In the news

■ Carl Ellis, a police officer in Jackson, Miss., was reassigned to patrol duty after surrendering his newly retired police dog, Ringo, to an animal shelter rather than take care of the dog that had found drugs, tracked suspects, and helped with search and rescues, a department spokesman said.

■ Jason Kunselman, a Pennsylvania man who gave up his first-class seat on a flight from Orlando to Philadelphia to a mother with an 11-month-old sick baby, said he doesn’t think it was that big of a deal, adding that he hopes it will inspire others to show kindness.

■ Ted Pelkey of Westford, Vt., who has been trying for a decade to get a permit to relocate his truck repair and recycling business from a nearby town to his property, said he erected on his front lawn a large wooden sculpture of a fist with its middle finger raised to let town officials know how he feels.

■ Danielle Shah, 29, said people “went a little bit crazy” as she watched motorists stop and run grabbing into a blizzard of money that spilled from an armored truck when a faulty lock caused a door to open during rush hour on a highway in East Rutherford, N.J.

■ Jerry Cozby, a police captain in Forest Hill, Texas, said investigators are hunting the driver of a small red car who cut off another vehicle being driven by a man dressed as Santa Claus and then fired a shot, hitting Santa’s car, before speeding off.

■ Anthony Whittley and Jasmine Boone, accused of rustling 17 steers from a Kansas pasture, were arrested at an Oklahoma City livestock barn when a worker recognized the owner’s brand on the cattle.

■ Edward Karas, 40, a police sergeant in Rosemont, Ill., accused of driving the getaway car as an accomplice robbed two gas stations at gunpoint, resigned from the police force ahead of his termination hearing, officials said.

■ Prabhu Ramamoorthy, 35, a native of India who is in the U.S. on a work visa and was convicted of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman during an overnight flight to Detroit, will be deported after he serves a nine-year prison sentence.

■ Anthony Bucci, a U.S. Customs spokesman in New York, said 70 live finches were discovered in plastic hair rollers in the duffel bag of a Guyanese citizen who was likely smuggling the songbirds into the U.S. for singing contests in which gamblers bet on their chirping skills.