In the news

■ Veselin Mareshki, 53, the head of a small populist opposition party in Bulgaria, said his lawyers will appeal after he was found guilty of extorting money from a restaurant owner and threatening to destroy the business, resulting in a sentence of four years in prison.

■ Lee Farkas, 67, a financial executive convicted in one of the largest frauds prosecuted out of the nation’s financial crisis more than a decade ago, is being released from a prison in Wildwood, Fla., on compassionate grounds after serving nine years of his 30-year sentence.

■ Jake Becchina, a police spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., said homicide detectives are investigating after officers called to a vacant home that was being renovated discovered the body of an unidentified person in a state of advanced decomposition.

■ Andreas Constantinou, a police spokesman in Famagusta, Cyprus, said authorities were looking into information gleaned from social media posts that appeared to show students throwing live chickens and rabbits from a height of at least 10 feet at their high school to mark the start of the academic year.

■ Dallin McAllister, 25, of Provo, Utah, and his brother Tyler, 36, of Gilbert, Ariz., are facing charges in Wyoming after officials at Yellowstone National Park said the two took motorcycles off-road in the park and harassed a herd of bison. Darius Salter, 21, a substitute teacher in Dale County, Ala., was charged with two counts of possession of obscene matter after the Dale County education board reported a possible inappropriate relationship between a student and a substitute teacher, authorities said.

■ Jay Rotter, a sheriff’s deputy in Tarrant County, Texas, was arrested and charged with murder and evidence tampering after an investigation by Denton officers into the death of his girlfriend, which Rotter had said was a suicide, according to police.

■ Feach Moyle, a zoologist at the Kakadu National Park in Australia, said a 52foot humpback whale that ended up in a crocodile-infested river in the park “continues to appear safe and well,” giving park officials time to figure out how to guide the animal back to sea.

■ Brenda Hall, the city clerk in Norman, Okla., said a group of residents seeking to oust Mayor Breea Clark over her push to reallocate police funding has fallen short of the number of signatures needed to force a recall election.