In the news

■ Erin Curry, a scientist at the Cincinnati Zoo’s conservation and research center, which is working to create a polar bear pregnancy test by studying the animals’ fecal matter, said researchers sometimes receive sparkly or colorful feces from zoos in the U.S. and Canada that try to differentiate samples from multiple female bears. ■ Judith Streng, a 77-year-old grandmother from Texas, sat on a throneshaped hunk of ice at a beach in Iceland to pose for a picture, but she was quickly swept out to sea when a large wave dislodged the icy throne, sending her adrift until a boat captain rescued her.

■ Meghann Wells, 30, a counselor at Van Horn High School in Independence, Mo., faces charges after she had sexual contact with a teen and was found with a loaded handgun in her purse that she kept at the school, investigators said.

■ Robert Rua, spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio, said a person named Brian sent back a 1968 copy of Life magazine with the Beatles on the cover, along with a $100 late fee and an apology for stealing it from the library the year it was published.

■ Ricky Jones, sheriff in Franklin County, Texas, said a 43-year-old woman was arrested on charges that she used a gun to take a 59-year-old man hostage and held him for nearly two weeks in his house before he was able to escape to a neighbor’s home.

■ Lori Ann Mankos, 44, a school bus driver from Walnutport, Pa., faces multiple charges after police said she drove her bus erratically while under the influence of alcohol with 26 children aboard, then parked at a gas station, handed the keys to an employee and walked away, abandoning the students.

■ Alita Edeker, 49, an Alabama woman who embezzled $700,000 from her employer by diverting payments from clients to accounts she controlled, then making false entries in the company’s records to conceal the theft, was sentenced to almost four years in federal prison.

■ Anary Suazo, 13, of Tulsa, Okla., who was born with only half of her heart fully developed, became the 500th young heart-transplant recipient at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University Heart Center.

■ Russell Miley-Cruz, 21, of Scranton, Pa., who is accused of sending threats through Snapchat to shoot students at Parma High School outside Cleveland, has been indicted on one count of transmission of an interstate threat.