• Jason Valentine, a family physician in Mobile, Ala., posted on social media a photo of him pointing to a sign taped to his door stating that as of Oct. 1, he won't see patients who aren't vaccinated against covid-19, explaining that "covid is a miserable way to die and I can't watch them die like that."
• Katherine Given, the harbormaster in Belfast, Maine, said "everybody loves it" after someone anchored a giant, 25-foot-tall, yellow rubber duck emblazoned with the word "joy" in the harbor, adding that she sees no reason to shoo it away since it isn't posing a navigational hazard.
• Helaina Alati, a trained snake catcher from Glenorie, Australia, said that even she was "definitely shocked" when, as she browsed a grocery store's spice aisle, a 10-foot-long nonvenomous diamond python poked its head from a shelf, prompting her to catch the python and release it into the wild.
• Artur Grigoryan, 33, and James Swafford, 24, accused of swearing at flight crews and refusing to wear masks on separate flights on the same day at an airport in Nashville, Tenn., were both arrested for disorderly conduct, police said.
• Shannon Curley, an adjunct biology professor, said a wood stork that migrated to Staten Island, N.Y., from its typical tropical habitat died after it ate a 3-foot section of foam that it likely thought was an eel or a snake.
• Dominic Turner of Killeen, Texas, convicted of participating in the robbery of a Clarksdale, Miss., pawnshop where he and four others stole 25 firearms and some jewelry, was sentenced to 39 months in federal prison.
• Zara Rutherford, a Belgian-British 19-year-old, took off Wednesday from a Belgian airstrip in a bid to become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo and break the record set by American aviator Shaesta Waiz, who was 30 when she did it in 2017.
• Larry Harmon, 38, an Ohio man who told a federal judge that he will cooperate with investigators, pleaded guilty to laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency for drug traffickers and other criminals.
• David Emendorf, the former owner of an ice cream shop in Schenectady, N.Y., accused of calling police to falsely claim that nine peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were threatening to shoot him, has been ordered to pay them $500 each for violating their civil rights.