In the news

Melanie Segard drew 5.3 million viewers, the biggest audience of the season, when the 21-year-old woman with Down syndrome presented the weekend weather on French national television after earning the chance through a Facebook petition called “Melanie can do it.”

Jordan Ennis, a Georgia state trooper, and a few of his co-workers adopted three mixed-breed puppies he took to headquarters after finding them dumped in a brier patch as he and his police dog, Tek, patrolled an abandoned subdivision in southwest Atlanta.

Pope Francis, during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, said that employers who fire workers for unclear economic reasons are committing a “very grave sin” and should ensure dignified work for all their employees.

Samuel Blackwell, 23, walked into a high school in Heflin, Ala., with two students and tried to pose as a new student, resulting in his arrest on burglary and other charges even though he and the other two suspects told police they were trying to pull off a practical joke.

Dewey Forward, owner of a popcorn shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, found his missing 70-pound, red, white and blue popcorn ball worth $700 intact on a bench in front of his store early Wednesday after an outcry ensued on social media after it was stolen sometime over the weekend.

Ralph Shortey, an Oklahoma state senator, is being punished for “disorderly behavior” in a resolution passed by the state Senate 43-0 that places strict limits on his ability to function as a legislator after police said they are investigating his being found with a teenage boy in a motel room.

Park Geun-hye, ousted from South Korea’s presidency Friday, is under fire from an animal-welfare group for leaving her nine Jindo dogs, a Korean breed of hunting dog, behind when she moved out of the presidential palace.

Pedro Viloria, 22, leapt out of the drive-thru window at a McDonald’s in Doral, Fla., when he saw a customer, an off-duty police officer, fall unconscious at the wheel, so he could stop her car from rolling into traffic, and then comforted her two children in the back seat as paramedics arrived.

Heather Ilott of Hertfordshire, England, lost her bid for a share of her mother’s will when Britain’s Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and allowed the majority of the estate, worth nearly $600,000, to go to three animal charities.