In the news
■ Pope Francis, 84, was maskless as he presided over a pandemic-aware Ash Wednesday service at the Vatican, with fewer participants and a revised rite that included sprinkling ashes on the head of the faithful rather than smudging foreheads to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
■ Tim Boyd, the now former mayor of Colorado City, Texas, said he had already resigned before writing on social media that it’s not a government responsibility to help those suffering in the cold without power and that he was “sick and tired” of people looking for handouts.
■ Walter Brown Jr., 53, and Gary Brummett, 81, who threatened to arrest employees when asked to wear masks at a resort hotel in Deerfield Beach, Fla., were both charged with pretending to be federal marshals and flashing phony credentials, police said.
■ Jerry Boylan, 67, the captain of a scuba diving boat that burned and sank off an island near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2019, killing 34 people, pleaded innocent to 34 counts of seaman’s manslaughter, which each carries a potential 10-year prison term, federal prosecutors said.
■ Brian Welsh, 41, of Herndon, Va., was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder as well as firearms counts in a 2018 shooting described by prosecutors as a dispute over a drug deal that left a 32-year-old man and his 65-year-old mother dead.
■ Richard Hickey, assistant police chief in Brentwood, Tenn., said a 9-yearold boy died in a sledding accident when he slammed into a mailbox after hitting a patch of ice as he was being pulled on a tube by an ATV driven by his father.
■ Jonathon McCoy, 56, the mayor of Lanett, Ala., indicted on felony ethics charges, says he will fight accusations that he used his position to obtain more than $43,000 in utility fee waivers, made personal purchases with city funds and let a family member drive a city-owned vehicle.
■ Jane Castor, the mayor of Tampa, Fla., said the city now has more time to prepare for those “ne’re do well pirates” after organizers of the annual Gasparilla parade, a celebration of pirate lore, delayed the next parade until January 2022 because of the pandemic.