In the news
Susan Collins, 64, the Republican U.S. senator from Maine, said she expects to decide during the Senate’s weeklong Columbus Day recess whether to stay in the Senate or again run for governor in Maine.
Paul Nelson, city information technology director for Clovis, N.M., arrested after taking a loaded handgun to Love Field Airport in Dallas, telling security he forgot it was in his backpack, no longer faces criminal charges after a grand jury declined to indict him.
Francesco Bove, 64, a handyman from Brooklyn in New York City, was accused of fleeing to Italy with comic books and related artwork valued at $239,000 taken from an unoccupied home in Sparta, N.J., whose owner had hired Bove to do some repair work, police said.
Sulak Sivaraksa, 85, was charged under a Thailand law regarding insults to the monarchy for questioning in a public forum whether a duel on elephant back, fought more than 400 years ago by a Thai king against a Burmese adversary, actually took place.
Zahid Hussain, 29, convicted of trying to build a shrapnel-packed bomb from a pressure cooker and Christmas tree lights, was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison by a British judge who said the main driver of the crime was Hussain’s “voluntary bedroom radicalization” through online sites.
Tamara Hibbard, mayor of Marble City, Okla., said a floor restoration project at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City should use marble from a quarry in the town rather than imported marble from China, even though state officials say the foreign product is better and far less expensive.
Christopher Atkins, 25, of Altamonte Springs, Fla., arrested on a burglary charge regarding a break-in at a closed department store, told police he was reading the Japanese graphic novel Naruto to learn how to be a ninja so he could enter secure areas.
Mickey Hegedus, a beekeeper called by a homeowner in Hillside, N.J., said it was “really noisy” from honeybees “humming and huddled up together,” as he removed about 30,000 aggressive Africanized bees from inside a wall.
Earl Melchert, 65, a Minnesota farmer presented with a $7,000 reward check for helping rescue a 15-yearold girl who had been kidnapped and held captive for nearly a month, immediately turned and handed the check to the girl, along with a big hug.