In the news
Matt Patten, with the Broward County, Fla., SWAT team, has been reprimanded and demoted for wearing a patch for “QAnon,” a group that promotes government conspiracy theories and plots, on his tactical vest when he posed for photos with Vice President Mike Pence.
Dane Best, 9, who says his 4-year-old brother will be his first target, persuaded the Severance, Colo., board of trustees to overturn a nearly century-old ban on snowball fights, declaring that “I want to be able to throw a snowball without getting in trouble.”
Rick Clark, the sheriff of Pickens County, S.C., said he gave a woman a hug and told her he was proud of her after she shot and killed an escaped inmate, who was still in his orange jail jumpsuit when he kicked in her back door, grabbed a kitchen knife and headed toward her bedroom around 3 a.m.
Jon Anson, who said it was a running family joke for him to tell his kids every time they visited Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa., to look for the wallet he lost four years ago while riding a roller coaster, got a call letting him know workers had found it.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays a villain in The Walking Dead, adopted a rescued donkey and emu named Jack and Diane that become frantic when they are separated, and he will move them from North Carolina to his New York farm.
Earl Jethroe, 59, of Marrero, La., faces aggravatedassault and other charges after he became angry over the condiments offered at a fast-food restaurant, threw his chicken order across the counter and pointed a pistol at the manager, police said.
Alexander Samek of Los Altos, Calif., was charged with driving under the influence after highway patrol officers said he didn’t respond to lights or sirens and they realized he was asleep at the wheel, so they pulled in front of his autopiloted Tesla and gradually slowed until the vehicle stopped.
Rony Bottex said he “would be gone” if it weren’t for now-hospitalized Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Mithil Patel, who while investigating a wreck near West Palm Beach pushed Bottex out of danger from an approaching car.
Dalton Rupp-Meinert, in the role of the Nutcracker prince despite never dancing ballet in his life, dropped to one knee onstage and proposed to Allison Evans, who played the dewdrop fairy in a Metropolitan Ballet performance of The Nutcracker in Wichita, Kan.