In the news

■ Chuck Grassley, the 87-year-old Republican U.S. senator from Iowa, without providing any details of how he was exposed to the coronavirus, said he would “immediately quarantine” and work virtually after testing positive for covid-19.

■ Tina Talbot, 53, a Waterford, Mich., woman who said she fatally shot her husband in self-defense in 2018, was released from prison after serving 20 months, hugging her 9-year-old son as family and friends cheered outside a women’s correctional facility in Washtenaw County.

■ Douglas Hatley, 71, of Lakeland, Fla., who strapped a downed utility pole to the top of his sedan that was longer than the car itself, was charged with grand theft after being told that the pole wasn’t roadside trash that could be picked up and sold for scrap, state police said.

■ Brandon Morton, 36, who has been linked to several arsons in Atlanta and other south Georgia communities, was arrested in Ohio on a warrant charging him with breaking into an apartment in Gray, Ga., and setting a sofa on fire, authorities said.

■ Fernando Berdecia, 46, a Puerto Rican police officer, was suspended from his job after he was charged with stealing more than $1,300 worth of goods from a Home Depot store while wearing his uniform, authorities said.

■ Lyda Krewson, the mayor of St. Louis, said the city will use $600,000 of the $32 million it received in federal coronavirus relief money to build 50 tiny homes on leased property near the city’s downtown to provide shelter for the homeless.

■ Lorenz Caffier, the interior minister for Mecklenburg-Wester Pomerania, Germany, who denied having any links to rightwing extremists, resigned after it became public that he bought a hunting pistol from a member of a group that had been preparing for a possible violent collapse of the German state.

■ Paryse Michaud of Clair, New Brunswick, got Diamond, her 17-month-old German shepherd, back after it wandered across the closed U.S.-Canadian border into Fort Kent, Maine, and several American friends, who found the dog in a garage, dropped it off at a border station so it could be returned.

■ Rob Portman, the Republican U.S. senator from Ohio, is participating in a covid-19 vaccine study, saying he’s hoping to encourage others to volunteer to take part in testing and to send a message that vaccines are safe.