In the news
■ Jon Newland, a police officer in Homewood, Ala., was suspended and demoted after he posted a video of himself rapping with lyrics that included “my ways are a blaze of mysterious smoke, around your neck I flex this choke,” and the agency said Newland was not representing the Police Department “in any official capacity.”
■ Vincent Scavetta, 28, a software developer in Florida, is facing felony assault charges after admitting to Palm Beach County sheriff’s investigators that he pointed a gun at a shopper in a Walmart who told him to put on a mask, according to an arrest report.
■ Leslie Van Houten, 70, a Charles Manson follower serving life in a women’s prison in Chino, Calif., for her role in the 1969 killings of Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, has been recommended for parole.
■ Algene Vossen, 79, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who was questioned in 1974 about the stabbing death of a 74-yearold Minnesota woman, has been charged with murder after officials said DNA collected from Vossen matched blood found on the woman’s sweater.
■ Robert Rueca, an officer with the San Francisco Police Department, said a bus driver is recovering after he was assaulted with a bat when he asked three passengers to leave the bus because they refused to wear masks in keeping with the city’s covid-19 health orders.
■ Audrey Owns, of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said rare Chiricahua leopard frogs have been photographed in a pond in Camp Verde, Ariz., outside their natural habitat range and could have moved into lower elevations seeking protection from fungal disease.
■ Carlos Chaverst, 27, an Alabama activist and the president of the Birmingham Justice League, surrendered on outstanding warrants in three cities, and said police are targeting him with frivolous charges that include inciting a riot and traffic violations.
■ Robert Heart, 48, a commercial fisherman from Florida, found clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico, was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter after his boat capsized, the day after a helicopter evacuated a boy and father from the same vessel.
■ Tanya Peterson, the head of the San Francisco Zoological Society, said the organization is “heartbroken” over the death of Floyd, the oldest and tallest giraffe at the San Francisco Zoo, “but know that he has touched so many during his life.”