In the news
Julie Leu, the mayor of Douglas Shire in Queensland, Australia, described a group of men as “absolute idiots” after photographs appeared on social media of them smiling, splashing and swimming inside a baited trap set not far from where a crocodile killed and ate a 79-year-old woman.
Kaylee Bays, a judicial assistant in Provo, Utah, tired of waiting for the birth of her third child, got Judge Lynn Davis to issue a formal eviction notice addressed to “Gretsel at Mommy Belly Lane, in Womb, Utah,” giving the child three days to vacate the premises, and Bays gave birth less than 12 hours later.
Taylor Lane, 24, of Santa Cruz, Calif., won a recycled surfboard contest with an entry covered with 10,000 cigarette butts after he and friend Ben Judkins spent the summer plucking butts from the sand, beach parking lots and local paths.
Ali Houshmand, president of Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., sells his hot sauces, which include Ali’s Nasty, Nasty-licious and Nasty-vicious, online and on campus with all proceeds going toward a scholarship fund for Rowan students.
John Besh, a celebrity chef in New Orleans, has stepped down from managing the restaurant group that bears his name and apologized to employees in the aftermath of news reports that 25 current or former workers said they were victims of sexual harassment.
Ksenia Sobchak, a 35-year-old Russian celebrity TV host vying to replace Vladimir Putin as Russia’s next president, opened her first news conference by demanding the release of all political prisoners.
Tam Henry Holmes, 57, faces up to 80 years in prison after pleading guilty to four Kansas City, Mo., area bank robberies in which he handed threatening notes to tellers and netted around $25,000 over five months, prosecutors said.
Allen Thacker, 62, of Smithfield, Va., was sentenced to a month of house arrest, fined $500 and ordered to pay $1,500 in restitution and complete 100 hours of community service at an area wildlife refuge for shooting a bald eagle and then running over it several times with an all-terrain vehicle.
Prue Harvey, 32, a tourist from Australia arrested on a battery charge, told police in Key West, Fla., that she was drunk and doesn’t remember shoving a 68-year-old woman off her bike and to the ground as she rode past during the town’s annual Zombie Bike Ride.