In the news
Melinda Bulgin, 28, of Providence, R.I., was the last of 27 defendants to be convicted of conspiracy for her role in a Jamaican lottery scam that bilked 90 mostly elderly Americans in five states out of millions of dollars, federal prosecutors in Bismarck, N.D., said.
Joan Singer, an engineer whose 32-year career with NASA began with an internship, was named the first woman to serve as permanent director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., which has 6,000 employees and a $2.8 billion budget.
Julia Mooney, a middle school art teacher in Moorestown, N.J., has pledged to wear the same outfit for 100 days to teach students about sustainability and demonstrate that wearing a different outfit each day is “very wasteful.”
Ken Deacon, who operates a hotel on the Scottish island of Gigha, where most of its 160 residents leave their homes unlocked, reported the island’s first serious crime in about 20 years, telling police that someone broke into a storeroom and stole about $2,600.
William Dukes Jr.,a former police sergeant in Providence, Ky., was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison after being convicted of using a stun gun and pepper spray and throwing punches as he wrongfully arrested a man who had filed a complaint about him, prosecutors said.
Anthony Scolieri, 39, robbed a Pittsburgh pharmacy at gunpoint and fled only to be quickly apprehended when he jumped into his car and found he couldn’t drive away because it had run out of gas, police said.
Jennifer Peach, a police spokesman, said investigators believe two gunmen targeted a 32-year-old man who was shot to death during a graveside funeral service in Landsdowne, Md., for his 18-year-old brother, who also had been shot.
Herberto Santiago, a sheriff’s deputy in Palm Beach County, Fla., is facing disciplinary action after his AR-15 rifle was stolen from his unlocked car by a 17-year-old, who was arrested after he posted video on social media of himself dancing while holding the rifle in the air.
Drew Vanderspool, student council president at Chelsea, Mich., High School, said a decision to stop crowning homecoming queens and instead honor a top student regardless of gender with an “excellence award” was meant to end having one of the school’s top awards tied to “pretty” or “popular” stereotypes.