In the news

■ Robert Yanos Tipton, 48, of Houma, La., who worked as an office manager for a construction company where he stole more than $100,000 by using company funds to pay his personal bills and depositing his payroll checks electronically while also cashing hard copies of the checks, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

■ Nicola Bowler wrote her phone number on a helium balloon and released it into the sky over Birmingham, England, to commemorate the first anniversary of her father’s death, and, days later, received a text message from a man 1,000 miles away in Troszkowo, Poland, letting her know how far the balloon had traveled.

■ Akeem Jackson, 30, a former Brinks armored-truck driver, pleaded guilty in federal court to robbing an armored truck outside a bank in Hammond, Ind., with four other men in a crime that netted the thieves more than $600,000.

■ Stephon Lopez Parker, 48, a sheriff’s deputy in Russell County, Ala., was fired and is facing charges after surveillance video showed him pinning a prisoner against a wall and choking the man after the inmate cursed at him, according to the sheriff.

■ Letendre Ford said the Opelousas, La., elementary school, where her 4-yearold son is a kindergartner, never notified her that while his teacher was out of the room, the boy decided to walk home in the middle of the day and was returned to school by a motorist who noticed him wandering alone and picked him up.

■ Caroline Rich, 37, of Evansville, Ind., a family-service counselor at a business that owns a funeral home, was arrested after investigators said she stole $ 18,000 intended for the burial plot and headstone of a 3-year-old boy who died in a hot car.

■ Zachary Anderson, 30, was charged with theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle after authorities in Louisiana said surveillance video showed him stealing school buses and taking them on joy rides.

■ Nelsondra Watson was sentenced to five years of probation after police in Franklin, Tenn., said she tried to kill her two adult children and a child by poisoning them with a mixture of NyQuil and antidepressants.

■ Maria Bassi Lauro, 65, of Davenport, Fla., who is accused of mailing threatening letters containing white powder to three elementary schools where she previously worked as a teacher, was arrested by FBI agents at her home.