In the news

■ Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, was expelled from her United Party, with party members claiming she supported and campaigned on behalf of her vice president’s opponent, George Weah, who won the runoff election to replace her as president.

■ Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor, continued a tradition of pranks that goes back to at least 2006, leaving for his successor, Gov. Ralph Northam, pillowcases printed with his photo, pictures of himself scattered around the executive mansion, and a hidden alarm clock set to go off at 3 a.m.

■ Kenneth Poe, an officer with the Llano, Texas, Police Department, will take over as interim chief after Chief Kevin Ratliff and two other officers were placed on paid leave during an investigation, whittling the nine-employee department’s active members to five.

■ John Miller, a manager at Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson, said a juvenile Western ratsnake found under a house in Hurley, Mo., and now on display at the hatchery is healthy and growing despite having two heads, since both of the heads can eat and the rest of its body is normal.

■ Willard D. Voigt, 92, of Warwick, R.I., was presented with a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and other honors that he earned in World War II but never received for his service in the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division in France, where he was wounded from grenade shrapnel.

■ Zak Mertz with the Cape Wildlife Center in Massachusetts said the center used space heaters to warm and free a pair of turkey vultures that were found huddled under a bush with their wings encased in ice, allowing the birds to be released back into the wild.

■ Seth Hurwitz, chairman of the organization that operates the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., said the “winds of fate prevailed” and brought the pavilion’s roof crashing down during a renovation project that was meant to include raising it, forcing it to be rebuilt instead.

■ Corey Moreau, 37, was charged with failure to stop for police, with Ludlow, Mass., authorities saying the man with five arrest warrants led them on a slow-speed chase that only ended when his pickup ran out of gas.

■ Donald Gazaway faces charges of kidnapping, felonious assault and inducing panic, with Butler County, Ohio authorities saying he used a 10-year-old boy as a shield during a 30-hour hostage standoff that ended with no injuries.