SIMSBURY, Conn. — Sarah Loving had just returned home from lunch last Saturday with her husband and two young children when she looked out the window and spotted two bears walking across her backyard in Simsbury, Connecticut.

Her wildlife visitors didn’t really surprise her. In recent years, bears have been pretty common in Simsbury, a suburban community of 24,500, located about 12 miles (19 kilometers) northwest of Hartford, where overturned garbage cans are often found along the road on “trash day” after a bear has searched inside for a snack.

But when one of the bears stopped at her family’s wooden playset and began climbing up the stairs, Loving started filming. What came next, took her by surprise.

“He made it to the landing and then went down the slide, like he had done it before,” she said. In the video, the bear nonchalantly slides head first, its front paws breaking its fall in a pile of soft sand at the bottom. The bear then lays there for a few seconds, calmly looking around.

Loving said the pair hung out for a few more minutes before moving on to her neighbor’s yard. Their appearance lasted about 10 minutes.

“They seemed so comfortable on the playscape,” said Loving, whose family moved to Simsbury about two years ago, not knowing they might run across bears. “We just kept joking that they probably have been before, but we have not seen a bear go down playscape before, ever. That was a first.”

CHICAGO — The Chicago River is once again glowing kelly green as the city opens its annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Thousands lined the river and packed bridges Saturday and erupted in cheers as members of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130 sprayed dye into the water from boats, carrying on a tradition they began some 63 years ago.

The dyeing immediately precedes the annual downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade. The day — which falls on Monday this year — celebrates Irish culture. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and is credited with having brought Christianity there in the fifth century.

The dye is nontoxic. While the river stays bright for several hours, some trace of color can remain for days.

A second St. Patrick’s Day parade was scheduled for Sunday on Chicago’s South Side.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Michigan veterinarian who said she rescued a distressed dog that was tied to a truck is facing a theft charge after failing to return him to a homeless man.

Amanda Hergenreder took the dog on a two-hour drive to her clinic, where she performed procedures to relieve a severe urinary tract infection and remove a rotten tooth. She named him Biggby and says the 16-year-old pit bull mix is thriving nearly four months later.

But the Kent County prosecutor said Biggby belongs to Chris Hamilton, who lately lacks a permanent home in the Grand Rapids area and claims ownership of a dog known to him as his beloved Vinny.

“I just want my dog back,” Hamilton, 57, told WOOD-TV. “I had my dog 15 years. Never neglected him and, you know, we loved each other. I mean, I felt like I lost part of my body after that. Never felt the same after losing him.”

Prosecutor Chris Becker said it is a simple case of larceny, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of 93 days in jail. Jury selection for a future trial is scheduled for March 6.

“You don’t have a right to just take something because you feel something’s wrong. … People have a very big attachment to their animals,” Becker told the TV station. “No matter where you are in life, what your stature is in life, be it rich, poor, whatever it is, this is something that’s important to an individual.”

Hergenreder said she was in Grand Rapids in November for a professional conference when she saw the dog tied to a truck near a Biggby coffee shop. There is no dispute that she called the police department and animal shelter and also talked to a shop employee.

“No energy, very lethargic,” Hergenreder said of the dog. “We carried him to our vehicle. It was just very sad.”

Hergenreder said she performed medical procedures at her clinic worth $3,000. She said he runs and plays at her home, adding that she is “starting to slowly see the light come back in his eyes.”

Hamilton acknowledged that he tied the dog to the truck while he walked to a gas station. He said when he returned, about 45 minutes later, coffee shop employees told him “some lady in a van came and took my dog, snipped the rope.”

Hergenreder’s attorney, Miles Greengard, is offering a vigorous defense of the veterinarian. He said she fears the dog won’t get the attention he needs in old age if she gives him up.

“Mr. Hamilton didn’t even take such basic steps as licensing the dog,” Greengard told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Now he expects a benevolent doctor to give Biggby the medical treatment he’s been denied and needs moving forward, and then give the dog back?

“I think it’s an unfortunate situation all the way around,” Greengard said. “But I’m glad Biggby is living his best life.”

YEMASSEE, S.C. — Authorities in South Carolina said Friday the last four of 43 escaped monkeys have been recaptured after two months living in the woods, weathering a rare snowstorm and being temped back into captivity by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The rhesus macaque monkeys, all females, made a break for it after police say an employee did not fully lock their enclosure at Alpha Genesis, a facility that breeds them for medical research — known to locals as “the monkey farm.”

