In the news
Richard Tarsa, police chief of Adams, Mass., said investigators think a woodchuck carried off more than a dozen small U.S. flags from a cemetery to line its burrow, after residents reported that flags — including replacements — were being taken from veterans’ graves.
Arthur Dean and Deann Eller, two firefighters in Akron, Ohio, were suspended from their jobs as the city investigates reports that they made pornographic videos at a firehouse, Fire Chief Clarence Tucker said.
Eric Abramovitz, a clarinetist who now plays with the Nashville, Tenn., symphony, was awarded more than $200,000 by a Canadian judge in a suit filed against an ex-girlfriend who sabotaged his opportunity for a prestigious scholarship because she didn’t want him to leave Montreal.
Brad Gentry, 39, of Greenwood, Miss., who mowed only half of his neighbor’s lawn, was arrested on assault charges on accusations that he beat the neighbor with a hammer and an ax handle because the man hired someone else to finish the job, sheriff’s deputies said.
Hal Patton of Edwardsville, Ill., a state Senate candidate, apologized for a decade-old photo from a Halloween party showing him in blackface portraying a rapper, with Patton saying the costume was a play on the word “wrapper” because his wife was wearing a pink dress to portray bubblegum.
Stephen Carpenter, 49, an Australian tour operator in Pattaya, Thailand, who used social media to promote sex cruises, was arrested on charges of procuring women for prostitution, posting pornographic material and working illegally as a tour guide, police said.
Robert Wilson, 51, of Leander, La., was indicted on 21 counts of receiving illegal gratuities for taking bribes totaling $25,000 to help a construction company secure government contracts at Fort Polk, prosecutors said.
Courtnee Austin, 39, an Alabama jail inmate who escaped through a shower ceiling at a hospital where he was being treated after swallowing a razor blade, was recaptured a day later when a police dog tracked him to a crack house, Birmingham police said.
Jose Nunez, 47, a 10-year veteran of the Bexar County, Texas, sheriff’s office, was arrested on accusations of sexually assaulting a 4-yearold girl and then threatening the child’s Guatemalan mother with deportation if she reported him, authorities said.