oddly enough

oddly enough

Dirty license plate leads to $1,590 fine for motorist

GRANTVILLE, Ga.

A dirty license plate has led to a $1,590 fine for a Georgia motorist.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports a Grantville police officer pulled Linda Ford over last fall while she was on her way to a church yard sale to raise money for homeless women.

The newspaper reports that soot blown from the car’s exhaust made it difficult to read her license plate. The officer also discovered she hadn’t attached a plate decal showing her registration was current.

The newspaper reports Ford was ordered to pay $720 – many times what other neighboring communities levy when a decal isn’t affixed to a car tag. It said that when she couldn’t pay, a judge later raised the fine to $1,590.

What’s in a name? European Court rules against noble title

BERLIN

A German man who added nobility titles to his name after obtaining dual citizenship in Britain will have to settle with being plain-old Nabiel Peter Bogendorff von Wolffersdorff in his native land after a ruling from the European Court of Justice.

The Luxembourg-based court said Thursday that EU member states aren’t always obliged to recognize name changes of a citizen who has dual citizenship with another in the bloc that contain “tokens of nobility” not accepted by that state.

Germany abolished titles of nobility in 1919, but the man added both “Graf” and “Freiherr” – Count and Baron – to his last name when living in Britain more than a decade ago, becoming Peter Mark Emanuel Graf von Wolffersdorff Freiherr von Bogendorff.

Upon return home, German authorities rejected the change.

Extinct otter species named after Grateful Dead guitarist

BOISE, Idaho

A U.S. National Park Service paleontologist and Grateful Dead fan has been credited with identifying an extinct species of otter found in south-central Idaho and named it after the band’s guitarist.

Self-described Deadhead Kari Prassack says traveling the country to see Bob Weir and the band gave her confidence to pursue her career. Scientists say it lived 3.8 million years ago and is the earliest known example of modern North American river otters.

Inverted Jenny stamp stolen in 1955 returned to owner

NEW YORK

A rare postage stamp stolen in 1955 has been returned to its rightful owner in New York City. But the mystery surrounding the so-called Inverted Jenny remains: Who stole it and three other such stamps at a convention in Virginia?

On Thursday at the World Stamp Show, a man from Northern Ireland who inherited one of the stolen stamps from his grandfather watched as it was handed to officials of the Bellefonte, Pa.-based American Philatelic Research Library.

Of the four stolen in 1955, three have now been recovered.

Associated Press