In the news

■ Chuck Espy, the mayor of Clarksdale, Miss., said that if rehabilitation and intervention efforts don’t help lawbreakers decide to turn their lives around, he’s willing to spend up to $10,000 of his own money to pay criminals to move out of town.

■ Joey Hann, a police sergeant in Cape Girardeau, Mo., said police are investigating after a teenager playing on the city’s sand volleyball courts suffered a small cut on her foot and two poorly made kitchen knives were found buried in the sand, with the city closing the courts as a precaution.

■ David Novak, a federal magistrate judge in Richmond, Va., sat at a table near the back of an ambulance during a hearing held in the courthouse loading zone so that Kenneth Hicks, 48, who weighs more than 900 pounds, could enter a guilty plea in a cocaine conspiracy case as he lay on a stretcher.

■ Yabar Portes-Arevalo, 23, of Katy, Texas, convicted of trying to smuggle border crossers inside furniture after three people were found hidden in a plastic-wrapped dresser that was nailed shut, was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

■ Miguel Rodriguez-Perez, 18, accused of abducting a 17-year-old girl from a fastfood restaurant in Jerome, Idaho, where she worked, was taken into custody in Surprise, Ariz., by police who also freed the girl, who appeared to be unharmed.

■ Sarah Lewis Peel, a spokesman for North Carolina’s Health and Human Services Department, said Pinedale Christian Day Care in Winston-Salem is voluntarily closing after five toddlers in its care wandered away and were spotted walking into traffic near a busy road.

■ Doug McLeod, 58, a Mississippi state legislator from Lucedale accused of punching his wife in the face, bloodying her nose, because she didn’t undress quickly enough when McLeod wanted to have sex, was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, police said.

■ Arthur Wesley Straehla III, 35, of Edmond, Okla., accused of drunkenly driving at 140 mph when he caused a 2018 crash that killed a 65-year-old woman, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

■ Betty Jo Soto, 49, a fourth-grade teacher in Seminole, Fla., whose contract wasn’t renewed, was arrested over a handgun and two knives found in her backpack when it was searched at school after Soto exhibited “suspicious behavior,” a district spokesman said.