In the news
■ Mark Dickey, rescued after 11 days from a Turkish cave, says the ingenuity and expertise that saved his life is an “amazing example of international collaboration, of what we can do together as a country, as a world.”
■ Shawnee Chasser, as much as she enjoys showering in the rain and listening to frogs croak, has given up and is dismantling the tree house where she has lived for 17 years, after fines from Miami-Dade County, which has declared the structure unsafe, topped $40,000.
■ Joshua Mast’s continued custody of the orphan girl pulled by troops from a military raid, and now, at age 4, sought by her Afghan family from the Marine major, would be seen as an endorsement of “international child abduction,” the Department of Justice has argued in a Virginia case.
■ Truman Fitzgerald, a Birmingham, Ala., police spokesperson, said officers were trying to clear a high school football stadium when they claim a band director ordered students to keep playing, which led to his arrest for disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest.
■ Antonio Wright, 42, of Minneapolis, was acquitted of fatally shooting three people and wounding two others in 2022 in St. Paul because “there’s insufficient evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is the person who committed these heinous crimes,” Ramsey County Judge Kelly Olmstead said.
■ Grei Mendez, 36, who ran a day care center in New York City’s Bronx borough, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, who lived at the address listed for the center, were arrested in the death of a 1-year-old boy who was exposed to opioids, on counts of murder, endangering the welfare of a minor, assault and drug possession.
■ Eric Mackey, Alabama’s school chief, said “this is the year” that at least 10,000 third graders could be held back under a 2019 law that requires the elementary students to meet reading benchmarks before moving to the fourth grade.
■ Gabriel Ligon, CEO of Barn Hills Preserve in Ethel, La., said zoo staffers “have just been completely disrespected,” as federal regulators seized an ailing giraffe from the facility.
■ Jordan Steinke, 29, a former Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train, was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation.