In the news
■ Jeni Smith, a seal rescue program supervisor at Sea World San Diego, said rescuers wrangled a wayward sea lion that made its way to a highway interchange east of downtown, a sight that had drivers pulling over to help protect the lost creature.
■ Garrett Parten, a Minneapolis police spokesman, said a man was arrested after he used his pickup to ram the front doors of a city fire station where a woman he was following had taken shelter, giving firefighters time to grab a tool to puncture his tire and detain him until police arrived.
■ Lionel Haile, 28, accused of dragging a U.S. Postal Service worker from her mail truck in Zachary, La., on New Year’s Eve and stabbing her in an attack recorded on security video, has surrendered to face an attempted murder charge, sheriff’s deputies said.
■ Karl Nehammer, the chancellor of Austria, said he is working from quarantine as he called for people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus after he tested positive when he was infected by a member of his security team, a spokesman said.
■ Jason Lary, who resigned as mayor of Stonecrest, Ga., pleaded guilty to wire fraud and other counts after being accused of funneling about $650,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds intended for city businesses and churches to three businesses that he owns.
■ Bevin Gordon, health services director for a Houston, Texas, school district, said that as she collected information from people in cars waiting for a drive-thru coronavirus test, she discovered a 13-year-old in a car trunk where his mother had attempted to isolate him after he tested positive for covid-19.
■ Edward Walker, 48, of New Haven, Conn., convicted of sex trafficking two adult women and a 17-yearold girl after he took them to the Miami area in the days before the 2020 Super Bowl, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
■ Joseph Elledge, 26, of Columbia, Mo., convicted of misleading authorities for more than a year after killing his Chinese-born wife, burying her body in a state park in 2019 and then reporting her missing, was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
■ Shannon Kepler, 61, a former Tulsa police officer convicted of killing his daughter’s 19-year-old boyfriend in 2014, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution covering the cost of his victim’s headstone.