In the news
■ Jessie Hamilton, a former cook for the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, got a surprise gift for her 74th birthday when fraternity members raised more than $50,000 to pay off her mortgage out of gratitude for her help when they were students.
■ Julia Letlow, 40, elected last month to the seat her husband, Luke Letlow, was elected to but never filled because he died of covid-19 in late December before taking office, was sworn in as Louisiana’s newest Republican member of Congress.
■ David Dewhurst, 75, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, was released after spending several hours in jail following his arrest on a misdemeanor family-violence charge in Dallas when a woman reported being “physically assaulted,” police said.
■ Don Cisternino, a Florida man wanted in the U.S. on fraud charges accusing him of receiving more than $7.2 million in coronavirus relief funds after concocting hundreds of nonexistent employees on loan applications, was arrested in Croatia.
■ Lyn Woolford, the former police chief of Ashland, Mo., will receive $112,636 and his attorney $24,863 to settle a suit Woolford filed alleging that he was wrongfully ousted from his job because he rejected a request to remove the mayor’s girlfriend from the mayor’s home.
■ Terrance Caldwell, 27, of Canton, Miss., faces life in prison after pleading guilty to one count of capital murder in the death of a pizza delivery woman and one count of attempted murder in the shooting of a convenience store employee.
■ Mohinder Singh, 48, an Australian truck driver, who prosecutors said was drug-affected and sleep-deprived when he veered into an emergency traffic lane near Melbourne and struck and killed four police officers, was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
■ Anthony Sharp, 24, of Nashville, Tenn., was charged with aggravated assault after a shootout in a public housing parking lot left a man and a 3-yearold girl dead, and the girl’s 2-year-old sister and two other men injured, police said.
■ Edward Benecchi, a police captain in Plymouth, Conn., said Buddy, an 800to 900-pound beefalo who spent more than 250 days loose after he escaped on the way to a slaughterhouse, was captured by a farmer while hanging out with the farmer’s cows and, because of social media donations, will be sent to a Florida sanctuary.