In the news
Tami Varma and her brother Robin, both of Ottawa, Ontario, bested 88,000 other people in a competition hosted by Airbnb to win the chance to dine at the 14th-century Transylvanian castle that inspired the Dracula legend and spend Halloween night curled up in red-velvet coffins.
Charlie Beck, 63, Los Angeles’ police chief and an avid motocross rider, broke his pelvis after falling on a rocky trail on an off-road motorcycle, calling his spill a “terrible accident” that happened while doing something he loves.
Tomasz Kroker, 30, a British truck driver, got a 10-year prison sentence from a judge in Reading, England, after pleading guilty to smashing into a car, killing four people, while scrolling through music on his mobile phone.
James Pinell, 47, who took credit for a similar incident in 2012, faces a criminal mischief charge, police said, after he was caught on security video dumping a truckload of manure outside the Warren County Democratic Party headquarters in Lebanon, Ohio.
Jesse Salame, a police sergeant in San Antonio, said authorities are looking for the person who showed up uninvited to a Halloween party dressed as fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger and then shot and wounded five people after getting into an argument.
Driton Selmani, a sports car enthusiast from Gjilan, Kosovo, used a secondhand Mitsubishi Eclipse, a 3.0-liter engine and other car parts as the base to construct a realistic-looking replica of a Lamborghini Reventon with a black and red stripe symbolizing the colors of the Albanian national flag.
Michael West of Glynn County, Ga., who cussed at a driver after boarding a school bus and yelled at two students who had threatened his child, no longer faces charges under a state law barring people from verbally abusing school employees, after the state’s high court ruled the law violated free-speech rights.
Alvaro Hidalgo, 42, of Houston was charged with three counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, police said, after he flashed a badge and a gun, pretending to be a police officer, to stop and rob at least three people.
Brandon Hutchins, 16, said he was scared and couldn’t breathe when he dashed back into a burning house in Epping, N.H., to save his 3-year-old sister, Melodi, after their mother came up one short in a head count right after the family fled their smoke-filled home.