In the news

■ Steve Eimers, whose daughter Hannah died in a November wreck on Interstate 75 near Niota, Tenn., got an apology from the state Department of Transportation after it sent a letter addressed to his daughter, seeking nearly $3,000 for damage to a guardrail system that the state had earlier found to be defective.

■ Anthony Kennedy, 32, who fled as police officers approached him in his Chicago neighborhood, faces child endangerment and other counts after officers said they found marijuana and a handgun hidden in a stroller beside a 1-year-old.

■ Loraine Maurer, 94, of Evansville, Ind., who works the breakfast shift on Friday and Saturday mornings, was feted by her co-workers on her 44th anniversary as a McDonald’s employee.

■ Herbert Slatery, Tennessee’s attorney general, said legislation before state lawmakers to require that all Tennessee license plates bear the words “In God We Trust” is constitutionally suspect.

■ Shannon Lombardo, 46, of New York City, had to go to a waste transfer facility in Fairview, N.J., to find the correct garbage truck, then she and sanitation workers searched hundreds of trash bags to find the wedding and engagement rings that she had accidentally thrown away.

■ Jamal Killings of Cincinnati, whose 4-year-old son is recovering after being struck by a car, said he had rushed off with his son to get medical care and didn’t realize that someone had killed the driver by shooting him repeatedly, adding that he couldn’t condone the slaying.

■ Derek Broaddus and his wife, Maria, who have been getting anonymous letters in the mail from someone called “The Watcher,” said they can’t live in their house and sued Westfield, N.J., after the town blocked their plans to raze the home so they could subdivide the lot and build a new home.

■ Harold Facklam Jr., 87, of Topeka, Kan., honored for donating more than 32 gallons of blood over six decades through the American Red Cross, said it was his father’s generosity toward blood drives that prompted him to do the same.

■ Steve Burdo, a spokesman for animal services in Contra Costa County, Calif., said a gelding named Striker and a mule named Hank escaped through a fence and ran across Interstate 680, shutting down the freeway east of San Francisco during the Monday morning commute until officers rounded them up.