept. 29, a new challenger emerged. As the runners of the inaugural T’Railway Trek Half Marathon passed a local pumpkin patch in the town of Conception Bay South, Joshua the goat decided to break free from his tether and go on the lam. Unfazed by the stampede of runners, the 10-year-old goat trotted approximately 3 miles with the athletic herd before his owners corralled him. The owners then walked to the finish line where the animal received a race medal and posed for photographs with competitors. Mayor Darrin Bent said he’d welcome Joshua back next year—if only to greet runners at the finish line.

Trash or treasure?

Discerning the difference between modern art and rubbish doesn’t always come easy. Maybe that’s why, when an elevator mechanic doing maintenance at the LAM art museum in Lisse, Netherlands, encountered two spent beer cans on top of the clear ceiling of the elevator car, he assumed they were litter and threw them out. But rather than garbage, the cans were actually a 1988 piece constructed by French artist Alexandre Lavet, who hand-painted the beer cans and called his work All the Good Times We Spent Together. According to an Oct. 1 museum statement, workers were able to fish the art out of the trash, clean the cans up, and then put them back on display atop the elevator.

Brothers busted

A British protester on the run after allegedly throwing bricks at police officers in July made a bold choice showing his face at the trial of his younger brother. Police in Southport, U.K., now say both Jake and Cory Joseph were guilty of mob violence, but initially police could only identify younger brother Cory from closed-circuit television footage. During Cory’s sentencing on Sept. 27, older brother Jake showed up and sat in the public gallery, where an eagle-eyed detective recognized Jake as one of the other rioters.