In the news

■ Micheline Frederick of Rego Park in Queens, N.Y., called it a “MMA cage match! And I lost!” after a squirrel that’s been attacking neighborhood residents sank its teeth into her fingers and hand, causing her to leave a bloody trail in the snow outside her home.

■ Pope Francis , 84, citing “painful sciatica” in his back, is skipping traditional New Year’s ceremonies, including an evening, year-end prayer service Thursday and a Mass today in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican said.

■ Maria Elvira Salazar , 59, a Republican congresswoman-elect from Miami, will miss Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C., for new members of Congress after she made an emergency trip to the hospital and learned she has covid-19, her office said.

■ Rod Phillips resigned as the finance minister of Ontario, Canada, after being recalled from a Caribbean vacation, a trip he took in violation of government guidelines discouraging nonessential travel and seemingly tried to hide by sending social media posts showing him in a sweater before a fireplace.

■ Thomas Simmons , 37, of Winter Haven, Fla., posing as a narcotics agent, sexually assaulted and robbed a man at knifepoint at a Haines City motel after arranging to meet the man through an online dating site, and was arrested on sexual battery and other counts, authorities said.

■ Dion Raney , 22, of Spanish Lake, Mo., captured when he ran into a grocery store after a fatal shooting on a city bus carrying 10 passengers in Bellefontaine Neighbors, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action, police said.

■ Lil Pump , 20, a Florida rapper whose real name is Gazzy Garcia, has been banned from flying on JetBlue Airlines after he became “verbally abusive” with flight crew members and refused their repeated requests that he wear a mask as a covid-19 precaution, an airline spokesman said.

■ Greg Merchant , coroner of Lowndes County, Miss., said Mississippi’s longest-serving mayor, Dock Gabbert of Derma, who was in his 14th consecutive term after first being elected in 1969, has died of complications from covid-19.

■ Margaret Grun Kibben , a retired Navy rear admiral and Presbyterian minister, has been appointed House chaplain by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, becoming the first woman to hold such a post in either chamber of Congress.