In the news
Melissa Schlag, 43, a member of the board of selectmen in Haddam, Conn., generated a social media debate when, as the board recited the Pledge of Allegiance, she knelt on one knee to protest President Donald Trump’s statements on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ray Brown, a Los Angeles police officer, said Austin Clay, 24, surrendered after being accused of using a pickax to destroy the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that honors President Donald Trump for his work on the reality show The Apprentice.
Louise Brown, the first baby born after being conceived outside the body using in vitro fertilization techniques developed by British physicians Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, celebrated her 40th birthday Wednesday.
Jason Spencer, the Georgia state lawmaker who apologized but initially refused to step down after he exposed himself and yelled racial slurs on an episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s cable television show, Who Is America?, is resigning effective Tuesday.
Austin Petersen, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, is giving away a computer-controlled machine that can mill parts to make “untraceable” rifles and pistols, saying in a letter seeking donations that the technology makes guncontrol proposals “obsolete.”
Kennedy Smith, 11, said she was first “really excited” to catch a fish at Oklahoma’s Fort Cobb Lake but then was shocked when the fish, a rare pacu, a species native to South America that has human-like teeth, bit her grandmother as she removed the hook from its mouth.
Chauntl Wilson, 31, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, ticketed for driving 92 mph in a 75-mph zone on Interstate 80 near North Platte, Neb., sped off after the traffic stop and was clocked driving 142 mph, prompting her arrest when sheriff’s deputies stopped her a second time.
Marc-Oliver Huhnholz, a spokesman for the German Brewers Association, said “it would be good” if beer drinkers would return their empty reusable bottles to stores more quickly to claim their deposits because strong summer beverage sales have created a bottle shortage.
Tammy Du Bois, 52, of Pittsgrove, N.J., said she doesn’t like to kill anything but had no choice but to reach down and strangle a rabid fox after it attacked her as she worked in her backyard garden and kept biting her leg.