In the news
Jessica Wyndham of London’s Sotheby’s auction house called it “amazing” that a flea market shopper paid $15 about 30 years ago for a piece, thought to be costume jewelry and worn nearly every day, that turned out to be a 26.27-carat white diamond valued at more than $450,000.
Joel Guyton, coroner in Bartow County, Ga., said Joelle Dalgleish, a high school sophomore, died after a tree snapped and fell on her as she was in a hammock during a state park camping trip, fracturing her skull and damaging her spine.
Karl Oliver, a Republican state lawmaker from Winona, Miss., apologized for posting on social media that Louisiana leaders should be lynched for removing Confederate monuments and writing that he would “do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.”
Simukai Nyasha, a spokesman for Zimbabwe national parks, said Theunis Botha, 51, a big-game hunter from South Africa who died when an elephant collapsed on top of him, had “unknowingly” walked into a herd of elephants.
Montell Bruce, a greeter at a church in Kansas City, Mo., was treated for wounds that were not life-threatening after a bullet struck him in the head after he grappled with a gunman who entered the church through a back door and fired multiple shots, police said.
Lillian Rimmel stopped at a CVS store in Titusville, Fla., to buy a birthday card just before it closed but set off sirens and was barricaded inside by a metal security gate as she tried to leave after workers didn’t realize she was still inside when they left for the day, she said.
Paul Schnell, chief of police in Maplewood, Minn., said the owner of some used children’s clothes is facing a potential felony charge after more than 100 grams of marijuana in dozens of little plastic bags was found mixed in with items dropped off at a resale shop.
Bill Haslam, the Republican governor of Tennessee, signed into law legislation creating a new Tennessee license plate design featuring the phrase “In God We Trust,” which drivers will be given the option of using once the current stock of plates is exhausted.
Jeffrey Laney, a St. Louis 6-year-old upset after watching his mother deal with the shooting death of a cousin, called for an end to violence, saying in a video that has gone viral on social media: “I’m really scared to die and I’m really scared for my family to die.”