The recaptured monkeys appeared to be in good health, Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard said in a statement relayed by Yemassee Police in a social media post, without further details.

While they were on the loose, the area saw its first snow in seven years, accumulating up to 3 inches (8 centimeters).

The rhesus macaques made a break for it on Nov. 6, and mostly hung around near the facility. They’re about the size of a cat, weighing roughly 7 pounds (3 kilograms).

It appears a worker unintentionally left the gates unlocked when the monkeys escaped, Westergaard said in November. Workers were supposed to lock and latch one gate before opening another, but all three gates and latches were left unsecure.

The monkeys posed no risk to public health, said Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police.

Alpha Guard employees kept an eye on the monkeys and set out humane traps. Most were lured back with food and were given peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and “monkey biscuits” — a high-protein Purina Monkey Chow specially formulated for the rhesus macaques.

The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical facilities and other researchers. Humans have been using the monkeys for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.

The compound is about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia.

BOSTON — A gold medal awarded to the winner of the 110-meter hurdles at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, the first Games hosted on U.S. soil, is being auctioned off as part of hundreds of lots of memorabilia representing various Olympics over the decades.

The medal bears the inscription “Olympiad, 1904” and shows a victorious athlete holding a wreath on the front. On the other side, Nike, the goddess of victory in ancient Greek mythology, is shown alongside Zeus, the pantheon’s king of gods, and the words for the hurdles event it was awarded. The medal, awarded to American Fred Schule, includes the original ribbon and leather case.

This was the first Olympics where gold medals were awarded and the Americans took advantage, winning 78 of 96 events. Unlike Olympic medals these days which are mostly made of silver with gold plating, these were smaller and made entirely of gold.

Bobby Eaton, an Olympic specialist at Boston-based RR Auction, said it is unusual for a medal of this kind to come up for auction though this particular one came from Schule’s family’s collection.

“No one really knows exactly how many 1904 Olympic gold medals are still out there,” Eaton said. “What we do know is they’re exceedingly rare. Of the roughly 100 gold medals awarded in St. Louis, many have been lost to time or are tucked away in private collections and museums.”

Beyond the gold medals, the 1904 Games also were remembered for plenty of controversy and oddities.

The Games were originally awarded to Chicago, but organizers of the World’s Fair in St. Louis feared competition for attendance and protested against a second international event held simultaneously. Fair organizers threatened to host their own athletic events. It took the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, to forge peace by moving the Olympics 300 miles (483 kilometers) south.

If that drama weren’t enough, Fred Lorz looked to have won the marathon race until it was discovered he rode partway in a car.

Organizers ran “Anthropology Days,” when members of indigenous tribes from across the globe on hand for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the formal name of the St. Louis World’s Fair, were plucked from the fair and told to compete with no warning.

The Games also saw the debut of boxing and freestyle wrestling, sports that have clung to the Summer Olympics until the present day, along with long-since-forgotten croquet and tug-of-war events.

“These medals aren’t just about the competition — they’re a snapshot of the early days of the modern Olympics,” Eaton said. “To have one like this, in such exceptional condition, is truly remarkable and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors.”

The sale is part of hundreds of Olympic items that were up for sale at the auction, including a bronze medal from the 2024 Paris Olympics, as well as gold medals from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, 1964 Tokyo Olympics, 1998 Nagano Olympics and 2012 London Olympics.

Olympic memorabilia has long fetched a good price.

In 2022, the silver medal captured by Luz Long, the German long jumper who befriended Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, sold at auction for more than $488,000. A first-place silver medal awarded at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 sold for $180,111 when it was put up for auction in 2021 and a gold medal from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver sold for $68,750 in 2019.

Athletes also have auctioned off their medals for charity, including two-time canoe champion Yuri Cheban from Ukraine whose two golds and a bronze were auctioned for $109,451 in 2022 to help the war effort. Swimmer Ryan Lochte auctioned off his six Olympic silver and bronze medals the same year, with the $166,779 raised going to an organization benefitting children. He kept his gold medals.

The next summer Olympics will be in Los Angeles in 2028, marking the third time the city has hosted the Games. It also hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984.