In the news

▮ Shamarr Allen, a New Orleans trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader who has a 9-year-old son, is giving a trumpet to any child who turns in a gun, no questions asked, quickly distributing his own instruments, and then using donated trumpets and online fundraising to hand out more, with several musicians offering free online lessons.

▮ Ladonies Strong, 32, a U.S. Army staff sergeant convicted of negligent homicide in a vehicle rollover accident that killed a West Point cadet and injured 19 others in 2019, was sentenced to three years behind bars and given a bad-conduct discharge.

▮ Athoumani Walid, 25, a student in Grenoble, France, suffered a broken wrist when he helped catch two brothers, ages 10 and 3, who were dropped more than 30 feet from a window of a burning apartment to people below.

▮ John Cathcart, 55, a New Hampshire man sought on drug and weapons charges and named a “fugitive of the week” by the U.S. Marshals Service, was arrested after he was found sleeping on a house porch in Laconia.

▮ Jacklyn Davis, a police sergeant in Anne Arundel County, Md., said a man, who fled in a tow truck when police tried to serve an arrest warrant against him, was captured after a woman in the truck either jumped out or was thrown out and the truck ran over and killed her.

▮ Robert Berger, 25, of Huntington, N.Y., who had pleaded guilty to theft charges, faces up to four years in prison accused of trying to convince his lawyer and court officials that he had died but whose purported death certificate misspelled the name of the issuing agency, prosecutors said.

▮ Michael Hill, 52, of Leland, N.C., who won a $10 million lottery prize from a scratch-off ticket in 2017, was charged with murder after the body of a woman was found in a hotel room, police said.

▮ Richard Nicoletti, 35, a Philadelphia SWAT team officer captured on video pulling down masks worn by police-brutality protesters and pepper-spraying them as they knelt on a city expressway, was charged with simple assault and other counts, prosecutors said.

▮ Malcom Jarry of the Satanic Temple in Salem, Mass., said a new $500 “Devil’s Advocate Scholarship” is open to any 2020 high school graduate who submits an essay, poem, film or other creative medium on the separation of church and state, or describing a teacher who “crushed your spirit.”