In the news
Demetria Smith, who wants to challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, was declared ineligible for the state’s March 6 Democratic primary when election officials said her $3,750 check for the filing fee bounced.
Patrick Jiron, 80, and his wife, Barbara, 70, arrested just before Christmas and accused of possessing 60 pounds of marijuana that they described as family gifts, were rearrested in Nebraska when deputies reported finding in the couple’s pickup $18,000, a bag with pot residue and notes tied to drug sales.
Ash Whitaker, a transgender youth who graduated from high school in June, will get $800,000 from a Kenosha, Wis., school district to settle a discrimination suit filed because the district monitored his bathroom use and made him wear a special bracelet to single him out from other students.
Christopher Eakes, 41, is facing charges, accused of stealing his stepdaughter’s 8-week-old Yorkshire terrier and selling it to buy drugs, with sheriff’s deputies in Wayne County, N.C., saying the puppy was found and returned to the girl.
Glenn Moshier, police chief in Ellsworth, Maine, said four teenagers were issued court summonses after a 19-year-old legally bought marijuana at a dispensary and then sold pot-infused candies to three minors who took the sweets to school.
Matt Cureton, 19, a restaurant bus boy in Fort Pierce, Fla., found a purse containing $1,500 hanging on the back of a chair and, without looking inside, gave it to his manager so it could be returned to an elderly couple who needed the money to repair a leaky roof.
Chris Oliver, a former trustee of Houston Community College in Texas, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to accepting bribes of more than $225,000 to use his position to steer business contracts to the school.
Michael Persaud, 30, of Johnston, R.I., a rapper who performs under the name “Montana Millz,” and whose songs include one titled “Sell Drugz,” was sentenced to three years in federal prison after being convicted of trafficking in heroin and fentanyl.
Jenny Sanford, the former South Carolina first lady who divorced Gov. Mark Sanford after Sanford, now a congressman, publicly admitted in 2009 to having an affair with a woman in Argentina, is engaged to investment banker Andy McKay.