In the news

Scott Andrusz of upstate New York smashed the national record for heaviest pumpkin with a gourd weighing in at 2,554 pounds at the Great Pumpkin Farm in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence.

■ Jay Wolfson, a public health professor at the University of South Florida, advises that trick-ortreating safely at this stage of the pandemic just calls for common sense, meaning frequent hand-washing, vaccinations for covid-19 and the flu and staying home with any cold symptoms.

■ Rob Sand, Iowa’s auditor, and the rest of the state appeals board rejected claims for $1 million payments for 52 inmates who were given six times the proper dose of covid-19 vaccine by a nursing staff oblivious to the fact that it came as a concentrate intended to be diluted with saline.

■ Kim Gray, a curator at the San Diego Zoo, called it “a thrilling moment … and an incredible step forward in the conservation of this species” as officials announced the arrival of 41 tiny hatchlings of the Indian narrow-headed softshell turtle.

■ Kirk Oldham, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife manager, said a man survived a bear attack in his backyard in the town of New Castle when he managed to fire a gun and scare it away after it threw him to the ground, “an unfortunate reminder that we need to be vigilant and ‘bear aware’ at all times.”

■ Kevin Daley-Bey was charged with breaking into the historic home of ragtime composer Scott Joplin in St. Louis and causing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.

■ Johnny Bobbitt Jr. of Philadelphia was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to conspiring with a New Jersey couple on a bogus feel-good story of helping a motorist in distress that garnered $400,000 in online donations through a GoFundMe campaign.

■ Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor of Georgia was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of laundering millions of dollars accrued by an international network via online fraud, including scamming vulnerable people on dating websites.

■ John McVay Jr., a judge in Allegheny County, Pa., found that “the particulars of how to accomplish the agreed-upon teachable moment of histories ultimately reached an impasse,” and Pittsburgh officials are free to remove a much-vandalized Columbus statue from a park after a lengthy legal battle.