In the news

Dan Cox, spokesman for the Oregon State Fair, said that, for the first time, newly legal marijuana plants will be judged at the yearly event, with nine plants on display in a greenhouse accessible only to people 21 or older and monitored by security guards.

Nabila Altahan, 30, of Dorchester, Mass., reacted a little too quickly when her GPS directed her to turn around after she missed her destination in Mendon, Vt., and swerved her car onto a utility-pole guy wire that left her vehicle almost vertical.

Earl Cook, chief of police in Alexandria, Va., and one of his officers received apologies and assurances from the manager of the Noodles & Company restaurant that a cook, who refused to prepare dinner for the officer, and a cashier who laughed about it have been fired.

Julie Ziegenhorn, with the U.S. Strategic Command, said social media photos and video of a fireball streaking across the sky over Nevada, Utah and California late Wednesday was a Chinese CZ-7 rocket body re-entering the atmosphere.

Dana Francis and Tommy Coppola with the Massachusetts Army National Guard were training at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey when they happened upon a car in the woods and found an 87-year-old woman in the back seat who said she had been stuck there two days with no food and only rainwater to drink.

Jacobia Grimes, 34, of Orleans Parish, La., who as a four-time offender had faced 20 years to life in prison for stealing $31 worth of candy bars, will instead serve two years as part of a plea deal, prosecutors said.

Robbie Montgomery, owner of three Sweetie Pie’s restaurants in the St. Louis area, including one featured in a reality television show, filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit against her son, Tim Norman, who is using the Sweetie Pie’s name for three of his own restaurants.

Gregory Wilkerson, 44, and Brandi Harmon, 25, of Danville, Ky., have been charged with child abuse after sheriff’s deputies said the two were living with three children, all under age 12, in a shed that had no electricity, no running water and a bucket for a toilet.

Byron Fairley, 23, of Gulfport, Miss., whose Facebook rap video shows him criticizing police as he stands in front of police headquarters, has been arrested in the BB-gun robbery of a bank branch, authorities said.