Brickbats: June 2023


Lower than two weeks after a driver rammed into his Austin, Texas, dwelling, Chris Newby bought a letter from town telling him his home was now in violation of metropolis code and that he had 30 days to get it repaired or face $2,000 a day in fines. Officers stated it’s metropolis coverage to ship such letters after a home is broken so as to guarantee home-owner security.

The Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Fee stated it is going to now not allow “simulated warfare or violence between opposing forces” on websites it controls. Historic reenactors say the brand new guidelines successfully ban reenactments of battles at state-owned historic websites. The fee voted in March to permit a 2023 occasion however plans to check the difficulty additional earlier than committing to reenactments sooner or later.

Two Clearwater, Florida, paramedics have been suspended after announcing a person lifeless when he wasn’t truly lifeless. Phebe Maxwell referred to as for assist when her father went into cardiac arrest. When the paramedics arrived, they took his pulse and pronounced him lifeless at the same time as Maxwell identified he was nonetheless respiratory. The paramedics insisted that it was simply gases escaping the physique and left.

The College of Groningen, a public college within the Netherlands, canceled a manufacturing of Ready for Godot after college officers came upon solely males had been auditioned for the solid. All the characters within the play are males, and writer Samuel Beckett stated the play must be carried out solely by males, a rule nonetheless enforced by Beckett’s property. However a college spokesperson stated that “occasions have modified. And that the concept that solely males are appropriate for this position is outdated and even discriminatory.”

A choose has ordered the Tennessee Wildlife Assets Company to return 13 birds it seized from falconer Holly Lamar. The company seized the birds and confiscated a few of her gear, days after she filed a criticism towards one in all its brokers for failing to totally reply to her requests for info for months. Three months later the company charged her with 30 misdemeanors, principally for failing to report the acquisition or sale of a hen or to report in a well timed method. After the choose’s ruling, the district lawyer dropped all fees towards Lamar.

New York State Trooper Edward Longo has been charged with writing 24 pretend site visitors tickets, together with one to a person who died earlier within the day the ticket was written. Longo wrote tickets for dashing, seat belt violations, and failure to sign a lane change, amongst different infractions. Paperwork filed by prosecutors say Longo’s site visitors enforcement numbers “fell persistently under” common, and he was making an attempt to keep away from a poor efficiency assessment.

Spanish Secretary of State for Transport Isabel Pardo de Vera and Isaías Táboas, head of the state-owned railroad firm Renfe, have resigned after Renfe ordered trains that will not match into the tunnels the trains are to serve. The contractor chosen to construct the trains noticed the error earlier than it started development, however the mistake will delay the supply of the trains by two years.

The New York Metropolis Division of Transportation botched an indication for the Jackie Robinson Parkway in Queens. The signal spells the baseball participant’s identify “Jakie Robinson.” Metropolis Councilman Robert Holden referred to as the error “absurd.”