In the news
Jeff Flake, a U.S. senator from Arizona, posted video of an elephant herd charging his group’s vehicle in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique during a trip investigating wildlife trafficking, saying, “These elephants have no respect for a fellow Republican.”
Christina Fabian, who lives near Phoenix, said that some passengers began clapping when she and her son, Giovanni, 7, were taken off an airline flight after visiting the boy’s terminally ill father because Giovanni had an allergic reaction to dogs that were on the aircraft.
Elizabeth Ferger, 52, of Hammond, La., was arrested in East Baton Rouge on obscenity and other charges after officers found her jumping up and down naked on top of her car while screaming foul language in the parking lot of a children’s store.
Clayton Edwards, director of the Tulsa water and sewer department, said the department is trying to help about 155 households that saw their utility bills jump as much as 30-fold because a now-fired meter reader fabricated consumption figures for at least six months.
Hobby Walker has resigned as sheriff of Winston County, Ala., after being accused in a lawsuit of pressuring two deputies to provide him marijuana that Walker said was for his cancer-stricken aunt.
Mark Becktel, operations manager for the Public Works Department in Salem, Ore., stopped using goats to eat up invasive species in a park after the practice proved five times more expensive than normal and needed city crews to clean up the “heavily fertilized area” the goats left behind.
Steven Wetzel, 39, the former baseball coach at a Pennsylvania high school, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for stealing more than $90,000 from a charity for terminally ill children that he helped create.
Corey Sanders, 45, a newly elected city councilman in McKeesport, Pa., has been removed from office because of a 1993 felony drug conviction after he couldn’t get a state pardon that would have enabled him to keep the seat.
Tatum Boos, 5, of Madera Ranchos, Calif., said she gave a timeout to her pony, Juliette, who wears a fake horn for photo sessions, after she escaped from her pen, prompting a call to the California Highway Patrol to investigate reports of a tiny, white unicorn running down a road.