Michelle Obama, the first lady, invoked the hardships of World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, the first black pilots in the U.S. Armed Forces, during her commencement address at the historically black Tuskegee University in Alabama, saying the past provides a blueprint for a country still struggling with discrimination and race.
Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, sponsored a blessing ceremony for nearly two dozen gay couples on the island nation, where same-sex marriage is illegal, and led a gay-rights march in Havana.
Prince Harry of the United Kingdom met New Zealand dignitaries and pressed noses with indigenous Maori leaders, a traditional greeting called a “hongi,” as he arrived in Wellington for a week-long visit to the commonwealth nation.
Wendy Davis, Texas’ former Democratic gubernatorial nominee who once mounted a nearly 13-hour filibuster on abortion restrictions, was assessed a $5,000 civil penalty by the state’s Ethics Commission for not disclosing on personal finance statements the fees she got from two law firms while she was a state senator.
Sylvia Hofstetter, 51, of Knoxville, Tenn., has been charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, accused by the FBI of running a string of illegal pain clinics that raked in $17.5 million in four years by selling prescription pills.
Micoe Cotton, 45, a former boys basketball coach for Moss Point High School in Mississippi, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for having sex with a female student when she was in ninth grade and again when she was in 11th grade, encounters investigators say he filmed on his cellphone.
Hector Molina, a Dallas-area doctor, and Blanca Mata of Forney, Texas, were charged with health care fraud after prosecutors say the pair falsely billed Medicare nearly $5 million for house calls that the unqualified Mata made but that were listed as being done by Molina.
Ozzy Osbourne donated $10,000 to the Louisville Leopard Percussionists, a nonprofit children’s group in Kentucky, after watching a YouTube video of the students performing the singer’s hit “Crazy Train.”
Ann Druyan, widow of astronomer Carl Sagan, who died in 1996, said Cornell University’s decision to put her husband’s name on its institute that is searching for extraterrestrial life is an honor worthy of Sagan and “much more meaningful than a statue or a building.”