In the news
■ Sue Simmons, who was at home with her son in Columbia, Miss., at the time, said “it sounded like a bomb went off” when a storm with winds of up to 70 mph swept through her neighborhood, toppling a tree onto their house and splitting it in half as the two huddled in a closet.
■ Rudolf Anschober, 60, Austria’s health minister, has resigned, saying he couldn’t continue in the grueling job of leading the country’s coronavirus response because of persistent personal health problems, adding that the country “needs a health minister who is 100% fit.”
■ Ruben Chavarin, 31, of Tucson, Ariz., convicted of smuggling firearms, including AK-47 assault-style rifles, and thousands of rounds of ammunition into Mexico, was sentenced to 6½ years in federal prison, prosecutors said.
■ Annette Edwards of Stoulton, England, is offering a reward of nearly $3,000, no questions asked, for the return of Darius, who at 4 feet long and weighing 50 pounds has held the record for world’s longest rabbit since 2010 and was stolen from his pen last weekend.
■ Derrick Conway, 32, of Memphis, accused of firing a handgun toward several men playing an outdoor card game at a table set up in a field in May and fatally wounding one, was indicted on a first-degree murder charge, prosecutors said.
■ William Rogers, 53, and Steven Elliott, 40, whose Birmingham, Ala., business WaveTech Therapy offered treatment for erectile dysfunction, chronic pain and neuropathy, were arrested after being accused of practicing medicine without a license, investigators said.
■ Shawn Hobbs, 34, an Army National Guard soldier who works as a jail guard in New York City, was arrested in El Paso, Texas, accused of forging documents to lie about the extent of his military service so he could get veterans benefits that he hadn’t earned, authorities said.
■ David Arias, a California Highway Patrol spokesman, said a 32-year-old man fleeing from police escaped serious injury and was arrested after he sped his girlfriend’s Maserati SUV up an embankment and wedged it under a freeway overpass in Oakland.
■ J.K. Rowling, the author best known for her “Harry Potter” fantasy series, has written a new holiday children’s book, “The Christmas Pig,” described as the story of a boy named Jack and a beloved toy (Dur Pig), which will be released worldwide on Oct. 12.