In the news
■ Aiden Connell, 11, of Baxley, Ga., harvested a state 4-H championship and a $100 grand prize for growing a watermelon that tipped the scales at 160 pounds, twice his own weight, and he plans to save the first-place seeds for next year.
■ Eric Ulis, a self-described expert on the storied 1971 case in which skyjacker D.B. Cooper vanished out the back of a Boeing 727 into freezing rain wearing a business suit, a parachute and a pack stuffed with $200,000, is digging for evidence in Vancouver, Wash., even though the FBI bailed out long ago.
■ David Hufford of Renaissance Pipe Organ in Michigan has gone to work on $12,000 worth of repairs to a 63-year-old pipe organ damaged by a storm that flooded a suburban Detroit church with 7 feet of water.
■ Christopher Gifford, 21, a snake collector whose venomous zebra cobra caused a dayslong frenzy in a North Carolina neighborhood until it was recaptured, pleaded guilty to initially failing to report the escape and agreed to pay $13,162 in restitution and give up his snakes.
■ Jamanie Dotch, 17, an escapee from a youth facility in Shreveport, is being sought on suspicion of trying to steal a purse and then shooting and wounding a woman who was waiting to pick up her grandchildren from a Houma school.
■ Royce Reeves Sr., a commissioner in Cordele, Ga., was indicted after police say he repeatedly interfered in the investigation of a fatal accident and pushed one trooper as he tried to gain access to the crash scene.
■ William Lyle Johnson, a former sheriff’s deputy in Forrest County, Miss., faces extradition to the Netherlands, where he’s accused of taking part in a Swiss businessman’s murder-for-hire plot that left a man dead.
■ Maria Licciardi, 70, a reputed godmother in Naples, Italy, who prosecutors say runs extortion rackets for the Camorra syndicate, “didn’t bat an eyelash” when she was arrested by Carabinieri officers while boarding a flight from Rome to Spain, according to a news report.
■ Roxanne Hudson of Iron Mountain, Mich., said she and her husband “just want to move” thanks to their home’s proximity to four pickleball courts, where the noise from the paddles and balls goes on “hour after hour” and “just drives you nuts,” and where players have so far defied any curfew.