In the news
Barbara Bush, the former first lady, spent a lowkey 92nd birthday Thursday at the family’s compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, just a few days ahead of the birthday of her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, who turns 93 on Monday.
Emperor Akihito of Japan, 83, has the option of becoming the first Japanese monarch in 200 years to abdicate, now that the country’s parliament has passed a law giving him three years to do so, after he expressed last year his apparent wish to step down, citing old age and health.
Jonathan Hinkle, 28, called 911 asking for help getting to a Florida Hooters restaurant, saying his grandmother had suffered a stroke in its parking lot, but ended up in the Brevard County jail when deputies figured out the grandmother was fine.
Butch Arbin, head of the Ocean City, Md., beach patrol, said that lacking an opinion from the state attorney general, he has directed his officers to no longer tell women who sunbathe topless, “Hey, you can’t do that,” even if other beachgoers complain.
Mark Howell, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, said baggage operations at the Birmingham, Ala., airport were temporarily suspended so a bomb squad could remove four 40 mm grenade rounds from a checked piece of luggage.
Janusz Adamski, 49, was banned from climbing in Nepal for 10 years and faces deportation after, officials said, the Polish man scaled Mount Everest in May from the Chinese side but descended on the Nepal side without a climbing permit or a visa to enter the country.
Cyril Lunn, 69, who rented a snowmobile in Presque Isle, Maine, to cross the border into Canada on a remote trail to avoid charges that he hid up to $4 million in cash after declaring bankruptcy, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, prosecutors said.
Yuba Sharma, 43, of Rochester, Pa., angry that his food included onions, threatened to shoot the restaurant owner and then pulled down his pants and exposed himself, resulting in his arrest on terroristic-threatening and other counts, police said.
Carolyn Fennell, spokesman for the Executive Airport in Orlando, Fla., said a private plane was damaged during a 2 a.m. landing when it struck and killed an 11-foot, 500-pound alligator that had wandered onto a runway.