In the news
■ Kevin Doll, spokesman for the Pasco County, Fla., sheriff ’ s office, said some work- release inmates made a rescue when a Florida couple accidentally locked their baby inside their SUV and members of a crew working nearby were able to use a coat hanger to unlock the vehicle.
■ Steven Downs, 44, of Auburn, Maine, was arrested on murder and sexualassault charges in connection with the 1993 killing of Sophie Sergie in Alaska after DNA voluntarily submitted by his aunt led police to him, authorities said.
■ Tom Wollcott of Ashby, Mass., and his children were reunited with their 5- year- old king shepherd, Kaiser, after the dog was found in South Paris, Maine, 175 miles from where it had jumped a wall and disappeared eight months earlier.
■ Joe Guy, sheriff of McMinn County, Tenn., said a woman was treated at a hospital after she used methamphetamine and walked into deep water outside a home, leading to the death of a man who followed her into the water in an attempt to save her.
■ Robert Beck, 28, was indicted on a charge of attempted murder after, police say, he entered a restaurant from which he had been banned in Columbus, Miss., to look for an ex- girlfriend who was employed there, then shot another worker.
■ Rick Fischer, warden with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said it’s not uncommon for mountain lions to wander outside their habitat in the nearby San Bernardino Mountains, after one of the big cats was rescued by firefighters from a tree outside a home in Southern California and released back into the wild.
■ Tony Mancuso, sheriff of Calcasieu Parish, La., said the mother of a newborn discovered 50 yards from a hospital’s door in Lake Charles will face abandonment charges once found, adding that she could have legally gone inside and given her daughter to a hospital employee without any questions being asked.
■ David Doak, sheriff in Portage County, Ohio, said Sgt. James Acklin, a deputy who is just 70 days from retiring, suffered burns to 20 percent of his body when a man ignited a container of flammable liquid and threw it at him in a garage.
■ Katie Jackson of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the seven right whale calves spotted this winter off Florida’s Atlantic coast, more than were seen in the previous two years, still aren’t enough for the critically endangered whales to maintain their current population, estimated at about 450.