In the news

■ Richard Nicholls, an inspector with the Thames Valley Police in England, said thieves who stole a solidgold toilet worth about $1.25 million that was part of an art exhibit at Blenheim Palace also caused damage and flooding, because the fixture was connected to the palace’s plumbing system.

■ Kimberly Guilliams said she saw two men, who were taking pictures, lean directly over Yellowstone National Park’s Old Faithful geyser, which erupts with boiling water about once every hour, with park officials saying they are hunting the men who now face criminal charges because it is illegal to walk on the geyser.

■ Janine Wiget of Zurich, Switzerland, and Katrin von Niederhausern of Stockholm, both 30, duplicated every action and camera angle, and spent a week re-creating the sequence from a Simpson’s episode in which character Homer Simpson goes on a 54-restaurant gourmandizing tour of New Orleans.

■ Anurag Randive, who manages a convenience store in Greenwood, Miss., and had received customer complaints, posted a sign on the door stating that “bad smelling” employees from the soybean oil mill across the street aren’t allowed to enter.

■ Yunior Beltres, 54, a preacher in Miami, was charged with two counts of sexual battery on a minor after two girls, ages 9 and 10, told authorities that he forced each to watch as the other was sexually assaulted at his home.

■ Robert Cicale, 50, a New York judge placed on suspension after police arrested him outside his neighbor’s home with several pairs of stolen, unwashed women’s underwear stuffed in his jacket, has pleaded guilty to attempted burglary. ■ Frank Travis, a city councilman in Athens, Ala., called 911 after he and his wife, both now hospitalized, were hit by a car that investigators say was driven by his son, 33-year-old Sean Travis, who now faces two counts of first-degree domestic violence assault.

■ Keith Bernard McJunkin, 59, and Levi Zachary Wilson, 31, were banned from hunting anywhere or entering any national forests for two years after a judge found them guilty of poaching bears in the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee.

■ Robert Benac III, a fisherman from Florida, was sentenced to five weekends in jail and will lose his fishing license for three years after pleading guilty to dragging a live shark by the tail at high speeds behind a boat, shredding the animal.