In the news

■ Chloe Bell of St. Peters, Mo., an 8- year- old cancer patient, celebrated Christmas Eve to the roaring sound of more than 20 motorcycles, including riders dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, courtesy of the Reindeer Ride, a charity that gives gifts and family support to children undergoing cancer treatment.

■ Justin Shuffle , 33, of Deer Park, N.Y., accused of stealing a mini-snowplow from a Long Island shopping center and using it to crash through the front doors of a department store to steal a coat and gift cards, faces burglary and larceny charges, police said.

■ Dermot Shea , New York City’s police commissioner, said Connor Boalick, a 27-year-old officer responding to a domestic-violence call, survived being shot in the back when his bullet-resistant vest stopped a round fired by a suspect who was arrested after a foot chase.

■ Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz , the Roman Catholic archbishop of Minsk and Mohilev barred from returning to Belarus for criticizing the government’s crackdown on protesters, was allowed back into the country after being denied reentry for nearly four months.

■ David Fornell , a deputy fire commissioner in Detroit, said a Christmas morning blaze on the city’s east side killed a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old and forced their mother, holding a 3-year-old, and two other children, ages 8 and 10, to jump from a second-floor window to escape.

■ Oleg Sokolov , 64, a history professor in St. Petersburg, Russia, was sentenced to 12½ years in prison after he was convicted of killing and dismembering a 24-year-old female student in his apartment after he shot her as they quarreled, prosecutors said.

■ Angela Grogan of Ozark, Mo., who had been battling uterine cancer, said she worked to spread Christmas cheer by mailing out about 700 holiday cards and has since received more than 500 in return from every state and nine countries.

■ David Centner , police chief in Hinckley Ohio, is hailing what he called an “overwhelming” community response after officers found a 3½-year-old boy who had been abandoned in a cemetery two days before Christmas, saying, “Our lobby is full from the gifts that have been dropped off.”