In the news
■ Brandon Volpe, a lieutenant with the Franklinville, N.J., Volunteer Fire Company, said Daisy, an 11-month-old yellow Labrador, “panicked a little bit” while firefighters used plasma cutters and a fire blanket to free the dog from a spare tire.
■ Xiaoqin Yan, 30, a Chinese citizen who overstayed her nonimmigrant student visa, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison on charges of arson and illegal possession of a firearm for setting fire to First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 2021, federal prosecutors said.
■ Petya Bankova, head of Bulgaria’s customs agency, said 370 pounds of cocaine seized at the port of Burgas was stashed in 150 packages hidden behind a factory-made wall in a container transporting bananas from Ecuador.
■ Marianne Smyth, 54, is detained in Maine’s Piscataquis County jail pending her possible extradition to the United Kingdom where she is accused of stealing more than $170,000 from at least five victims from 2008-10 in Northern Ireland, according to legal documents.
■ Frank Geng-Quangrong, a Chinese national, was sentenced to death after a Nigerian court found him guilty of killing his girlfriend, 22-year-old Ummukulsum Sani, in September 2022, Kano Justice Commissioner Haruna Dederi said.
■ Joshua Russell, of Bucyrus, Ohio, was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for making death threats in three voicemails left for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who was the state’s chief elections officer that certified Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory and ran the 2022 midterm elections.
■ Sam Delug, a telecommunications executive, sold the seven-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion where Erik and Lyle Menendez fatally shot their parents on Aug. 20, 1989, for $17 million, 28 years to the day after the brothers were convicted of the murders.
■ Clay Fletcher and Sheila Fletcher were sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 20 years suspended, for manslaughter in the death of their 36-year-old daughter, who died from neglect on a maggot-infested couch in their Louisiana home.
■ Wyatt Brooks, 18, of Mount Aukum, Calif., survived a mountain lion attack in which his face was severely lacerated and his 21-year-old brother was mauled to death in a remote area northeast of Sacramento.