In the news

■ Steve Gill, a political commentator and former Tennessee congressional candidate, was being held at the Williamson County jail in Franklin after being accused of failing to pay $170,000 in child support, including medical care and college expenses, to his exwife as ordered by a judge.

■ John “Jay” Blount Jr. of Greenville, Miss., a former civilian contractor in Iraq, was awarded the U.S. Defense Department’s highest civilian honor, the Defense of Freedom medal, for treating the wounded and securing the dead after a roadside bomb destroyed a caravan in which he was traveling in 2008.

■ William Underwood, a lawyer in Tuscumbia, Ala., who pleaded guilty to jury tampering for contacting a potential juror ahead of a civil trial, surrendered his law license and was sentenced to four months in jail, prosecutors said.

■ Louis Colavecchio, 77, a Pawtucket, R.I., man who calls himself the “world’s greatest counterfeiter,” was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to producing counterfeit $100 bills, though he said he still believes he can “do some good.”

■ Angela Sands, a Lincoln, Neb., police officer, said a 63-year-old woman was sweet-talked out of $162,000 from her retirement account by someone she met on social media who asked her to send money for expenses such as Internet services, a vacation and a plane ticket.

■ K.K. Henderson Kent was ordered to pay more than $2 million to a Mississippi mother who filed a lawsuit claiming that Kent’s livestock pen was defective, after her 19-year-old son died when his vehicle collided with a donkey on an unlit road.

■ Daniel Seuzeneau, a police spokesman in Slidell, La., said a 5-year-old boy went to kindergarten with three bags of cocaine, resulting in the arrest of two adults who investigators believe hid drugs in the pockets of the boy’s clothes at home.