• Charles Preston, coroner in St. Tammany Parish, La., said human remains found in an alligator's stomach have been positively identified as those of Timothy Satterlee Sr., 71, who was attacked by the creature and killed when floodwaters from Hurricane Ida surrounded his home in Slidell.
• Angela Merkel, 67, the outgoing chancellor of Germany, let out a scream when a rainbow lorikeet pecked at her hand as she held feed and posed with a half-dozen parrots as she campaigned for her center-right Union bloc in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
• Keith Marty, the superintendent of Parkway Schools in Chesterfield, Mo., told parents in a letter that a police investigation is underway after several hundred students staged a walkout because racist graffiti was found in restrooms at two high school campuses.
• Miracle Murray faces a reckless-endangerment charge after her handgun discharged as she was attacked by two women inside a Walmart store in Mobile, Ala., with the round striking her hand and then hitting a 5-year-old boy in the foot, police said.
• Jennifer Phillips, a judge in Jackson County, Mo., ordered Rae's Cafe in Blue Springs to shut down in the wake of its owner's defiance of covid-19 mask mandates, rejecting arguments that workers had medical exemptions and the cafe could avoid the mandate by operating as a private club.
• Dustin Rambo, 34, a former Booneville, Miss., police officer accused of stealing cash, a debit card, prescription narcotics and other personal items from four people he either arrested or helped arrest, pleaded guilty to theft charges.
• Betty Reid Soskin of Richmond, Calif., who joined the National Park Service at age 85, celebrated her 100th birthday Wednesday and is now the service's oldest active ranger, working at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park.
• Davonta Barnes, 22, of Miami Gardens, Fla., accused of acting as the lookout when men wearing ski masks fatally shot three people and injured 20 others outside a banquet hall during a rap show in May, was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, police said.
• Kevin Owens, 24, of Memphis, on probation for a 2016 robbery conviction, was convicted of attempted first-degree murder after he went to his former boss's apartment and shot him shortly after Owens was fired from a fast-food restaurant.