In the news

■ Gayle Benson, owner of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, paid off nearly $100,000 worth of customers’ layaway orders at a New Orleans Walmart, New Orleans news outlets reported.

■ Adam Rose, an officer with the East Ridge Police Department in Tennessee, was fired for having a sexual relationship with an 18-yearold high school student, but an internal affairs investigation determined he had not violated any policies or criminal laws.

■ Alaa Hamed, an Indiana state trooper, moved an SUV that was pinning a woman to a toll booth after she tried to retrieve a debit card, then performed CPR until paramedics arrived and used a defibrillator to resuscitate her.

■ Gregory Stanton, 49, faces up to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tampering with consumer products after he was seen on video he posted online urinating on a Kellogg’s cereal conveyor belt at a Memphis plant.

■ Michael Freeman, an Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality investigator, says the agency is trying to identify the contents of 16 55-gallon drums that were dropped off in a field near an Oklahoma City industrial area.

■ Jimmy Rane and Cathy Randall, co-chairmen of Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s inauguration, says the “Keep Alabama Growing” inauguration theme underscores Ivey’s campaign promises on job growth and education.

■ Aaron Urbanski, 31, was arrested on trespassing charges in Cleburne, Texas, after, authorities said, he protested at a church’s breakfast with Santa event, telling children Santa Claus is not real.

■ Matthew Sink, minister of Pinedale Christian Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., said day care employees were on the playground with 20 children when six of them slipped into a door of the church without being seen, went down a hall and left through the church’s front door, with five of them wandering toward a major road, police said.

■ Jesi Pitre and her sister Remi returned to their home in Apopka, Fla., seven months after being born conjoined at the belly, after a series of surgeries at a Gainesville, Fla., hospital successfully separated the girls, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

■ Sedarius Dennis, 31, faces aggravated assault and weapons charges after he shot two men inside a downtown Atlanta hotel connected to CNN’s headquarters and was captured by CNN security personnel, police said.