NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 Kelly to stay: Embattled White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has told senior aides that President Trump asked him to stay in his role through 2020. Kelly told staffers that he had agreed to stay on, five White House officials said Tuesday. The public show of confidence in Kelly appeared aimed at tamping down speculation about staff turnover, as well as projecting calm as the president gears up for his re-election campaign. Kelly hit the one-year mark as Trump’s chief of staff Monday. Speculation about his exit has flared for months, amid reports that Trump had cooled on the retired four-star general. Kelly is credited with bringing order to the West Wing but also grates on the freewheeling president.
_2 Police force quits: The entire four-member police department of a small western Massachusetts town has resigned, citing poor equipment and unsafe working conditions. Interim Police Chief Roberta Sarnacki and three officers submitted their resignations in a letter to Blandford officials this week, effective immediately. The officers said the town’s police cruisers are in such bad shape they often have to answer calls in their personal vehicles. They said their police radios don’t work in some parts of the town and their poorly fitting bulletproof vests are beyond their expiration dates.
_3 Impersonating a general: A judge had stern words as he sentenced a man to six months in prison for impersonating an Army general while landing a chartered helicopter at a North Carolina corporate headquarters in the city of Cary. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle also imposed a year of supervised release for Christian Desgroux on a charge of impersonating a military officer. Federal agents say Desgroux landed the helicopter last November at the corporate campus of SAS Institute, saying he was on a mission authorized by the president. Authorities say the false story was meant to impress a woman who worked there.
_4 Poop shoveling: A judge known for unique sentences has ordered a man who knocked over a port-a-potty to clean manure out of animal pens at a county fairgrounds in Ohio. Judge Michael Cicconetti recently suspended most of a 120-day jail sentence for 18-year-old Bayley Toth, who pleaded guilty and was convicted of criminal mischief, in favor of the creative punishment of cleaning up waste from animals at Lake County’s fairgrounds. Authorities say the Painesville man spent a night with friends knocking over objects, including a port-a-potty, at a park.
_5 Stolen shark: Two men have confessed to snatching a small shark from a Texas aquarium’s interactive touch tank, then whisking it away, wrapping it in a blanket and concealing it in a baby stroller, police say. Miss Helen, the 16-inchlong gray horn shark, was returned to the San Antonio Aquarium on Monday night, two days after the heist was captured on surveillance video. The shark was recovered at a home filled with fish tanks and other marine life, police said. Chronicle News Services