Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, said in a statement that anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela’s health had deteriorated, adding that Pretoria doctors were working to bring the 94-year-old out of critical condition.

Mark Laita, a Los Angeles photographer, spent a year visiting zoos, breeders, collectors and venom labs with a large-format camera to capture close-up photographs of snakes, 12 of which are featured in a new exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

Lelisa Desisa, the Ethiopian runner who won the 2013 Boston Marathon, returned his medal to Mayor Thomas Menino before a 10K race, saying he wanted to honor the city and those killed and injured in the bombings at that race.

Dave Burgstrum, a member of the International Order of Odd Fellows in Council Bluffs, Iowa, put an oak coffin up for sale online to raise funds for the group but neglected to mention the full skeleton inside, prompting police to interrupt the deal and seize the bones.

Prince William

of Britain served as the best man at the marriage of his close friend Thomas van Staubenzee to Melissa Percy, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, in a ceremony also attended by Prince Harry and held at Alnwick Castle, the backdrop for scenes in several Harry Potter movies.

Gloria Schoeller, a 57-year-old woman from Springfield, Mo., has been sentenced to four years of probation for defrauding victims of the 2011 Joplin tornado after taking about $38,000 of insurance money without performing promised repairs, according to The Lebanon Daily Record.

Judith Salerno, the new chief executive of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, told the Dallas Morning News that she and the breast-cancer charity are moving past a fight over funding Planned Parenthood that divided supporters last year.

Yona Metzger, one of Israel’s two chief rabbis, has suspended himself over a probe into a purported money-laundering scheme that saw his home and office raided after a months-long undercover investigation.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the 93-year-old inventor of the assault rifle that bears his name, was to be transported by a medically equipped aircraft from his home in Izhevsk, Russia, to Moscow for treatment, according to the country’s Emergencies Ministry.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/24/2013