Jim Puckett, the mayor of Fitzgerald, Ga., said the 62-foot-tall chicken topiary the city is sculpting to attract tourists “is going to be fantastic when it’s finished,” and it will surpass the Big Chicken in Marietta, which measures 56 feet tall.
Francis Ulep, a biologist for a conservation group in California, said the group’s initiative to plant more than 30,000 milkweed plants in the hope of giving Western monarch butterflies new places to breed came at a “critical time,” citing a sharp drop in a recent count of the butterflies.
Toby Barker, the mayor of Hattiesburg, Miss., called it “redemption” after a section of highway near the University of Southern Mississippi was named in honor of civil-rights pioneer Clyde Kennard, the first Black student to apply for, and be denied, admission to the university.
Kyle Bond, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife official, said an incident in which a Steamboat Springs man was seriously injured by a bear that was in his garage with her cubs was “an unfortunate reminder that we need to stay vigilant and ‘bear aware’ at all times.”
Eddie Garcia, the police chief of Dallas, said a man was arrested and taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation after causing a panic in a mall when he banged a skateboard on the ground in the food court and made hand gestures as if he were shooting.
Richard Deidrich, 22, of Mandeville, La., who pleaded guilty to raping a teenager after her high school graduation party and to the sexual battery of a 12-year-old at his house, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Sarah Garbee, 27, of Verona, Mo., and her boyfriend, Caleb Williams, pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges for failing to seek medical treatment in a timely manner for Garbee’s 3-year-old son, who died after he had been sick for a week.
Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, issued an executive order suspending from office Waynesboro Mayor Gregory Carswell, who is facing identity theft, theft and forgery charges, until his case is decided or until his term expires, whichever comes first, according to the order.