In the news
Queen Elizabeth II, in a new BBC documentary on her 1953 coronation and the symbolism of the crown jewels, said she can’t look down while giving a speech wearing the Imperial State Crown, which weighs nearly 3 pounds, because “your neck would break” and it would fall off.
Renee Thole, a white teacher in Mason, Ohio, was ordered to undergo sensitivity training after admitting to telling a black student he would be lynched by his classmates if he didn’t get back to work, which a district spokesman described as a “serious miss” on Thole’s part.
Joe Acaba, a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station whose parents are from Puerto Rico, told students on the hurricane-ravaged island that the first thing he noticed in looking down from space was that the island is almost impossible to see at night because of the lack of lights.
Neilson Rizzuto, 26, was sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to drunkenly plowing his pickup into a crowd of New Orleans paradegoers, injuring more than 30 people, during last year’s Mardi Gras season.
Sharon Ricci, 62, charged with striking and killing a man with her car in Charlton, Mass., avoided jail time and got probation after the victim’s widow asked a judge to drop a vehicularhomicide charge to avoid the burden on Ricci’s family if she were sent to prison.
Olga Cortez, 32, faces three assault counts after police said she followed her son to a middle school in Charlotte, N.C., and drew a knife as she argued and fought with two 13-year-olds she thought were bullying her son.
Charles Francis, a police spokesman in Charleston, S.C., said a motorcyclist survived a 75-foot fall after he was thrown from his bike when it hit an interstate overpass retaining wall, catapulting him into a fenced-off area below.
Andrew Meunier of Naples, Fla., reported that a 4-foot-tall bear attacked him beside his front door as he let his dog outside late one evening, resulting in cuts on Meunier’s face that needed 41 stitches to close, sheriff’s deputies said.
Keandra Morgan and Keshawanna Parker, both 26, were arrested on attempted-murder and robbery counts in Mississippi after the two women were accused of luring the owner of a motel in Oxford, Ala., into their room and trying to kill him before fleeing with his vehicle, phone and wallet.