Iceland Roundup: Rats, ATM Heist, Culture Night, Marathon, Rally Accident, International Students

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin editor Aðalsteinn Kjartansson, and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to roundup the stories making headlines in recent weeks.

In this episode, we cover several stories: Two young women working at the Icelandic Rallycross Championships on Krýsuvík road on Saturday were injured when one of the competing cars flipped over and struck them. Their injuries, while serious, are not reported as critical; An ATM was stolen in the Reykjavík suburb of Mosfellsbær on Tuesday. Two suspects — a woman in her thirties and a man in his forties — are in custody. The ATM reportedly contained around 20 million ISK. It was taken with the help of an excavator, though both the machine itself and the cash remain missing; Last weekend saw Reykjavík host both Culture Night and the annual Reykjavík Marathon, which drew a record number of over 16,000 participants; In a more unusual story, a couple living in Laugardalur, Reykjavík, woke up on Tuesday morning to find a rat in their bed. The woman said her partner woke her, asked her to take the children outside, and then killed the rat with a cutting board. An exterminator interviewed about the case said it is extremely rare for rats to crawl into people’s beds, noting he’d only heard of two such incidents in Iceland over the past 13 years; Finally, the Reykjavík Grapevine reported on difficulties international students are facing with residence permits through the Directorate of Immigration. The delays are partly due to a 40% increase in foreign students admitted to Icelandic universities this year. Complicating matters, about one-third of the applications were submitted after the June 1 deadline — in many cases because students weren’t admitted until late May, leaving little time to complete the paperwork.

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