In the news
■ Stientje van Veldhoven, minister for infrastructure and water in The Netherlands, said the Dutch government is banning the sale and use of most fireworks for New Year’s Eve, when many people are injured by the pyrotechnics, to ease the burden on hospitals that are already swamped with covid-19 patients.
■ Michael Knapinski, 45, of Woodville, Wash., a hiker who was rescued after being lost in a whiteout in Mount Ranier National Park, was brought back to life in an emergency room after the medical team used an advanced life support machine to restart his heart, which had been stopped for 45 minutes.
■ Eric Romriell, 49, Eric Roberts, 51, and Dallas Roberts, 41, were fined, sentenced to two years of probation and banned from Yellowstone National Park for that period after a park ranger discovered that the men had attempted to cook whole chickens in a hot spring.
■ Jack Hawkins, Jr., chancellor of Troy University in Alabama, said the school is renaming its historic Bibb Graves Hall, which was named for a former governor who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, in honor of the late civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
■ Nathan Glass, 26, a Nashville police officer, who was hired after fatally shooting a man while working as a security guard two years ago, is now charged with second-degree murder in that 2018 shooting outside a restaurant where he had worked.
■ Martin Fox, former president of a private tennis club in Texas, was sentenced to three months in prison followed by three months of home confinement after authorities said he arranged bribes to get students into their universities of choice as part of a college admissions scheme.
■ Jordan Armstead, 19, of Opelika, Ala., and three others are accused of taking contraband into a state prison after deputies discovered that a security fence was cut near one of the cell blocks and the exterior cell wall had been breached.
■ Nathan Nehs, 19, of Oconomowoc, Wis., was charged with repeated sexual assault of a child, accused of holding a Missouri girl captive and sexually abusing her 24 times, according to a criminal complaint.
■ Peter Lutrario, 65, of New York, sold his Rudolph and Santa Claus figures that were used in the Christmas special “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” for $368,000 at the Icons & Legends of Hollywood Auction held in Los Angeles.