In the news

■ Axel Cox of Gulfport, Miss., was sentenced to 42 months in prison after pleading guilty to a federal hate crime for burning a cross in his front yard to intimidate his Black neighbors.

■ Monica Cannon-Grant, a lauded civic activist, and her husband, who run a nonprofit aimed at reducing violence in Boston, were charged with misusing pandemic funds on top of previous charges that they used the organization as their personal bank and now face 27 counts of fraud.

■ Chokwe Antar Lumumba, mayor of Jackson, Miss., acted improperly when he tried to veto a garbage-collection contract the City Council had rejected, the state Supreme Court ruled, saying he “was not legally entitled to veto a non-action or negative vote.”

■ Ricardo Arroyo, a Boston city councilor, hailed “a monumental act” as the City Council approved the mayor’s proposal to cap rent prices as part of an effort to address rising housing costs and prevent homelessness.

■ Sheldon Thomas of New York City said he was “speechless” as he was exonerated and freed after spending 18 years behind bars for murder, with his arrest based on a photo of another person with the same name.

■ Manuel Monsalve, Chile’s deputy interior secretary, said 10 would-be robbers were “highly organized” and “very armed” when an airport shootout in Santiago killed a security officer and a suspect in the attempted heist of $32.5 million in cash aboard a plane from Miami.

■ Ray Anderson of Cincinnati Animal CARE said people should opt for “a really awesome house cat” from a shelter instead of a wild creature like the African serval cat that was found with cocaine in its system after escaping its owner during a traffic stop, earning the social media tag “cocaine cat.”