In the news
■ Elizabeth Gray of the National Audubon Society said the name has “come to symbolize our mission and significant achievements” as the organization announced it will keep its moniker despite pressure to end association with John James Audubon, the 19th-century naturalist and illustrator who also owned slaves.
■ Damon Thayer, majority leader of the Kentucky Senate, said “the people … want this” and “it’s time that we give them the choice for free will, God-given free will,” as a legal sports-betting bill advanced and opponents mounted a last stand.
■ Davion Dwight Irvin, accused in a string of crimes at the Dallas Zoo including stealing animals, was indicted on two felony counts as he remains jailed, with his $130,000 bail dictating that he not visit any zoo, aquarium or pet store.
■ Thomas Hudson, president of Jackson State University, Mississippi’s largest historically Black school, will resign after the faculty senate gave him a vote of no confidence and the board that governs the state’s universities put him on administrative leave.
■ Maura Healey, governor of Massachusetts, is ending the state’s covid-19 public health emergency and vaccine mandate in conjunction with federal action, saying, “Thanks to the hard work of our health care providers and communities, we’ve made important progress in the fight.”
■ Kim Gardner, the elected prosecutor in St. Louis, who’s under fire after a teenager lost her legs in a crash blamed on a man who remained free despite multiple bond violations, accused Missouri’s attorney general of seeking her ouster for political gain.
■ Ann Cabell, commonwealth’s attorney in Baskerville, Va., said the investigation continues as seven employees of a Virginia sheriff’s office were charged with second-degree murder over an in-custody death at a state hospital.
■ Kevin Pearce, a former supervisor at a federal prison in Kentucky, could spend up to 20 years in prison himself after being convicted of writing false reports to cover up corrections officers’ assaults on two inmates.
■ Mukti Juharsa, a police director in Jakarta, Indonesia, warned that foreigners shouldn’t even try it as four people were arrested on charges of trying to smuggle in drugs, including a Nigerian man who’d swallowed dozens of capsules filled with 2.2 pounds of methamphetamine.